Introducing children to vermicomposting: a fun and educational activity

Vermicomposting is a simple and fun activity — even more so for children than for adults. At that age, there's something fascinating about watching worms turn food scraps into fertilizer, and it's an ideal opportunity to teach kids about ecology through example rather than theory.

A gateway to ecology and science

A worm composter is a small living ecosystem that kids can see and easily understand. They can watch what happens to food scraps, why some foods break down faster than others, and how a worm colony grows over the months. It's a natural way to explore recycling, the cycle of organic matter, and caring for a living creature, and it means far more to them than an abstract explanation.

An educational tool schools love: the Willy plush toy

Many schools order our Willy plush toy to use as a real teaching tool. Each day, the plush toy goes home with a different family, and the child hosting it has to come up with a simple thing to do at home to help the environment. The next day, they share it with the class, and another child takes Willy home to come up with their own idea — a fun little class ritual that runs all year long.

Here are a few everyday habits to suggest to children: turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth, taking a short shower instead of a bath, switching off the light when leaving a room, unplugging devices on standby, sorting your waste (recyclables, but also scraps for the worm bin!), not throwing away unfinished food, walking or biking to school when possible, fixing or giving away a toy instead of throwing it out, or picking up a little trash found outdoors during a walk.

Simple tasks kids can help with

Children can easily help take care of the worm composter, always under your supervision. They can sort the food scraps to be recycled (our guide What earthworms eat gives the full list), place them in the active tray, or simply watch the worms for a few minutes after each feeding. Making this a small regular ritual — always on the same day, for example — also helps keep everyone from overfeeding the worm bin out of enthusiasm.

Adapt their involvement to their age. The youngest can simply watch while you handle the worms, while older kids can gradually sort the scraps themselves, weigh them or cut them into small pieces, or even keep a little logbook (amount of scraps, date of the last harvest) to turn it into a real project.

Willy's tip

A few simple rules for younger children: we watch and handle gently, without squeezing the worms, we never put them in our mouths, and we wash our hands every time we touch them.

An experiment to watch together

To take things further, you can show them very visually how worms work the soil. Fill a clear jar with alternating layers of light and dark soil (or sand), place a few worms on top with a little food, cover the jar with a dark cloth since worms are sensitive to light, and check on it every day. Within a few days, the layers gradually blend together as the worms move around — a hands-on way to see the work they usually do right under our noses, yet out of sight in a stacking-tray worm composter.

Curiosity that goes beyond the worms

A worm composter is also home to other tiny creatures besides worms (springtails, mites, millipedes...) — completely harmless and actually fascinating to look at up close. This is often a chance to answer children's questions about what they see crawling around in the compost: our guide Life in a worm composter introduces them one by one so you can answer with confidence.

In summary

Sorting scraps together, watching the worms after each feeding, or recreating their work in a simple jar: these are all easy ways to introduce children to vermicomposting and make it a real family activity.

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