Gaia's Garden

Enjoy planting vegetables in the garden together.

You will not be the only ones, pest insects enjoy these yummy vegetables too. Luckily, predator insects are chasing and eating the pest insects, helping the gardeners.

Will the gardeners be fast enough to plant the vegetables in a beneficial companionship or will the pest insects have a chance to attack?

co-operative.

With team work, we have more possibilities and we can reach more goals.

We play and worktogether to plant the whole garden and to prevent the pest insects from eating our crops.

“For 2 to 6 players, from 4 to adults
Playing time: 30 – 60 minutes.
A detailed booklet with examples of how to play is included.”

Now available in an organic cotton bag.

From Dr Hilary Whitehouse (Science and environmental education):

"The companion planting game introduces players to the ecological concept of pest and predator insect species. It is dynamic and replicates how a garden can be created. A balance is eventually created through companion planting. The game is non-competitive which is quite a novel concept to children accustomed to playing competitive games. The children seemed to enjoy the co-operative structure of the game.

This is the real success of the game, that it is able to develop knowledge of ecological concepts with young children in an effective and exciting way.

The children wanted to play the game for over an hour straight, which is a very positive recommendation...

I am sure other teachers would be happy to use it with their classes.Teachers and parents are always looking for attractive and useful materials through which to develop learning with children, and I would assess the game as being such..."

Environmental specifications
This Gaia's Garden game has been produced several years ago on 100% recycled paper and 100% recycled cardboard. The printing was done with the offset current at that time as it was difficult to find a printer who worked with enviromentally friendly inks. We have now reprinted the game board image with vegetable inks and vegetable based varnish. We are mounting the paper to the cardboard, using homemade flour paste, made with organic wheat flour.
We made the bag, using certified organic cotton and screenprinted them with earth pigments, using a completely natural process.

We can now send this game worldwide. Australians can still choose between a box and a bag, until our stock of boxes runs out.
We are doing our best to improve our products to make them more environmentally friendly and also more child friendly.

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Enthousiastic players write:

'This game enabled a deep learning to take place. This became apparent when hands on garden building was undertaken at a later stage.The non-competitive nature of the game allowed the players to feel positively empowered to learn.

Anthony: "This is good!... Why don't we make a real garden like this?"

Fini:"I like making new rules all the time!"

As a teacher, the depth of environmentally sound learning opportunities available through the games impressed me. The games have an obvious quality and a clear appeal to the children'...

Fiona Ball, teacher of early childhood, environmental education, working with children aged from 3 till 10 in a variety of earth education activities.

This game involves co-operation rather than competition. It teaches something of how nature works in our gardens.The game sits well with the philosophy, underlying Steiner Education...

Sarina: "I love to play this game all alone."

The children have played 'Gaia's Garden' many times, as a group and singly,with much enjoyment and very different dynamics than those in other board games.The interplay of the temperaments is particularly evident in team work...

Geaffrey Grundy taught 5 years at a Steiner School, then homeschooling his 2 daughters.