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Garden Storybooks
Book Title
Authors
Key Concepts
Grades
A Butterfly is Patient
Dianna Hutts Ashton and Sylvia Long
Butterfly life cycles, camouflage, needs of living things, migration
2+
​A Child's Garden: A Story of Hope
​Michael Foreman
conflict resolution, gardening, planting
3-4
And the Good Brown Earth
Kathy Henderson
​Seasonal changes; importance of soil
K-3
Animals in Winter
​​Henrietta Bancroft
seasonal changes; migration, hibernation, adaptation - can use for winter activity in school garden
K-4
​A Seed is Sleepy
Dianna Hutts Ashton and Sylvia Long
​Seed biology, beautiful illustrations, science in storybook form
2+
Betsy Laruche sauve les abeilles
​​Catherine Jacob
​Exploring in the garden, pollinators, bees
1-3
Big City Bees
​Maggie deVries
Urban bees, pollinators
2-4
Bob and Otto
Robert O. Bruel
worms, caterpillars, butterflies, life cycles
K-1
Caterpillar, caterpillar
Vivian French
​life cycle, caterpillar, butterfly, food, habitat
2-4
Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth
Mary McKenna Siddals
​composting, what to compost, alphabet, rhyming
K-2
Diary of a Worm
Doreen Cronin
Fun book with some facts and lots of fiction - good to incorporate a fictions vs nonfiction lesson
1-3
Dirt
Steve Tomecek
​soil, lots of detail in story format
2-4
Flowers are Calling
Rita Gray and Kenard Pak
Pollinators; pollinator and flower adaptations
2-4
From Seed to Pumpkin
Wendy Pfeffer
How seeds grow to plants; good to combine with seed planting activities
K-2
Garbage Helps Our Garden Grow: A compost story
Linda Glaser
compost, stages of compost in story form
K-2
Heroes of the Vegetable Patch
Ulf Stark and Charlotte Ramel
garden maintenance, vegetable garden, watering, weeding, caring, harvesting
K-3
How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin
Margaret McNamara
Math, counting, anti-bullying
2-3
Hurry and the Monarch
Antoine O Flatharta
Monarch migration
K-2
In the Snow: Who's Been Here?
Lindsay Barrett George
Tracking in story form
K-4
Je suis bien dans mon assiette: car je respecte mon estomac et ma planète
Jean-René Gombert
food miles, food system, environment
K-3
Meerkat Mail
Emily Gravett
Connect with habitat postcard activity
3-5
One Watermelon Seed
Celia Lottridge
Seed matching/counting activity, good to combine with planting activity
K-1
Our Community Garden
Barbara Pollack
Kids growing and sharing food in community garden
K-2
Our School Garden
Rick Swann
Poems about different aspects of the school garden
2-6
And the Good Brown Earth
Kathy Henderson
​Seasonal changes; importance of soil
K-3
Over and Under the Snow
Kate Messner
snow, habitat, hibernation, tracks, animals, adaptation - can use for winter activity in school garden
K-3
Pick, Pull, Snap! Where Once a Flower Bloomed
Lola M Schaeffer
Plant life cycles, flower to fruit
1-3
Plant a Little Seed
Bonnie Christensen
Seasons in the garden, seed-to-table
K-3
Planting a Rainbow
Lois Ehlert
colours, colour scavenger hunt, garden, seasons
K-1
Quiet in the Garden
Aliki
Sensory exploration in the garden
K-2
Seeds
Ken Robbins
Describing different seeds and how they travel
2-4
Secrets of the Garden
Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
story with lots of food chain/web facts, garden through season
4
Secrets of the Seasons
Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
Seasonal changes/cycles
2-4
Stone Soup
Jon J Muth
Stone Soup, cooking, community
1-4
The Curious Garden
Peter Brown
Urban gardens, urban nature
1-3
The Enormous Potato
Aubrey Davis
Community, harvest, feast
K-2
The Seedfolks
Paul Fleischman
community, novel, community garden, diversity
5-6
The Story of Frog Belly Rat Bone
Timothy Basil Ering
Urban nature, starting from a seed, magic of seeds
1-6
The Vegetables We Eat
Gail Gibbons
plant parts, plant parts we eat, growing food
2-3
Tracks in the Snow
Wong Herbert Lee
tracking in the snow - can use for winter activity in school garden
JK/SK
Up, Down and Around
Katherine Ayres
garden plants growing, can be used for movement activity
JK/SK
Water, Weed and Wait
Edith Hope Fine and Angela Halpin
starting school garden, community involvement, patience, teamwork
K-4
What Do Roots Do?
Kathleen V Kudlinski
Plant parts, roots
2-4
What kinds of seeds are these?
Heidi Bee Roemer
seed matching
K-2
What’s in the Garden?
Marianne Berkes
Food garden, guessing what is growing
1-3
Winnie Finn, Worm Farmer
Carol Brendler
benefits of worms/composting, life cycles, connections between living things
2-4
Wonderful Worms
Linda Glaser
worms, soil, earthworms
1-3
Yucky Worms
Vivian French
Factual storybook about worms and compost
K-4
Garden Reference Books for Kids
Book Title
Authors
Key Concepts
And the Good Brown Earth
Kathy Henderson
​Seasonal changes; importance of soil
A Colony of Bees
​Richard and Louise Spilsbury
bees, diagrams
A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds
Jean Richards
seed dispersal, fruit, younger grades
​A Seed Grows: my first look at a plant's life cycle
Pamela Hickman
plant grows from seed to fruit, seed planting
L'Aventure du pollen: la propagation des plantes
Kim Mi-Gyeong and Lee Yeong-Rim
diagrams, pollinators, fertilisation, seed dispersal
Les abeilles
Deborah Hodge
diagram, honey bee, bee dance
Life Cycle of a Butterfly
Angela Royston
butterfly life cycle
Plant Reproduction
Richard and Louise Spilsbury
Starting from Scratch: What you should know about food and cooking
Starting from Scratch: What you should know about food and cooking
Sarah Elton
cooking for kids, techniques, food chemistry, biology
Garden Reference Books for Educators
Book Title
Authors
Key Concepts
Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature
Jon Young, Ellen Haas, Evan McGown
lots of great outdoor, nature activities; lots of inspiration
Get Growing! Activities For Food And Garden Learning
Jolie Mayer-Smith and Linda Peterat
Lots of lesson plans, mostly older elementary grades
Green Teacher Magazine
nature education, articles, activities, environment
How to Grow a School Garden: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers
Arden Bucklin-Sporer and Rachel Pringle
Getting a school garden running
Into Nature
online as PDF
Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids
Stephanie Alexander
lots of excellent recipes, story about school garden/kitchen
Nature Connection: An Outdoor Workbook for Kids, Families, and Classrooms
Clare Walker Leslie
seasonal nature/outdoor activities
Project Seasons
Deborah Parrella (Shelburne Farms Books Series)
hands-on activities for nature and env education
The Bumper Book of Nature
Stephen Moss
nature, guidebook, activities
General Gardening Books
Book Title
Authors
Key Concepts
Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces
Gayla Trail
Easily accessible information about organic food gardening
You Grow Girl: The Groundbreaking Guide to Gardening
Gayla Trail
Info and tips re organic gardening, one chapter re food
Rodale Organic Gardening Basics. Volume 8, Compost
Rodale Organic Gardening Magazine and Books
compost, compost critters, troubleshooting, step-by-step guide
Seed Sowing and Saving: Step-by-Step Techniques for Collecting and Growing More Than 100 Vegetables, Flowers, and Herbs
Carole B. Turner
Clear information about seed and plant life cycles in relation to seed saving; how to plan your garden for seed saving; seed saving instructions
How to Save Your Own Seeds
Seeds of Diversity
Easy to understand book about seed saving, when to plant, etc.
A Garden for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee
Lorraine Johnson
Great resource about Southern Ontario native plants and pollinators.
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