The Kitchen Garden / module 2 of 3
Compost: Turning Waste into Soil
The child starts a small compost pot from kitchen scraps and watches waste become the food their next plants will eat.
Guide
Set up a bucket or old pot with drainage holes. Rule: greens (peels, vegetable scraps) and browns (dry leaves, cardboard bits) in rough layers, never meat or oil. The child is compost keeper: adding scraps, stirring weekly, and reporting the smell and heat. When the child asks why it gets warm, resist explaining immediately; ask what they think is happening in there first.
Material
- Compost keeper checklist: what goes in, what stays out (platform library)
Activities
Daily: scrap sorting after meals into compost and rubbish. Weekly: stir, observe, and one journal line. Experiment: bury one plastic wrapper and one leaf at the edge, dig both up after a month, and compare.
You will need
An old bucket or pot, kitchen scraps, dry leaves. Nothing to buy.
Check yourself
Child correctly sorts a week of kitchen waste, explains what compost is for, and describes what happened to the buried leaf versus the wrapper.
Learn with AI
Ready-made prompts for this module. Copy one into your AI assistant and it becomes a patient tutor that follows the OSH method: no lecturing, no rote learning, hands-on activities included.
For the student
A tutor that teaches this module step by step, asks questions, and never just gives answers.
For the parent or teacher
A coach that helps you prepare, deliver, and troubleshoot this lesson.
How to set this up in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude
Safety note: children under 13 should use AI assistants together with a parent, and account age rules of each platform apply.