Simple Paper Garden Craft

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This paper garden craft is the perfect companion to your books about gardening, vegetables, and healthy foods. The free printable template makes this craft a breeze!

Book-based paper crafts help your students dive deeper into the books or book themes that you’re teaching. This adorable vegetable garden paper craft is a great way to demonstrate vegetables that grow under the ground.

Head to Amazon, the library, or your local bookstore to gather some books about vegetables and/or gardening. Then, give this craft a try.

Paper Garden Craft

This is such a fun craft for kids, and I love that you can pair it with so many books during the spring, summer, and fall months.

This is a craft that gives kids a chance to practice cutting and gluing as well as attention to detail as they draw details on their paper vegetables.

teaching about gardens

One of the best ways to teach your students about gardens is to plant seeds. You can plant a vegetable garden in your schoolyard or backyard, or you can plant bean seeds in a plastic baggie so your kids can see the seeds sprout up close.

Discuss growing vegetables. What parts of the vegetables do we eat – tops or bottoms? What grows above ground and below ground? How many servings of vegetables should we eat each day?

Gardening videos for kids

You can share a video or two about gardening to help your child become more familiar with how plants grow.

Books About Gardening

Gather a few books about vegetables and gardening. I find these books to be a great way to introduce vegetables, gardening, and healthy eating.

Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens
Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert
The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss

How to Make a garden paper craft

What You’ll Need

colored craft paper
craft glue
markers
scissors
pencil

What You’ll Do

Select orange, green, purple and white colored papers for the vegetable paper crafts.

Select a blue paper (or any other colored craft paper of your choice) for the background and select brown colored craft paper for the ground layers.

Trace the leaf shapes on green paper, the beetroot stem on purple paper and the rest of the stems on green paper.

Trace the carrot base on orange, beetroot base and turnip’s top part on purple paper; and trace the turnip and radish bases on white paper. Cut out the traced patterns.

Attach the leaf pattern of the carrot on the top side (wide side) of the carrot base pattern. Use an orange sharpie to trace horizontal lines on the carrot base.

Attach the purple part of the turnip on the top side of the turnip base. Attach the stem patterns on the top side of the beetroot and the radish base patterns. Use sharpies to draw horizontal lines on the vegetable base patterns.

Attach the stem pattern of the turnip as well. Attach the leaf cutouts with the stem patterns.

Prepare the background for the paper garden. Determine a size for the base and cut out the background and ground layers accordingly.

Apply glue along the sides and the bottom side of the ground layers.

Attach the ground layers along the bottom side of the background paper. Keep the longer layer on the backside and the shorter layer to the front.

Keep the top ends of the ground layers open so that we can use them as pockets.

Take the papercraft vegetables and insert them into the ground layer pockets from the top open ends.

teaching resources

Through hands-on activities, this Botany Box teaches kids how plants work, from the tiniest seeds to the tallest trees. The Botany Box includes supplies and instructions for four amazing projects: A DIY Plant Press, a Botanist Kit, an Herbarium, and a Plant Printmaking Kit.

This simple Garden Grow Kit is a great way to get your vegetable and flower garden started! Use the included windowsill greenhouse to start 8 types of easy-to-grow plants: Sunflowers, Heirloom Zucchini, Cucumbers, Pumpkins, Snap Peas, Beets, Carrots, and a Surprise Flower Mix.

Growing Vegetable Soup story sequence cards are a great way to help students retell this simple story. Includes picture cards, sequencing mat, and more.

download the template

Download and print the free vegetable craft template. Click the button below and enter your information to get yours today.