Little Sprouts Club
In Sarasota, where gardens can feel less like scenery than a second language, the best lessons often begin with a child’s hand pressed against a tree.
By Edit Sarasota Staff
In Sarasota, where gardens can feel less like scenery than a second language, the best lessons often begin with a child’s hand pressed against a tree. This fall, Selby Gardens invites its youngest visitors to slow down and investigate the natural world through Little Sprouts Club, a family-guided program created for preschoolers ages 2 to 5 and the grown-ups who accompany them.
The program’s theme this year, “The Terrific Textures of Nature,” offers an especially tactile way into the garden. Smooth stones, rough bark, bumpy seeds, soft petals and fuzzy leaves become the starting points for discovery. In the Ann Goldstein Children’s Rainforest Garden, children will encounter nature-inspired crafts, sensory stations, story time and free play—activities designed not to lecture about the environment, but to make curiosity feel instinctive and joyful.
That distinction matters. For families raising children in a place as richly layered as Sarasota, an early relationship with the outdoors is part of learning how to belong here. The region’s gardens, mangroves and waterways are not simply backdrops for recreation; they are living classrooms, full of textures, patterns and small surprises. Little Sprouts Club gives children permission to explore at their own pace, while offering caregivers a relaxed, shared experience that can extend beyond the garden gates. A child who learns to notice the velvety underside of a leaf may soon begin asking what else is growing, changing or moving nearby.
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens has long connected the public with the plant life of the tropics and subtropics, and its downtown campus offers an unusually vivid setting for that mission. The Children’s Rainforest Garden, with its immersive plantings and child-centered design, turns a visit into an invitation: touch, look closely, make something, listen to a story, then wander and wonder.
Little Sprouts Club takes place Friday, October 16, at Selby Gardens’ downtown Sarasota campus, 1534 Mound Street. Activities begin at 10:30 a.m., with a healthy snack and story time at 11:20; free play remains open until 11:30. The session is included with admission and free for members, though preregistration is required for each child. General admission is required for caregivers and children older than 5, with members able to scan their membership at the Welcome Center. Families should come dressed for outdoor play and messy crafts, with sunscreen and bug spray recommended.