How can we involve children in the practice of gardening?

“frut” is a project by Marina Piva, developed during the Summer Semester 2020 in Product Design “Planting. Tending. Picking. Tools for Gardeners” under the supervision of Klaus Hackl, Riccardo Berrone, Waltraud Köffler and Tiziana Piccioni.

“frut” is a didactic game for children attending the first years of elementary school.

It is thought to be a “tool” for children to get closer to the garden environment, especially to the school vegetable gardens, living, harvesting, playing and learning with nature and mates.

The product has the shape of a white rhombic apron, a protective garment that makes the children feel into the role of gardener. It is easily foldable and can be tidied away in its own pocket. Then, it can be connected to other 3 aprons by using the wooden buttons and thus creating a kind of “table/lawn cloth”, used as a white surface on top of which to place, observe, examine the products. In this way, it becomes the “place” for interaction, contact and cooperation.

Finally, by using the 4 shaped buttons and the coloured pieces, children can play the real didactic game: categorising the fruits and vegetables, understanding their time for seeding, harvesting, their typology and the places to find them. By matching the shapes with the colours, children can memorise the main features of the nature products they harvested: the periods of seeding and harvesting, the typology of product and where they grow; this way, they will also understand that Nature needs time, care, respect and they will, hopefully, become good growers of tomorrow or at least good consumers.