Make a baking tin garden

Before you begin

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
• Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Planning this activity 

• For this activity, you need something to plant in. You could use old deep-pan baking tins, old plastic boxes, large plant pots or ice cream tubs. 
• You could ask everyone to collect some of the materials, such as tubs, lollipop sticks and yoghurt pots, and bring them in over a few weeks.
• Choose seeds that are fast growing, such as cress or salad leaves. or vegetable tops that grow in shallow soil, such as carrots and parsnips.
• You may wish to run this activity over several weeks, making the things to go in the garden first, then putting the soil, plants and items together on the last week. 
• You may want to set up tables and chairs for this activity. An adult could be assigned to each table to help with the craft.
• If you’re using hot glue guns, an adult should always supervise the hot glue gun. Depending on how many hot glue guns you have, as well as the age of the group, you may want to have a hot glue gun station, where items can be brought and an adult can hot glue the items together. 

Design your garden

1. Gather everyone together and tell them you’re going to design and make a garden.
2. Give out paper, pens and colouring pencils or felt tips, then ask everyone to design their dream garden. You might have lots of wildlife, create a dinosaur landscape, you could have it jungle themed, it could be festival or camping, or you might want to make a fairy garden.
3. Now, people should think about what they could use to make the things their garden needs. The bottom of a yoghurt pot would make a great pond, small twigs could be trees, and lollipop sticks might make a great fence.

Make your garden 

1. Before starting this activity, ask everyone to bring in some recycled materials, such as tubs, lollipop sticks and yoghurt pots. You may also want people to collect nature items, such as sticks and pebbles, or an adult could do this before the session.
2. Give everyone a tub or baking tray with deep sides.
3. Fill the tray with about a quarter of gravel and then with potting soil.
4. Dig a hole in the soil and plant the seeds or plant to one side of the tin.
5. Now, start adding things to the garden using the materials available. It’s OK if people can’t use exactly what they were hoping for – they can think on their feet and find something else.
6. Some ideas are:
   • Use PVA glue to stick together lollipop sticks to make a fence.
   • Create bunting using scraps of old fabric - cut out triangles, then use PVA glue to stick them to some twine or string.
   • Add rocks and moss to create a rockery or grass.
   • Use small pebbles to make stepping stones.
   • Create a tinfoil river.
   • Use a yoghurt pot for a pond or a house.
   • Use lollipop sticks to create signposts and signs.
   • Tie twigs with twine to make mini-ladders.
   • Use gravel to create paths.
   • Use a small upside down plant pot as a house - you could paint a door and windows on it.
   • Draw some houses, cut them out, stick them onto lollipop sticks and add them in.
   • Add small toys, such as jungle or woodland animals.
   • Add dinosaur toys and bury pretend fossils in the soil.
7. Once you’re finished, carefully and gently water the seeds or plant.

Host a garden show 

1. Everyone should put their finished gardens on a table ready for judging.
2. You could introduce the person they’ve chosen to judge the gardens, or you could let everyone anonymously vote. You may even want to ask parents and carers in to help vote. 
3. The judge or people voting should look at all of the gardens. They may want to use some categories to help them judge, such as best design, most creative, most inventive use of an item and so on.
4. You could let people be near their garden and explain what they’ve made to everyone else, as people view them.
5. You may want to give out prizes. It would be nice to give everyone a well done certificate.
6. At the end, people can either take their garden home. They could also carefully dismantle it and either recycle the items or return them to nature.