Yard Work Toys for Kids

Mowing the lawn every week can get boring. Removing weeds from flower beds, cleaning leaves off the lawn, and other general yard maintenance isn’t usually the highlight of the week. Trying to do this yard work while your kids want to stay inside and play video games can be frustrating. Teaching kids to help with yard work from an early age can be a really big help as they grow older and something you should be striving for.

Teaching children to help with yard work later on in life is difficult. Yard work is generally fairly labor intensive and takes a lot of energy and focused work. It’s also hard for a child to see the benefits of doing yard work. Help them to see the before and after effect of yard work - take pictures of what things look like before and what they look like after. Show them that their hard work is making a difference in how things look at your home.

Ultimately, the easiest way to teach kids about doing yard work is from an early age by allowing them to help out in the yard, even when they are not so helpful. By the time a child is about 2 years old, they’ll usually be excited to help with anything that you’ll let them do (and sometimes scream to do things that you don’t want them to). If you are outside digging holes to bury plants, your child will want to help as well. If you are mowing the lawn, your child will want to as well. In order to keep their enthusiasm up, you should let them help as much as possible.

The simplest way to accomplish this is to make sure that you have a few yard toys that your child can use to “help” you but that you don’t have to worry about them getting hurt or losing the tool. For example, a little push lawn mower toy is a great option so that your child can help to mow the grass while you mow. They can mow one part of the lawn while you do the other or they can simply follow along behind you.

Another must have set of outdoor tools for your child are these gardening tool toys. They’re perfect for any child to help out in the garden. They can obviously use their shovel for digging and their rake for evening the soil out. You don’t have to worry about them hurting themselves with a metal shovel or rake while they use them. These toys can be used all over the yard as well - in a sandbox or simply to help build or cleanup whatever you need.

Speaking of cleaning up, the above tools also come with a leaf rake which is perfect come fall time. Kids love to play in the leaves when you rake them up, now they can help to rake their own leaves up and play in them. Once kids have learned how to actually get leaves gathered together with the rake, you may find that they’ll simply gather the leaves into piles to play in - both of our kids did this on their own.

The one other must have item for kids is a pair of gardening gloves. If you’re wearing gloves in the garden, your child will want to wear them as well. While they can certainly try to wear your gloves, they’ll definitely prefer something that fits them and they’ll be much more helpful by having a pair of gloves that actually fit. We prefer the multi-pack options as kids are generally good at losing things.

Once you have a few gardening toys for your child, it is simply a matter of including them in the outdoor activities. Grab the toys when you’re getting ready to work in the garden, and your child will gladly play for at least a little bit. The important thing to remember is that you’re teaching them about helping right now so that later they know how to actually help and be contributors in taking care of the yard.

Buying a few toys for the yard will go a long way later as your child will remember the fun times they had helping in the yard. While they may not love doing yard work, they will at least have an understanding of what needs to be done. Get a few yard toys now.