Food Growing

Food growing is a fantastic activity for settings to do with their children. It incorporates both healthy eating and physical activity so is really easy to link the Startwell Characters. It is important that children understand where food comes from and that you don’t just buy it from the supermarket. It is also a great experience for the children to look after something and see the produce that they have planted and cared for grow. Children also love eating and trying the food that they have grown.

Why is Food Growing Important

Other than the end product, food growing incorporates important early educational messages that can be applied to the human body. Remember to make your activities as physical as you can. We have broken these down into three food growing key areas:

1. Plant Life Cycle

Looks at the different stages of how a plant grows

2. Water and Hydration

Plants need water to grow, similarly to our bodies, and should be our main drink

3. Sunshine and Vitamin D

Sunshine is a plant’s source of food and helps them to grow tall. Children should also have energetic outdoor play to grow well. Remember our main source of Vitamin D comes from the sun – we need to be outdoors to top this up.

If you are new to food growing, don’t worry, you can adapt your experience to suit your settings environment. Many people worry about space, time and cost but we have taken all of these into account to make it as simple and easy as possible. If you are a seasoned food grower we also have some more advanced ideas for you too.

Startwell’s Food Growing Survival Toolkit

Get started by completing Startwell’s Food Growing Survival Toolkit. This will help you look at the space you have, equipment, and money you have available and plan accordingly to make food growing a success in your setting.

You may also want to have a look at the ‘Early Years Growing, Gardening and Nature Exploration Toolkit’ written for the Bath and North East Somerset Director of Public Health Award for extra ideas and this poster to help plan what to grow and when.

It is important children see the whole plant life cycle from planting to harvest and have the opportunity to use the harvested crops. Choose seeds carefully and check planting instructions to ensure harvest doesn’t occur during school holidays if you are a term time only setting or have sessional children.

Plant Life Cycle

The plant life cycle looks at the different stages of development of a plant and comprises of the following sequential steps:

Planting a seed
Feeding and nourishing them regularly
Watching the stems shoot up and understanding that roots travel down
Watching a seed blossom into a young plant, mature plant, flower and then fruit. Watching the size, shapes and colours change
Digging and picking the fruit or vegetable
Washing, preparing and cooking
Eating and enjoying!

It is an important message to convey to children as many children do not know the origins of their food. For example, teaching children that potatoes grow from a seed potato planted underground and once harvested can be transformed into a variety of dishes e.g. mash potato, baked potato.

Setting Activities linked to Startwell Characters

Food growing can be done with all ages of children in the setting. Below are some activities for each age group linked to the Startwell characters. There are many more food growing activity ideas on our pinterest board.

Babies

Active Azra:

Keep babies moving with sensory boxes that include a range of gardening equipment and different types of whole fruits and veg.
Use seeds/ pulses to make musical instruments e.g. Can the babies reach and hold the shakers. Try putting them just out of reach to encourage movement and stretching. You can also shake/dance/move with these. You could make colour shakers using a range of seeds or pulses.
Sing songs with action movements. Food related songs could include One Potato, Two Potato; Five Little Peas; This is the Way we Pick the Fruit

Toddlers

Active Azra:

Use whole raw fruit and vegetables hidden in tuff trays and around the room or garden/outdoor area for children to find in a treasure hunt activity. Give the children a search card with the amount of items and a picture to help them find them. Get them to count the items – does it match their card?

Fay 5 A Day:

Give each child a cress cup with their face on it so they can keep an eye on their cress growing. Cress is a good seed to grow as it grows quickly and will maintain children’s interest

Pre-School

Active Azra & Fay 5 a Day:

Take fruit, vegetables and any peelings to a large space and encourage the children to make large pictures and sculptures using the growing equipment and fruit and vegetables. Ensure the equipment is spaced out to ensure they are stretching, bending and using their core strength and balance to participate. What shapes and colours can the children see in their art piece? You could also draw round the children to look at sizes and see how many Apples (fruit/vegetables) it takes to fill in one of the child’s legs or body etc.

2 Snacks Max:

Add fruit and vegetables that contain pips or seeds to your snack menu and have a look at the seeds inside during a snack preparation activity e.g. size, shape and how many. This is a good opportunity to show children what the seed grew into.

Home Activities

It would be great if families could do some food growing activities at home as well. Here are two easy ideas to share with your families.

Collecting Seeds Activity

Ask children to see how many different types of seeds they can collect from the food they eat at snack and mealtimes. This will encourage them to:

Eat fruit and vegetables
Inspect what they are eating
See if they can sort them by colour or size.
Ask them to predict what they will grow into and how big they might be.
Have discussions about where they will grow – i.e. above the ground etc.
Can they lay them out in a long line – how far do they go? Are they taller than your child or even you?

Activity Aids: Knowledge and understanding of the world; awareness of fruit and vegetables and where they grow; mathematical skills such as size, counting, measuring; personal, social, emotional and communication skills as you undertake the activity together and have discussions about the activity.

Making Seed and Mud Pies Activity

Take your child on a hunt of the house and garden to find a variety of bowls and utensils to use for the mud pies.
Encourage your child to dig and fill up a bucket or similar pot and carry the mud to your mud pie making area.
Support your child to transfer the mud into a larger container.
Have fun mixing and adding in your seeds to make a seed and mud pie.

Activity Aids: knowledge and understanding of the world; awareness of fruit/vegetables and where they grow; experimenting with mud and water; Mathematical skills such as size, space, counting and measuring; physical skills – bending, carrying, transporting, walking, big stirring movements, special awareness and collecting.

We have also found some fun food and growing themed songs you can sing with the children in setting and send home, the lyrics and tunes are here.

Picking Your Produce

Get the children using new skills like Sammy Skills by involving them in digging up, picking and gathering your crops. It is a great time to discuss how plants grow and ripen. Examine your crops, what do they look, feel and smell like? Are they different inside? And best of all what do they taste like?

Sample your crops, use them at snack time, in cooking activities, for tea. Have a teddy bears picnic, share them with others, but most of all enjoy them as part of your 5-a-day like Fay!

The following children’s recipes are perfect to try making with some of your produce:

Salsa salad (using tomatoes)
Pizza (using tomatoes/herbs)
Fruit salad (using strawberries)

Also for more family friendly recipes using fruit and vegetables please see the family recipe page.

Skills Linked to Areas of the EYFS Using Growing and Food Exploration

We all know that Growing is a lovely topic area to cover with young children but now we also have research to back it up. A 2010 study commissioned by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) found that children that took part in gardening became more resilient, confident, and eager to learn and have healthier lifestyles. It also found that gardening had a positive impact on children’s literacy and numeracy development and that it led to a more active, inquisitive approach to learning and improved problem solving skills. This strengthens the role of the Characteristics of Effective Learning.

We know children learn best from their experiences, the activities they are involved in and the attitudes of the people around them.

Startwell believe that provision, modelling and activities within our settings should embed healthy lifestyle messages rather than relying on just ‘teaching’ them.

We therefore have a responsibility, to provide an environment where children can explore food, growing and gardening in various ways with positive encouragement and support as it also provides endless opportunity for children to be physically active.

Please remember the Characteristics of Effective Learning:

Playing and Exploring – Engagement
Active Learning – Motivation
Creating and Thinking Critically – Thinking

Personal, Social and Emotional Development – Undertaking food exploration and growing activities with babies through to pre-schoolers will aid co-operation skills, allow exploration and interaction with new environments and experiences, allow them to express their own preferences, aid the selection and use of a range of new resources with and without help, and give an opportunity to learn about safety rules and sharing.

Physical Development – Physical awareness including space, body control, bending, core strength, fine motor control, balance and co-ordination are all key skills that young children in Early Years settings need to develop. Gardening and growing provide the perfect opportunities to develop and strengthen these areas as well as developing the connections between their movement, squatting, control of equipment, awareness of textures/tastes and working as a team to carry larger items.

Communication and Language – are essential skills that feed into every other area and communication can be verbal as well as non-verbal. Growing activities will enable children to develop their understanding of items and their uses, copy new words and learn different terminology and vocabulary for items. It will also provide opportunities to learn and practice body language as they explore, follow simple instructions, and develop an understanding of simple concepts, learn about prepositions, express their own opinions and feelings, ask questions, hold conversations and use intonation.

Growing can aid Specific area skills such as:

Mathematics: counting; measuring; comparing sizes; shapes; calculating; space; weight of soil/water; length of canes and strings etc.

Understanding the World: learning about food and its natural origins; growth and change; weather and seasons; minibeast exploration; similarities and differences; using technology, cause and effect etc.

Literacy: writing lists; writing plant labels and signs; reading growing instructions; rhymes; stories; reference materials etc.

Expressive Arts and Design: exploration; creation; individuality; imagination; using their senses and full body; responding to steady beats; using instruments to make sounds; opportunities to make believe and to play in groups.

Facebook Posts

Startwell

4 days ago

This is the sixth and final week of our 6 week Startwell summer holiday challenge. Enjoy running and rolling with Sammy Skills and have a go at making lunch with Fay 5 a day. We hope that you have enjoyed all of the activities over the last 6 weeks and have had a great summer. startwellbirmingham.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/6-Week-Summer-Challenge-Poster.pdf ... See MoreSee Less

Photo

View on Facebook

Startwell

1 week ago

Thanks to those who came along to our Startwell Characters and Messages Training on the 19th August. Take a look at some of the feedback from this training!Our training is free and available to early years practitioners within Birmingham. To see what training we have available: startwellbirmingham.co.uk/training-dates/ ... See MoreSee Less

Photo

View on Facebook

Food Growing

Why is Food Growing Important

1. Plant Life Cycle

2. Water and Hydration

3. Sunshine and Vitamin D

Partners

Pinterest

Facebook Posts