Herbal Education for Kids

Here are simple and fun herbal education resources for teaching children. Use these high quality herbal books, posts and courses to teach your kids about the usefulness of herbal plants.

If you’d like some FREE worksheets for taking notes and planning your own herb garden or herb projects, grab those below.

 

Herbal Education – Educator Resources

In order to teach your kids, you’ll need to engage in your own herbal education. With your busy schedule, I suggest you start online with our affiliate Herbal Academy of New England. 

They have a beginners herbal course and an intermediate herbal course, if you already have a little bit of experience.

If you’re like me, you’re going to want to preview some courses and you can do that here: Preview Lesson from the Introductory Herbal Course

Also, here’s a link to their general courses page with descriptions of all of them: Herbal Academy

Be sure to contact them with questions. They love herb nerds like you and me and want to help you find the course that’s right for you.

Herb Books to use for Home Education

My most loved and well used books are below – I absolutely recommend each one. These are more for your education, than for your younger children. Teenagers are certainly old enough to learn from these texts.

For Teens

Rosemary Gladstar’s books are great for beginners. She’s a little hippy-dippy but she’s very lovable and knowledgeable. a good one to start with is her beginner book. Good graphics, simple text, doable things to make and use.

The Complete Book of Herbs, by Lesley Bremness, is full of really useful graphics, growing information, recipes and crafts. This was actually my first herb book and I still reach for it before all my others. It’s cozy and visually appealing.

The best part about it is the herbal profiles included – a picture of each seed, leaf, flower, root and stem. Be sure to look for it used because you can find it for pretty cheaply.

The Backyard Herbal Apothecary, by Devon Young, is a newer book but has become one of my favorites. This book is ALL about herbal education. There’s a heavy emphasis on learning to forage native herbs in various habitats, though there are plenty of plant profiles on those you could grow in the garden.

The information is clearly presented and outlined. It would be simple to write a report on each herb, if you needed a quick assignment completed.

Herbal Book Group for Kids

Join or being a group of herbal moms and dads in your local area for herbal education – learning is more fun with friends! You’ll learn so much by learning and teaching in small, intimate groups. 

You don’t have know everything to gather like minded people around you and share what you know. Plus, you can experiment and make mistakes together. Keep it fun and keep it real!

Also, a fun idea from Jill’s Home Remedies – start and herbal club for kids!!

Herbal Education – Student Resources

Herbal Board Game

LearningHerbs.com has board game called Wildcraft and we’ve purchased two of them. It’s an easy to play, cooperative game with good graphics and not so many pieces you’ll lose them all as the children play it all over the house. I was immediately amazed at how much my kids enjoyed playing it and still do! Even visiting children with no background in herbs or even plants in general have a blast with it.

We were up in the mountains recently and my kids found several of the herbs used in Wildcraft; “Hey!” they’d say pointing, “That plant is an herb! I remember seeing it on our cards in Wildcraft!”  Ah, sweet rewards.

We’ve used herbal flashcards before but Wildcraft is far more effective at teaching, in my opinion. Herbal flashcards do well in emergency kits or the backpacks the kids take out foraging for quick reference. 

Herbal Reading Material

Learning Herbs also has herbal fairy adventure stories to teach about individual herbs and they are really well done. The illustrations help tell the story of each fairy adventure as they solve whatever problem is before that particular herb.

The kids love these books and read them all the time on their own. These could be assigned to younger children along with herbal art project, like illustrating their own herbal adventure story!

Herbal Magazine

We’ve subscribed to Herbal Roots Zine magazine by herbalist Kristine Brown and have really used and enjoyed it! This is a hand-crafted publication especially for children to teach them about herbs and healing plants. Each issue includes crossword puzzles, recipes, stories, illustrations, crafts and a whole host of other nifty stuff. 

It’s not cheap, FYI, but what we learned this year and the volume of information in each issue, I definitely got what I paid for. Especially since this is something on which I’m willing to spend a little money! The issue on cranberries inspired us to make these and they were so fun!

Kristine has added a lot of learning resources to her shop over the years and each one might be of interest to your children. Be sure to check out her whole shop! She also has online classes which I’m really excited to explore but haven’t done so yet. If  you take one, please leave a comment and tell me what you thought!

Herbs for Kids

Here’s an Introduction to Herbs for Kids from Herbal Academy. This is a series of articles to help kids become acquainted with herbs.

Here’s a sweet herbal moment from Pixie’s Herbal.

A Kid’s Herb Book is the one we use most often in school. Again, a little hippy dippy at times, but it’s set up in such a way that you can pick and choose what you want to use. There’s herbal information and history, as well as crafts and recipes. We’ve had a lot of fun with this one

Do you have a favorite herbal education resource I forgot to mention?

Herbal Foods Just for Fun!

I just wanted to toss in these fun ideas from Pistachio Project – she knows her herbs! Food and crafts are always pleasing and they’re a great way to make herbs accessible to children.

• Herbal Craft – Homemade Herbal Slime and Herbal Moon Sand – both so fun and tactile!
• Window Clings made from herbs and which can be eaten because of what they’re made of
• Herbal Kool Aid Alternative

If you’re new to herbs, get started with our short e-book, The Potted Herb. This book will get you growing herbs in pots this year regardless of where you live or how much space you have. It outlines a collection of well known herbs for culinary and wellness uses. We’ll teach you how to grow and use these wonderful plants – anyone can grow an herb garden this year!