Zen Garden Activity

The observation which led to this activity was Children’s interest in shoveling and using the rake on the playground. This inspired me to create an activity where the children connected with nature and learned about a non-western concept: ‘Zen Gardens’. The activity involved painting boxes with glitter glue which were to be used as the basis for the Garden and then the elements of the garden were added to the box such as sand, pebbles, pearls, flowers (rose/lotus) and rake. Then the children created a design in the box using the elements as well as made patterns on the sand using their rakes. Three Zen Gardens were created. The children had so much fun and asked questions such as “What is this for?”