Our sensory garden

Written by: Julianna Ricci, mom of Jasper and Xander


“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” ~Albert Einstein

Roll up your sleeves and get ready to garden! Cheeky Monkey is planting a mini sensory garden, out in the playground, right behind the sand pit. What's a sensory garden, you ask? It's a place for the kids to learn with all their senses: to investigate the wild colors that nature puts together, to smell the different fragrances, to feel and see and compare the different shapes, sizes, and textures of plants, and to listen to...hmmm...the birds singing nearby!


“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” ~Henry David Thoreau

We'll be doing a lot of other things in the garden as well. There will be science projects, memory games, blindfolded smell/taste games, arts and crafts, collages with the leaves and flowers, leaf rubbing, and of course lots of gardening. And since gardens are the perfect place for fairies, we plan to have some magical stories told and woven in our Cheeky Monkey garden...we can feel the magic already!


“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.” ~John Lubbock

So please, stop in and explore the garden yourself. We'd love any donations of plants, gardening tools, and pots of any shape, size, and color. Or perhaps you'd like to play around with your own green thumb and help us plant, pot, prune, etc? Any help you can offer is appreciated, as we plan to have this garden grow in the same way that our little Monkeys grow – joyfully and beautifully.






“Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.” ~Osho