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Activities for The Secret Garden

By Sharla Kostelyk

(This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosure policy.)

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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.

Activities 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.

Muttart ConservatoryExplore the outdoors and document the trees, flowers and weeds found in a nature notebook.

Free printables:

Criss Cross and Word Search

Vocabulary & questions

Books to accompany this unit:

How a Seed Grows

The Magic Schoolbus Plants Seeds

Gardening Projects for Kids

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!

IMG_1406

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 sensory bin in a pail

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.

Garden Theme LunchGardening – 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.

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Filed Under: Homeschooling

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Caroline says

    May 16, 2013 at 5:03 pm

    We love, love, love book-based units around here. You’ve shared a good variety of activities to go along with The Secret Garden! Thanks!

  2. Dawn says

    May 17, 2013 at 5:25 am

    I love your ideas. We will be reading Secret Garden this coming summer. You fit in some many great things into your busy life. I love that.
    Blessings, Dawn

  3. PragmaticMom says

    May 18, 2013 at 1:23 pm

    The Secret Garden was one of my favorite books as a child. How fun that you extend that book with so many great activities in your area! I love your garden lunch!!!

    • Sharla says

      May 18, 2013 at 6:39 pm

      Thank you…it’s been one of my personal favourite book studies that we’ve done so far.

  4. Kelly Buster says

    May 26, 2013 at 11:51 am

    Hi! Thanks for taking the time to share your activities for The Secret Garden. My four boys and I just loved reading that book last spring. We listened to the CD’s during lunch or on the road to co-op while some of us followed along with the beautiful unabridged picture book illustrated by Inga Moore. The boys planted various things in a little garden behind our house. This book was perfect timing for us because we then got to go see the kids’ sitter perform in a lead role for The Secret Garden musical at our local high school! We also enjoyed watching the movie. So many precious memories to tuck away!

  5. Kelly at Little Wonders' Days says

    May 27, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    I love your extension activities for this book. I think it would make a fun family read aloud this summer. Thanks for sharing at the After School Link Party, I’ve featured you today.

    • Sharla says

      May 27, 2013 at 5:58 pm

      Thanks so much for featuring this Kelly!

  6. Saraelisa Carrera says

    August 7, 2017 at 7:22 pm

    My grandaughter and I read this book together and enjoyed it so so much. She thought up so many extention activities to do after she finished the book, but she decided in the end that the most important feeling she got was about change. I quote her “everything changes “in this book. After lots of pondering about what to do for a summer project, she finally decided to do it about personality changes in people and why they happened. A card game is one of her ideas matching
    The character definition with the right character in the form of a memory game

  7. Saraelisa Carrera says

    August 7, 2017 at 7:32 pm

    I read this book with my grandmother. We read it outloud. We had a lot of fun speaking “Yorkshire” So many ideas came to mind to do but I finally decided to talk about “change”. Everything changes during this story and they are all good changes. I am going to make a matching/memory game.

    • Sharla Kostelyk says

      August 7, 2017 at 11:21 pm

      That’s a great idea!

Trackbacks

  1. What's Working Wednesday Link-Up: Week 18 - nextgenhomeschool says:
    May 22, 2013 at 12:05 am

    […] at The Chaos & The Clutter shared her suggestions for “Activities for The Secret Garden,” including everything from field trips and hands-on activities, to art projects and mealtime […]

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