Need ideas for 'competitions' to engage pre-school & primary aged kids with the village gardening club?

[iknowimcoming]

No idea what topic this should be in - sorry!

Been asked to come up with ideas that will appeal to younger kids in the village to encourage them and their families/parents to participate in the village gardening shows which are twice a year (March and September). The gardening club is run by lovely octogenarians who have in recent years put in quite a bit of time,money and effort, going into the pre-school and primary school, providing 'stuff' for the kids to enter competitions with, only to find no one bothers/turns up! Sadly I think this is largely due to unrealistic/somewhat out of date perceptions of what young children find fun/motivating and how much spare time parents have for this sort of thing!

My kids are in their 20's so I'm not exactly in touch, but I'm thinking along the lines of 'grow the tallest sunflower' i.e. supply seeds/compost/pots/instructions and competition info (to school), kids take them home, grow them and take a picture of themselves with it (on a specific date maybe?) and either send to GC (or school if safeguarding issue?) and school/GC pick winners from each class/year and child gets prize of ?? Gift card?? maybe everyone who enters gets small bag of sweets or similar? Is this totally out of touch?

I'm planning to speak to the schools in September but would like some ideas to put to them initially, so if any of you are rainbows/brownies/ beavers/cubs etc leaders and have ideas for simple things that could work (or even websites with ideas) I'd be very grateful. Thanks!

Grow a daffodil
grow a sunflower

grow a salad bowl (lettuce, tomato,cucumber)
cake baking but with something you’ve grown

We used to love doing a garden on a plate for the village fair, but I don't know if it's a bit time-consuming? We'd do things like a little mirror for a pond, and a tiny washing line.

Longest runner bean or tallest sunflower are probably good ones.

Could you do something paper-based — design a garden, colour in a scarecrow? Decorate a flower pot?

I'd do something low commitment, easy and quick to grow so the benefits of their efforts can be rewarded sooner, something super simple to engage them this year and once they realise joy in growing build on it for next year.

Something like grow the best/funniest cress head (e.g. in an egg shell they can draw a funny face on). Little effort on the parents part that way, low resources, cheap to do and fast growing for quick reward.

Grow herbs for your own pizza (like basil or chive). Even radishes have a quick turn around!

Sunflowers are good but they take a lot of patience and waiting for them to grow - and the space to do so, as well.

Or a make your own mini-garden

www.childrensgardeningweek.co.uk/things-to-do/make-a-mini-garden/

Herbs? Fairly easy to grow from seed and you could add a recipe card to encourage them.

Fairy garden? My two love making them with various plants, pebbles and then painting rocks to look like fairy cottages. Dinosaur terrariums would also work.

Cake decorating with a garden theme? Youngest just need to decorate, older ones bake the cupcakes too...extra points in for including veg, i.e beetroot chocolate cake

Decorate a wooden spoon scarecrow
Decorate a plant pot

The other thing you could do is a project.

(Very rough, making it up idea below!)

Provide your sunflower seeds and four different types of compost (different composts are allocated randomly, or per school or something). The children grow their sunflower, measure it once a week, and fill in a table of date and height. Photos too if they like. These get sent to the gardening club who 'process' them and make a display showing average height against time and compost — at the fair you come along and see the results.

My two (3 and 7) love growing things and would be very into this. As a PP said, sunflowers are slooow so maybe something with quicker rewards.

Would flower ‘arrangements’ be appropriate? Could be very simple - punch holes in cardboard, and they slot stems through. Means it can be from their own garden, but also gives the opportunity for those children that don’t have the support/patience to grow their own.

I have seen this idea in a few places - obviously can’t remember where! This is a screenshot from an Insta real, hopefully shows what I mean.

Lovely suggestions here but as a parent in at the receiving end of a constant stream of these very well-meaning but also overwhelming gardening club overtures to my DC through school and community (I’m even wondering if you are in my village!!) could I also suggest more actively managing expectations from the club members as well. As you acknowledge folks with young families have a lot of competing demands on their time - it may be more rewarding and sustainable all round to focus on working with a smaller number of children who are motivated and interested in gardening, rather than seeing large-scale engagement as the aim?

Okay, so my son's nursery does lots of gardening in the pre-school room and they like to look at what they've grown and cook and eat the veg etc. (not that they actually eat it). But I think the issue is that the gardening club wants the children (and their parents) to actually turn up at the shows. What are the actual shows like, and how much is there for children to do at them? I live in a village and have a 3-year-old, and I would turn up to an event that was at a toddler-friendly time on a weekend morning or afternoon, if I knew it would have a few fun gardening-related activities for toddlers, e.g. sifting soil with a big sieve and finding all the bugs, maybe a treasure hunt where they have to find specific flowers? I wouldn't take him along just to attend a competition judging. Basically, it needs to be more fun than a trip to the local playground or library, or at least the same amount of fun.

Egg shell cress heads.

Flowerpot men
Sunflower
Biggest vegetable
A theme garden.

I've added the list of Classes for our upcoming village fair.... all categories get many entries.

Ooh thanks very much - some excellent ideas here!

@PerpetualStudent - you make a good point actually, perhaps asking people to sign up/opt in would be more sensible - thanks!

@BarnacleBeasley - another excellent point that definitely needs to be addressed (imo there isn't enough at the shows to entertain anyone under 60 for 2 hours, let alone under 6!) thank you!

The biggest classes by far here are vegetable or fruit animal. I needed another table last year.

pumpkins have gone down well. Gardeners start them and give one to every child.

potatoes same. Each child gets an old bucket and a potato. The we have the annual potato count. Who got the most. Who cheated and buried a bag of potatoes

Really fond memories of a potato growing competition as well as making mini gardens in a tray-loved making a little pond out of a foil cake case etc.
agree attention spans are probably shorter now so the cress growing and vegetable animals are probably a good shout.

Or you could get the really keen ones to actually enter the competition and then invite everyone else to turn up and vote on their favourite fairy garden/cress head?

Make a miniature garden in a large box. They can use a small mirror as a pond, grow grass seeds and trim with scissors, plant tiny flowers etc.

Prettiest Tulip
Tallest Sunflower
Funniest Cress Head/Wackiest haircut
Draw their dream garden
Grow a plant from something they've eaten challenge (basically stick a strawberry or tomato in a pot and hope!)

You might be better targeting the scouting/guiding groups because there are specific badges for gardening.

https://www.scouts.org.uk/beavers/activity-badges/gardener/

Some activity ideas for beavers (6-8 year olds)

Do they have space to grow items at school? If the teachers are up for it then could they grow pumpkins/beans/sunflowers in the school garden? I think parents might get nagged more to bring their child if it’s ’my class sunflower is in the competition’ rather than being given a seed and thinking ‘oh someone else will grow one, I don’t have time/a garden’ and disengaging from the start.

Could there be a cake stall (run by scouts/guides?) or any small fund-raising game stands, a bouncy castle? A local company might set one up if they can charge a few pounds for 10mins on it. Would the local police/fire service come along? See if the school PTA want to run a 2nd hand uniform stall? Make it a proper community day out.

Make a miniature garden / garden scene - any material including playdough. Can be on a disposable plate.

Make a face with vegetables

Flower arrangement

Photo or art exhibition with the theme Our garden (school, grandparents, home etc.)

My thoughts are:

1. This is yet more work for parents - point out many families these days are two working parents with no spare time
2. Competitions are old hat, if you want to engage young kids don't have winners (and therefore losers)

My thoughts are

1. you're a parent, doing silly things like this entertains the kids. Just admit you can't be bothered. It takes moments to put compost in a plant pot and stick a bulb or tomato or strawberry into it.

1. don't be ridiculous

Grow the tallest sunflower!

Easter flower arranging?

Growing daffs and planting them in spring. (I know that one isn't always possible as the bulbs are toxic if eaten 😂)

Growing strawberries and have a tennis day.

Growing carrots for Santa's reindeer.

Things like bird feeders and bug houses are quite easy and popular. Not sure how you’d make it into a competition-maybe some sort of spring watch type wildlife hunt.

Actually a garden scavenger hunt would be good -they could take photos.
or one of those colour matching activities where you have to find natural things in a variety of colours

growing carrot and other vegetable tops also fun and quick