Benefits of Using Signs in Your School Garden

August 2024 | Molly Sutton

Kids may not always get excited about eating their greens, but they certainly enjoy playing in dirt! Whether in your backyard or on a school campus, creating an outdoor classroom space in your garden has many educational benefits.

School gardens help students be more engaged, create hands-on-learning experiences, demonstrate where food comes from, practice responsibility and accountability, improve food preferences and much more! A garden is a yearlong science experiment that provides mental health benefits and enrichment, so why shouldn’t you make the most of the space?

Just as posters in a classroom promote learning through reinforcing important concepts, colorful, attention-grabbing signs in the garden can enhance student understanding of garden-related subjects.

Creating signs for your school garden helps to:

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Engage Multiple Learning Styles

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Simplify Difficult Concepts

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Encourage Critical Thinking

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Create a More Stimulating Learning Environment

For more explanation on these benefits, visit this great (and short) article from Print Safari)!

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Reinforce Rules and Routines

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Promote Creativity and Self-Expression

Consider ways signs can be used in your school garden!

Click the arrows to navigate through the slideshow below.

1. Label Plants

Signs offer a great opportunity to engage students and be creative when labeling plants you grow! By creating labels for their plants, students can connect to the germination stage, conjuring a visual to a process that cannot be seen normally.

Get ideas from these 15 creative plant labels we have made for our gardens!

2. Display Scientific Concepts

Remind students science does not need to be performed in an indoor lab!

3. Procedure Reminders

Gently remind students of protocol in your school garden. Signs of this nature could dislpay what items can be composted, acceptable behaviors around chickens, routines in the chicken coop, and more!

Download our picture guides for holding chickens here!

4. Educational Tools

Immerse students in hands-on learning by using signs as educational tools. Creatively use your space to display functional design elements children can interact with during play and lessons, like this sidewalk ruler. LEGO has compiled a great list of studies that show the benefits of play-based learning, including improving memory through dopamine release and positive association.

Photo credit: Kids In The Garden, UK

5. Display Class Norms

Creating class norms, or a list of acceptable class behaviors, can help establish order and inclusivity within a group of students. These expectations can be decided upon together as a class, or determined before classes begin for the year.

Examples of norms include:

Respect the space. Respect the creatures. Respect each other. Respect yourself.
Bee caring. Bee helpful. Bee respectful. Bee Creative.
(L)isten to directions, (E)nter and exit prepared, (A)lways do your best, (R)espect others, and (N)o excuses.

Display these assumptions on a sign in your garden as a useful reminder to students.

Learn to make these hexagon garden beds!

6. Inspire Students

Inspire your students with motivational quotes scattered around your school garden and chicken coop.

Photo Credit: Pinterest, unknown author (message us for credit!)

7. Instruct the Community

Do things need time to grow? Would you like passerbys to pick weeds? Leave a sign in your garden to communicate your plant’s needs!

8. Tell Your Story

Create a sign telling the history of your school garden. Use this as an opportunity to add contact information for the garden contact and relevant links to ways people can support your project using a QR code.

This sign is located at a community garden in Phoenix, AZ.

Don’t Break the Bank!

Source secondhand/free materials to create your signs.

Find Free Materials

Search on Facebook Marketplace for free wood, pallets and other materials that can be used for signage.

Our favorite free wood sources are:

Facebook Markeplace/OfferUp
Auction warehouses
Bulk trash
Community forums

Use What You Have

Save scrap materials from coop construction or other projects around your school for sign projects.

Ask for material donations

Turn to your school community for help! Ask for material donations…you may be surprised by what people have laying around their yards!

Give Second Life

Find a use for things destined for the dump. For example, broken flowerpots and old rain boots filled with concrete create a nice base for a sign.

Remember: the quality of your sign is just as important as its content! Good design can grab a reader’s attention and ensure your school garden signs are serving their purpose.

The best part about designing a catchy sign is that it doesn’t take a professional artist! Take time to plan out your garden signs before starting, whether their creation is a class project or the action-item of your garden committee. Attempt to include at least two of the following tips in your sign construction.

You do not have to be a professional artist to make great signs for your school garden. Follow the below tips to elevate the design of your garden signs!

Elevate your garden signs with these easy tips!

Click the arrows to navigate through the slideshow below.

Add Color

Just as flowers attract the attention of bees, let your sign’s colors market themselves! Bright colors can enhance your sign tenfold. Consider using school colors, creating a color scheme from things growing in your garden, or invite students to choose their favorite colors!

Make it Dimensional

Adding depth equates to adding intrigue. Whether it is gluing recyclable items to a poster or cutting out shapes from wood, layering items onto your sign help make it pop!

Make it Move

Add movement to your garden sign by adding moving parts on the sign. Alternatively, you can make the sign itself able to move by encasing the post in concrete inside of a bucket or flower pot!

Weatherproof it

Weatherproofing your outdoor sign can be easy, and it does not require using exterior paint (which can get pricey!). Use materials that can go outside, such as wood or plastic, and seal your paint with a product like polyurethane to protect it from rain, sun, and wind. Of course, placing your sign under a cover will help protect it form the elements!

Size matters

In other words, if your sign is meant to be seen from a distance, ensure the lettering and size of the sign reflects that. Alternatively, if your sign is meant to label a specific plant, make it small enough there is no confusion as to what plant is being labeled.

Photo: Barnwell Primary School

Take a tour of Barnwell Primary's Space Chicken Program!

Strategize Placement

Before placing your sign, consider where it may be most effective. If your sign denotes what types of materials goes in a compost bin, the logical placement would be near the compost piles, rather than halfway across the garden.

Perhaps your sign contains a pun. Placement near an object relating to that pun may help clarify the joke.

Keep in mind, the sign does not need to be on a wall or post! Another option is to paint educational lessons on sidewalks, pavers, and ceilings.

Photo Credit: Western Washington University Sustainability Engagement Institute

Download and print similar signs from the University of Washington here!

Incorporate Technology

Utilize QR codes to create a more interactive tech experience. The code could lead you to a website with more information about your school garden courses, what is growing in the garden, a scavenger hunt, fundraiser ideas, and more!

Photo Credit: QR Codes- Class Tech Tips

Don’t forget to use your signs!

Once your sign is in your garden, do not just forget about it! Just like everything else in your garden, it can be used as a teaching aid. Consider signs as prompts for discussion, poetry, or when deciding what to grow that season. Incorporating your signs into lesson plans will engage students’ critical thinking skills and foster creativity.

Join our school-only blog and share photos of your garden signs!