Tropical Plants and Gardens With Children
by Eric Gonzalez-Payne
Almost every plant guide written for children is temperate. Oak, conker, bramble, four seasons. If you teach anywhere warm, none of it is usable.
This is the tropical version.
What each plant page contains
How to recognise it. What it is actually used for, in cooking, medicine, building or ceremony. What is genuinely unsafe, stated plainly rather than avoided. And two things to do with children.
The safety sections are real. Raw cassava is dangerous. Raw taro causes serious mouth irritation. Frangipani sap is an irritant. The yellow layer under aloe skin is a laxative. Those are said outright, because a guide that hides them is not trustworthy on anything else.
Start with these six
Lemongrass for the mosquito science, and because it splits into free plants.
Butterfly Pea for the blue that turns pink with lime, which is the best chemistry available to a four year old.
Touch Me Not because nothing holds a young child's attention like it, and it probably grows wild on your site already.
Turmeric for the gap between the dull plant above ground and the orange root below.
Coconut for the whole plant used in one lesson, and for the safety conversation.
Hibiscus because it is the flower every biology textbook draws, and you probably have one outside.
Setting up
Twelve Plants to Start a Preschool Garden is the shortlist if you are starting from nothing.
What to Plant When in the Tropics because temperate planting calendars are useless here and following one costs you a term.
Ants, Mosquitoes and Everything Else for living with the insects rather than fighting them.
All thirty six plants
Worksheets that use these plants
Coconut Passion Fruit or Durian
Mosquito Season Garden Notebook
Durian Coconut and Passion Fruit Compare
Medicinal Plant Interview Notes
Coconut Safety Count and Compare
Jungle Edge Respect and Risk Plan
Eric Gonzalez-Payne
Founder and curriculum author
Ed.M. in Educational Leadership, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Published by Empathy Global LLC
LinkedIn
For the full social and emotional learning programme, see the Empathy Curriculum at empathy.kids.