A Fun Way for Kids to Plan a Garden | Free Printable

Kids love to design their own vegetable garden with this free printable garden planner.

It's time to start thinking about planting our backyard vegetable garden and my boys couldn't be more excited. They love gardening - everything from digging in the dirt and pulling weeds to planting and watering. We're still working on getting them to try new vegetables but having them involved in the growing process is certainly an incentive. This year, they are helping to plan our garden with a super fun activity that your little gardeners will love too!

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Garden Week for the Virtual Book Club for Kids

This week is Garden Week for the Virtual Book Club for Kids, and the timing is perfect to get started planning our vegetable garden. This week's featured book is The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle - the classic story of the life of a flower seed. It's one of our favorite gardening books for kids and since my boys read it in preschool this week they were super excited to get working on our own vegetable garden. So I put together a cute garden planner set and have it for you as a free printable!

Plan a Garden Activity

This printable set includes 3 pages: first, a garden checklist with the tools and tasks you'll need for your garden. This is a great page to use all season long as you create your own garden! 

Next is a garden planner grid page. This grid is based on the idea of square foot gardening and has 16 squares to represent a 4 foot square garden bed. 

Finally, there is a page of 16 common vegetables. You may want to print multiple copies of this page depending on your own garden plans.

Get the entire set below!

Planning Your Garden

Once you have everything printed, cut out the vegetable cards. Again, you many want to print out multiple copies of this page so that you have lots of veggies to choose from. Place all the cards and your garden grid out and invite your children to help plan what you'd like to plant this year!

This activity gives you an opportunity to talk about identifying vegetables, which ones you already like, and which ones you would like to try. You can also use it as a starting point to research what each plant needs in terms of space, and when you should plant it for best results.

And if there is something that you'd like to plant but you don't have a card, simply draw or write it in the squares instead.

My boys loved lining up the pictures in rows too, and even turned it into a matching game! We are still deciding on our final garden layout, and I know we will do this activity several more times before making the final plan. It's so fun!

Want to keep the kids involved after you plant the garden too? Check out this super fun garden observation journal!

More from the Virtual Book Club for Kids

Check out the garden inspired activities from my co-hosts of the Virtual Book Club for Kids, and get even more ideas when you join our Facebook group here!

Colorful Ribbon Flower Craft for Kids - Toddler Approved
Alphabet Puzzle Cards - Sea of Knowledge

Flower Garden Name Puzzle - Still Playing School

Number Activities with Printable Flowers and Worms - JDaniel4's Mom

The Seeds We Eat- Teach Beside Me

Seed & Plant Matching Game & {FREE} Cards - Preschool Powol Packets

Plant Biology for Kids & Garden Themed Learning Activities - Mama Smiles

Rainbow Spin Art Flower Craft - Messy Little Monster

Garden Pretend Play and Fine Motor Activity - Views From a Step Stool

Observing Seed Germination in a Plastic Bag - Inspiration Laboratories

Build a Flower Creative Invitation - My Storytime Corner

Garden Flower Ten Frame - Rainy Day Mum

Garden Essentials for Kids