CYH: Foraging with your kids (with printable)

Jess

4 years ago

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Spring and summer are an amazing time to get out and forage with your kids! If you’ve never heard the term before, foraging is when you go out into your yard, into the woods, or on a nature trail to find edible plants, mushrooms, flowers, etc. that are growing wild. This is a great way to continue your learning beyond the curriculum and into the summer months.

Benefits of foraging:

There are so many benefits to foraging with your kids. The first is that it’s a lot of fun! Spending time with your kiddos outside getting fresh air, learning about nature, and identifying plants together can be a great bonding experience.

Foraging gives your kids a great education of survival skills and nature. You could easily combine foraging with lessons on survival/camping; how plants grow; health and nutrition; cooking; or ecosystems, climates, and biomes.

It’s also just a great source of free food or medicine!

Safety:

It’s incredibly important that your kids understand that until they know what plants are safe to eat – and until you feel confident in their ability to identify the plants on their own – you teach your kids not to eat anything without you.

Don’t trespass – check maps to make sure you are foraging in areas you are allowed
Don’t forage in public spaces that may be sprayed with pesticides. Areas around public parks (not wildlife areas, but playgrounds) are often sprayed.
Don’t over pick in one area, or you won’t find anything left to forage next season!
Before you go, do a quick internet search for “poisonous/dangerous plants and mushrooms” in your specific area. Bring along reference books or download a plant identification app (see the bottom of the post for resources) so that you don’t eat something you shouldn’t.
If you live in an area where ticks are prevalent or if you head into the woods, make sure you do a thorough check for ticks afterward.

Here are just a few examples of plants you can forage:

Plants:

Dandelion leaves
Stinging nettle
Plantain
Mullein
Garlic mustard
Dead nettle
Ramps (wild leeks)
Jewelweed

Flowers:

Violets
Lilacs
Redbuds
Dandelion
Echinacea
Clover

Fruit:

Raspberries
Elderberries
Blueberries

Mushrooms:

*make sure you are very confident that you can identify look-alikes or poisonous mushrooms*

Morels
Pheasant Back

Once you have collected your foraged goodies, some of these items may be edible raw. Others may be good for making jelly, salve, tea, etc. with them. And many can be made into yummy food like baked goods (like dandelion muffins or cookies) or soup (like nettle soup).

Check out this dandelion salve recipe you and your child can make together.

Depending on the age of your child, this is a great chance to dig into a study of herbal medicine! Even young kids can begin to understand how herbs can help our bodies.

The book Herbal Adventures is a great place to start with younger kids.