We just finished reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The kids loved the book and expanded their vocabularies and imaginations while listening to the story.
We did a lot of corresponding activities for the book. Listed below are some ideas and resources for you to accompany The Secret Garden.
Field Trips:
Visit a local greenhouse, nursery or botanical conservatory and discuss which plants and flowers there are the same as the ones mentioned in the book.
We visited the Muttart Conservatory in Edmonton, Alberta and a local greenhouse.
Explore the outdoors and document the trees, flowers and weeds found in a nature notebook.
Free printables:
Books to accompany this unit:
The Magic Schoolbus Plants Seeds
Other Ideas:
Have the kids locate India and England on a globe or map and trace the route Mary may have taken to get to England from India by boat.
Let your kids do some colouring pages. Here is a link to some Secret Garden themed colouring pages we found to print. Snuggle Puppy did a great job of colouring his!
Before the secret garden was described in the book, I had the kids draw what they thought it would look like and then as I read the chapter describing what Mary found when entering the secret garden, I had the kids sketch as I read and colour their pictures later.
Sensory Bin – There are many great ideas for garden themed sensory bins out there. I chose to make a Garden Sensory Pail to go along with this book.
Garden Themed Meal – You could make a meal together using only things grown in your garden or just make a fun snack or lunch with a garden theme. I chose to make a Garden Themed Muffin Tin Lunch.
Gardening – Of course creating your own garden is the best hands-on activity of all! We planted sunflowers, pepper plants and seeds for many vegetables.
End the unit by watching The Secret Garden movie together and afterwards discussing what ways the book and movie differed and which the kids preferred.