CASCADIA ELEMENTARY 3RD GRADE GARDEN PROGRAM

“Sn@pp Dragon’s Garden” (Link to our elementary garden program website.)

As I stated in my last post, the garden program serves eight classes of 3rd graders in the same school building (it’s a really large school).  Alternating Fridays we meet with four of the third grade classes, identified as Cohort A, and the the next week on Friday we meet with Cohort B.  This allows for longer class periods with each class.  Thus, two weeks straight we cover the same topic.

Meeting with Cohort B this week we, as educators, again covered saving seeds and plant anatomy.  Luckily we were fortunate to have beautiful blue skies most the day.   This allowed for Cohort B to participate in garden class outdoors as intended.  To begin the lesson our lead educator, Rowan, sat the class down in a large circle where she drew on a small mobile chalkboard the anatomy of a plant.  She gave a brief lesson and then we broke into individual groups.   Each of us, Rowan, Jessica, and I lead a group of about 7-8 students for about 15 minutes in different parts of the garden.  Each 15 minutes we would cycle the children so they had time at each station.  I led my groups in the annual gardens.  Here we have raised garden beds, where we are growing kale, carrots, herbs, lettuce, radishes, arugula, mache, and strawberries.  Each of my groups had the opportunity to taste some overwintered kale and arugula leaves.  I then gave them a brief little lesson on how to identify weeds and how to properly pull them.  Making sure to get the whole root out and shake off any excess soil before throwing the weeds in the compost pile.   As we wrapped up each class, we would report out what each group had participated in with us the educators.  Honestly the kids were most excited to participate in the annual garden because they got to taste kale and arugula, giving a little review as food critics.

Tiny Trees Outdoor Preschool

At Tiny Trees the children of three to five years old seem to come in the morning at 8:30 as if they just drank an entire pot of coffee!  I am on my second 16 ounce cup of coffee at this time, and it still feels like I am half asleep in comparison to their energy.   They are familiar with the classroom and upon getting to class they disperse to varying stations; sandbox, arts table (which are 2’6″ diameter stumps), play house (crafted out of laurel bush branches), and reading area.  I float around the classroom, checking in on the kids to see what they are working on or playing.  Some draw pictures for their parents, others are playing super heros.  A group of kids ask me to be a super hero with them, they all exclaim who they are; “Batman! Iron Man! Super Girl! Spider Girl!”  They think I would make a good Spiderman so I pretend to shoot webs at the ‘bad guys’ with them.  We run around the whole class, some other kids join us in the play, and we also loose some to other distractions like the art table.  Everyone is simply allowed to play whatever they feel for the first hour or so.

Then after meeting for snack as an entire class we get ready for our lesson of the day.  A wonderful community space is located in the park, known as Beacon Hill Food Forest.  The Idea behind the food forest is to have a community learning hub, designed with permacultural principals, and as a food forest provide free food for anyone interested to harvest.  Tiny Trees takes advantage of this wonderful space by conducting lessons there sometimes.  After focusing the children on the journey, we eventually make it to the food forest, where we have a little lesson on composting.  We brought some food scrapes for them to chop up with kids safety scissors and feed the worms.  The kids could care less how gross the food scrapes are, they argue over who gets to cut up the gross black banana peels.  We discuss with them how they think they might all be able to have a chance with the peels.  They settle on each pulling apart the banana peels so everyone has just a little bit they can cut, it was a nice compromise.

Finally, we end our day with a song, Tiny Trees.

Tiny Trees, Tiny Trees,
We may look small, but we’re mighty,
And when we play outside, we learn,
And we can change the world.

Stuffed and Starved By Raj Patel

I picked up this book to get a better understanding of the world food system and particularly the western agricultural system, from the perspective of an Eastern world scholar.  This week I read the first four chapters (106 pages) Here are a list of quotes I found either triggering and/or valuable:

“Omitting Mexico City, where obesity rates are the highest in the country, the closer a Mexican family lives to its northern neighbours [the United States] and to their sugar- and fat-rich processed food habits, the more overweight the family’s children are likely to be.” (Patel 2007, 12)

“There are 23 names for added sugar in ingredients labels that companies may use to avoid writing ‘sugar’ as the first and most prevalent ingredient on the list.” (Patel 2007, 13)

“One of the largest anti-discrimination lawsuits was settled in 1999 by the US Department of Agriculture, in restitution for consistent and ongoing discrimination against black- farmers in the distribution of federal funding.” (Patel 2007, 24)

“In other words, globalizing the market has effectively transferred control of farming away from the farmer, and into the hands of those who can shape that market.” (Patel 2007, 49)

“US corn cost US$1.74 per bushel to buy but US$2.66 for US farmers to produce.” (Patel 2007, 57)

“Walmart Mexico is booming, commanding half of all supermarket sales in the country.” (Patel 2007, 71)

“Bush Republicans as well as Clinton Democrats, still cannot see what they have done to our country.” (Patel 2007, 73)

As a future educator, why is this book relevant?
Well as an educator I would like to empower my students to make wise healthy decisions.  I would like to give them the experience of growing their own food from seed to harvest.  I would like them to know not everyone has the same access to fresh fruits and vegetables.  I would like them to know the world is not necessarily fair, but being mindful about what is in your food and where it is sourced from, they have the opportunity to make a small be effective impact through their actions.  I believe it is valuable to bestow some of this knowledge in an appropriate delivery to the youth, so they may equipped with the larger picture.