National Children’s Gardening Week

Posted: 23rd May 2025

It’s National Children’s Gardening Week, running 24th May – 1st June 2025, an annual festival of fun supporting Greenfingers charity. Children love growing plants and love being involved in the garden but they’re often impatient, wanting to see instant results. National Children’s Gardening Week aims to capture children’s enthusiasm at a time when results are immediate, just when the weather should be getting warmer. This means that pretty much throughout the UK they can plant all the popular plants with little fear of weather damage or the need for complicated protective growing.

Getting little ones into the garden is like sprinkling magic dust on their development – it’s just wonderful! Tiny hands get super clever with all the planting and picking, and they get to zoom around, using their big muscles while digging and watering – how fun is that? Their little senses get a real treat too, with all the amazing smells, textures, and bright colours! Plus, sunshine means happy smiles and healthy bodies.

And it’s not just about getting mucky (though that’s a bonus!). Little gardeners learn so much – like how plants grow and where yummy food comes from. They become super patient and responsible little plant parents. If something goes a bit wonky with their green friends, they learn to put on their thinking caps and figure things out! Seeing their plants grow big and strong gives them the biggest smiles and a real “I did it!” feeling.

Growing their own goodies often makes them much more likely to try new veggies – hooray for healthy snacks! And being outside with nature? It’s like a big hug for their little hearts and minds. Whether they’re gardening with you or their friends, they learn to share and work together. Honestly, getting kids gardening is just the most delightful way to help them grow in so many amazing ways, and they have a blast doing it!

The organisers at National Children’s Gardening Week have produced lots of fantastic information about things to do with your little ones at this time of year:

Here at Gymboree Play & Music we love a bit of gardening role play! In our Theatre Arts courses our pre-schoolers celebrate Spring. They dig using spades and trowels; they plant seeds and carry buckets. They water the plants to make them grow. And then they act out being a plant and growing towards the sun. What fun we have!

Get involved, gardening is great for little ones!

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Reviews

Both of my children (3.5 years and 11 months) go to Gymboree Play & Music and love it. My toddler goes to their drop-off Lego class which she raves about. It's very creative, working not only on Lego skills but also painting, drawing etc. My infant son loves his Gymboree Play & Music Crawlers class - particularly loves crawling all over their props, through the tunnels, etc. Great way to get the infant crawling over obstacles! Gymboree Play & Music is part of our weekly schedule for both kids and we look forward to participating every week. Invaluable!

Natalia

Gymboree Play & Music was a lovely and positive experience for my son Leo. We started when he was 9 months and he is now 3 years old, I wish we had started sooner.
He loves the songs (which is part of our daily singing at home), the freedom to explore and he was happy there. He looks forward to class every week and once class is over he will tell everyone about Gymbo and what he did.
For me, I liked that it taught him how to get down safely from a height, how to learn to use his body, and touching on different topics every 2 weeks. It gave me confidence in other environments to trust that he has the ability that he learned from Gymboree Play & Music and to trust him.

Sheena

I’ve been taking both my newborn and toddler to Gymboree Play & Music for a couple of months now and both boys are really loving the classes and open gym sessions. It’s a great way to meet other mums, entertain toddlers at witching hour(!) and get ideas for sensory play with babies. Sophie and Cat are fantastic and have so much energy and loads of different ideas for the classes, plus make sure the activities it’s help children meet their development milestones as well. Highly recommend this if you’re thinking about joining!! Thanks so much Sophie, Cat and the wider team :-)

Pippa