Karen Bussolini on gardening with kids at Reeves-Reed Arboretum
Overview
Speaker: Karen Bussolini
Date: 11/01/2012
Time: 11:00 am - 02:00 pm
Location: Wisner House
165 Hobart Avenue 07901Contact Information
Website: http://www.reeves-reedarboretum.org
Phone: (908)273-8787
Description
Karen Bussolini's presentation of "Gardening with Kids: Opening Eyes and Doors" received an enthusiastic response at The National Children & Youth Gardening Symposium in East Lansing, Michigan in 2011.
Our yards – gardens, landscaping and wild places – offer boundless opportunities for learning through all the senses. Karen Bussolini shows easy ways to make the whole yard a discovery zone.
what kids really want
fostering creativity
plants that engage all the senses, support wildlife, tickle the funnybone
how gardens open the door to learning about history, science, other cultures, the ancient earth, physics, stewardship
the importance of bugs, fungus, water, dirt and things that stink
Four big realizations upon becoming a mother made gardening our platform for learning. 1. How profoundly growing up in woods and garden shaped and educated me, benefits I wanted to pass on. 2. How every single thing a parent does teaches something. 3. This truth: “A child is not a vessel to fill but a fire to light.” 4. Seeing my son learn about the world with his entire body, all senses engaged.
I began to plant experiences, not just plants, to give him a rich, safe environment to explore. Even the lawn was organic, so kids could roll on it and eat violets. We made places to dig and places to hide and dream; we named plants, insects, snakes, birds; we studied them, learning what they ate and where they lived; we planted vegetables with funny colors and plants for caterpillars and birds to eat; we preserved habitat by leaving stumps and native understory shrubs, carrying what we learned at home to all we encountered elsewhere. And so we began a journey of discovery that shapes how I landscape even now that he is an adult, what I teach as a garden coach and how we both experience the world.
