Family Weekend Project: Make A Worm Farm - Childhood101

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Looking for instructions for making a worm farm for kids? This eco-friendly DIY project is super simple and perfect for introducing children to the superpowers of worms! Plus we’ve included a handy worm farm instruction sheet, some wonderful worm facts and worm research prompts for you to download and print.

How to make a worm farm: Fun Earth Day projects for kids

Why have a worm farm?

A worm farm is a bit like a compost bin for food waste.

They are great for recycling food scraps. Worms break down this waste to create fertilizer full of the nutrients plants need to grow.

Recycling food scraps using a worm farm also helps to reduce the amount of waste sent to land fill, and it helps to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that food waste emits as it rots in landfill.

How does it work?

Earthworms eat your food scraps and convert the waste into worm manure – making worm wee and worm castings. When collected, this worm wee and castings can be used to fertilize gardens.

Making a worm farm using free and recycled materials is easy – easy enough that children can do it themselves, with just a little help! It is a wonderful eco-friendly project for school or home.

All it takes is a couple of recycled styrofoam boxes, a handful of compost worms and some worm bedding. Within weeks you will be reducing your household waste and producing the BEST fertilizer for your garden!

RELATED: Creating a child friendly garden? Check out this list of safe plants for play spaces.

How to Make a Worm Farm For Kids

How to Make a Worm Farm Instruction Sheet

Find a printable version of the following instructions, along with some cool worm facts and worm research prompts for kids at the bottom of this post.

You will need:

Two styrofoam produce boxes. You can often find these at a greengrocer. Make sure at least one has a lid
A knitting needle, chop stick, screwdriver or other sharp tool for making holes in the box
Worm bedding – a bucket of compost is ideal worm bedding. You can also use shredded paper, leaves or old straw
A big handful of compost worms. You can buy compost worms online or, better still, get your worms from a friend or neighbor who already has a worm farm. An easy way to collect worms from an existing worm farm is to crack an egg in one corner of the worm farm. Return a day later and that corner will be full of worms ready to collect
A newspaper

Instructions

1. Poke holes in the bottom of one of your boxes. This box will become the ‘feeder box’ – where the worms live and feed.

2. Half fill the feeder box with worm bedding. Make sure your bedding is moist but not wet. If you are using dry materials like straw or shredded paper, wet them first but be sure to fully squeeze out any excess water.

3. Carefully scatter the worms on top of the worm bedding. A handful of worms will contain around 1,000 worms.

4. Soak the newspaper in water and lay it on top of the worm bedding. This will help keep the worms’ home dark and moist. Place the lid onto the feeder box.

5. Place the feeder box on top of the second box, the one that doesn’t have any holes. This lower box is where you will collect the worm wee. Place your worm farm in a cool, shady spot in Summer and a sunny spot in Winter.

Remember to place it somewhere easy to access so that it is simple to regularly add food scraps to (be sure to read the further information about adding food scraps to your worm farm below).

You can now decorate the outside of the worm farm using permanent markers.

How to Look After Your Worm Farm

Leave your worms to settle in for a week.
After a week you can start adding kitchen scraps on top of the bedding, underneath the newspaper. Keep the food scraps to one side of the worm farm so that worms who do not like what you have placed in the farm have somewhere to escape. Add only small amounts (around a handful) initially. As more worms breed they will eat more food. Eventually your worm farm should be able to handle most of your kitchen scraps.
It can be helpful to collect food scraps in a small container with a lid in your kitchen as you cook, emptying it in to the worm farm when you are done.

What to Add to Your Worm Farm

What NOT to Add to Your Worm Farm

Fruits and vegetables (but not citrus fruits, onions, garlic or capsicum)
Coffee grounds
Tea bags
Bread
Egg shells
Shredded plain paper

Meat
Fish
Dairy products
Pasta or cereals
Fats or grease
Shiny paper
Garden waste
Animal manure

Keep the top layer of newspaper damp (remember damp, not wet, a spray bottle can be handy for keeping the newspaper damp) and replace as needed.
To harvest the worm castings, move all the castings to one side and add fresh bedding to the empty side. Most of the worms will move to the fresh bedding and in a few days you can then remove the castings. Worm castings are a great plant food. Grow seedlings direct in the castings or use it to top dress your pot plants or garden.
The worm wee is a super plant fertilizer. Pour the worm wee from the bottom box into a watering can or bucket and dilute 1 part worm juice to 20 parts water. It is too strong to use undiluted.
If you wish, you can eventually increase the size of your worm farm by adding an additional feeder box on top, creating a multi-story worm farm. The worms will migrate up through the holes to the new bedding. After the worms have all migrated to the top box you can plant seedlings directly into the initial feeder box to create a miniature garden.

Printing Your Worm Farm Instruction SheetClick here to download. How to Make a Worm Farm . Save the PDF to your computer. Open the PDF and print the page you require. When printing, select “Fit to printable area” (or similar) to ensure the page fits with your printer type and local paper size (these have been created at A4 size).

Download PDF here

Having trouble accessing or downloading the file? Please try a different internet browser.Please note: All Childhood 101 printables are for personal use only, you may not use any part of this content for commercial purposes-that includes selling the document, giving it away to promote your business or website, or printing the file to sell. You may not share, loan or redistribute these documents. Teachers may use multiple copies for students in their own classroom.

More Eco Friendly Resources for Kids

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