How to: Montessori Indoor- or Small-Space Gardening in a DIY Sensory Table

As an adult, I’ve never had an outdoor garden. But I’ve had fun watching my (now-adult) children and my 3-year-old granddaughter experience gardening in a variety of ways. Taking care of plants is an important part of caring for the environment. Gardening offers so many ways to care for the environment, whether it’s planting seeds, transplanting plants, watering plants, weeding a garden, or harvesting food from the garden. We decided to use our DIY sensory table to create a way that my granddaughter, Zoey, can care for plants and have the fun of watching them grow without an outdoor garden.

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Montessori Indoor- or Small-Space Gardening in a DIY Sensory Table – YouTube Video

Zoey always has fun with her sensory table/sensory bins. While a sensory bin isn’t a traditional Montessori activity, it can have many practical life and sensorial elements. And it can be very calming and a way to promote concentration, much like a Montessori peace tray. Because I wanted to do do actual indoor gardening, we decided to use our DIY sensory bin/sensory table for transplanting herbs and flowers. My daughter, Christina, and Zoey (Christina’s niece) had a wonderful time with the gardening activity. And Zoey loves having the plants available in her sensory table to explore and care for.

You can see how much fun Zoey had with gardening in this short video!

Montessori Indoor- or Small-Space Gardening in a DIY Sensory Table

I already had my DIY sensory table, a natural space to use for a portable planter.

We placed our sensory table in front of the patio doors at the end. If needed, I can move it outdoors. I appreciate that it’s so portable. It’s perfect for a sunny area indoors or outdoors on a deck or balcony.

Materials Used for Montessori Indoor- or Small-Space Gardening in a Sensory Table

• DIY sensory table (We’ve used this many times already. It’s been very durable and versatile.)
• Organic potting soil
• Clay pots and planter
• Herbs and flowers (I got mine from Home Depot, although you could get herbs and flowers at a nursery or a number of other places. You can even find flower seeds and organic herb seeds on Amazon if you want to start with seeds.
• child-size garden tools (This is the set I have, although you can find a number of wonderful child-size garden tool sets.)
• 3-piece garden tool set

Introducing the Names of Plants with the 3-Period Lesson

We use the Montessori 3-period lesson to introduce vocabulary in general, and it’s perfect for introducing types of plants. You can decide how in-depth you want to go with the 3-period lesson, depending on your child’s age and skill level. You could also use Montessori 3-part cards to extend the vocabulary part of your gardening work.

Activities in our Montessori Indoor Gardening

We used organic potting soil for our transplanting activities. With Christina’s help, Zoey put each of the plants in its new, larger container.

Zoey enjoyed using child-size garden tools to add soil around each plant.

There was a sensorial aspect, of course! Zoey loved feeling the plant leaves and smelling the flowers.

At the end, Zoey was proud to water her plants.

And she’s super excited about drinking peppermint tea made with leaves from our new peppermint plant! (Be sure to watch  our 59-second video if you haven’t already.)

Extensions to  Our Indoor Gardening Activities

See “Life Cycle of a Bean Plant and Seed Planting Activities” to see our work with seeds.

At BitsofPositivity.com, I tell how we used the Kindness Elves to focus on kindness with our gardening activities.

Update: Our favorite gardening project has been using a vertical planter for gardening in a small space outdoors year round.

More Gardening Activities and Resources for Toddlers and Preschoolers