How to start a garden at your school and resources to incorporate it into your classroom curriculum.
Dreams and Gardens believes that a school garden offers innovative learning experiences that cannot be found anywhere else.
Spending time in the garden can awaken the senses of touch, smell, and taste, and attune a child to the subtler sights and sounds of nature.
Use this year plan of garden activities for children with monthly garden plan for the year, perfect for school gardening clubs.
11 photos: Dedication of outdoor classroom at Jefferson Elementary
Everything you need to know to start and maintain a school garden with your students.
Design practice CplusC Architectural Workshop has completed a modern house addition to an existing Californian bungalow in Australia, that features over-sized sliding doors.
Artist and gardener Julia Sherman takes her lunchtime inspiration from The Getty Museum's garden.
Leeds & Broomfield primary school garden revamp, featuring a new memorial sign for 'Joe's tree & garden playground' and a positive affirmations sign! Contact us for your school play area makeover!
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Botanica was opened to the public in May 1987 to generate enthusiasm for horticulture. Plan your visit today!
January Jobs: Ask the children what plants they would like to grow for the coming season, show them pictures in plant catalogues and photos of the …
To start a kitchen garden at a school, kindergarten, preschool or childcare centre try these tips from the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation.
Back in May, one of my co-workers shared a school-wide project idea that went viral on social media from Scarymommy.com. The project was a rock garden inspired by the book "Only One You" by Linda Kranz, and decorated the landscaping of Sharon Elementary School in Newburgh, Indiana. The garden was the idea of Jessica Moyes, who is the art teacher at Sharon Elementary. Jessica, your design has inspired multiple schools to create their own rock gardens within their own schools. Our school's parents were even sending links of this project to the principal requesting the garden! There's few posts from other bloggers and teachers talking about their rock garden installations at their schools. I'd love to share our story, along with the methods used in gathering materials, containing painting with K-6, incorporating all staff, and how to complete the installation. The Materials Thanks to Streamline Landscaping in Willow Springs, IL, we receive a few buckets of smooth rocks to use for our rock garden! The landscapers even came by to see how we were doing with creation, and donated even more larger stones for each class and department in the school. We also received a donation of acrylic paint and markers from Oriental Tradings! The donated materials really helped with supply management! Here's the materials you need to complete this project: 1. Lots and lots of rocks. Consider calling a local landscaping company and ask for a donation. The rock size can be your choice. 2. Table clothes. This was a life saver for all 31 of my classes who painted (700+ students). 3. Paper towels and paper plates. Tear up sections of paper towels for students to keep under their rocks while painting. Paper plates make it 100% easier to manage the paint messes and clean-ups. 4. A copy of "Only One You" by Linda Kranz. Easily found on Amazon, or other book sellers. 5. Acrylic paint. As much as it's scary working with acrylic at K-1 ages, it's the only paint that will stay on the rocks over time. Some acrylics paint on a little transparent, while others will be more opaque. Again, your choice. Here's the link to the acrylic paint used from Oriental Trading. 6. Paint brushes, cups, and water. 7. Permanent markers. If you photograph all artworks for Artsonia, or need to know who made what rock for grading, use permanent markers for students to write their names. Oh...and add room numbers too. It really helps with organizing. If you use markers for details, keep in mind that markers do fade over time. Here's the link to the sharpie marker set from Oriental Trading. 8. Acrylic clear coat. In order for the paint to stay as long as it can on the rocks in outdoor weather, you need to spray all the finished rocks with a clear coat for protection. For a safety note, make sure you spray outdoors and after school hours, because this smell can draft down the hallways. 9. Bins for storage. This is going to be heavy! For transporting from classroom to garden set-up, make sure you have plastic, durable bins to use for organization and transportation. 10. Aprons or old shirts. If you're doing this project with young students, you need clothing protection. The Objective The purpose of creating a community project was to have student leave a "footprint" in the school. The positive message in the final pages of the book is "There is only one you in this great, big world...make it a better place." All the students from grades K-6 were read the book and took in the words of wisdom shared. Each student painted their own "fish" rock with their own colors and patterns. The Project I allotted two full weeks for all classes to complete their rocks. Each of my classes are 40 minutes in length, and visit once a week. Prior to starting the painting, I sent a note home to each student explaining the project and materials being used. Since we had so many younger grade levels, I made a huge recommendation to parents to have their children bring an art shirt to school or an apron to protect their clothing. One parent donated a box of plastic aprons, which really helped with the younger grade levels! The teachers even helped with mentioning the extra art shirt in their weekend newsletters, which really helped!!! For prepping, I set up a plate of colors for each table. If I made the plates last longer than two classes, I called it a success. Kindergarten classes only received 5 colors (red, blue, yellow, green, white) because no matter what you do, the plates only last about 10 minutes of pure colors. Once the students see that colors mix, the plate very quickly turned to brown. On the first day of class, the book was read and we had a small discussion about the wisdom shared and how they can help in creating a garden for the school. For the rest of the class, the students painted their rocks. I organized drying areas for each class by placing colored paper and a painted large rock with the class name on it. When students finished painting, they placed their rocks on a paper labeled with their class. Students were also asked to sign a class rock that their fish will swim around. Since Kindergarten and 1st grade finished quickly, they were only given one day to work on the rocks. Afterwards, I glued a google eye to the fish. (The google eyes will not stay on for more than a few weeks. It's good for the beginning pictures, but it will not last forever with a glue gun.) On the second day of the project, grades 2-6 used permanent markers to trace out eyes, mouth, patterns, fins, and details in their rocks. Since this step only takes about 5-10 minutes to complete, I found worksheets on Linda Kranz's website that students colored and filled out. The worksheets can be found here. Remember when I said that departments also receive a rock? I painted fish rocks for the front office (administrators, nurses, secretaries), lunchroom, custodians, Title 1, ELL, Special Education, and Specials! They're mixed in with the class rocks below ready for installation! Now the fun part...getting over 7 bins of rocks and large river rock into the courtyard! With lots of helping hands, we transported all the pebbles to the courtyard so I could spray them with the acrylic clear coat. The custodians were also very helping in clearing out an area in our courtyard before installation! And the sign has been made... On the day of installation, students and staff were invited to participate in the installation process. ALMOST DONE!!!! And here's the finished project! Our school has been passing around the golden pineapple award for teachers sharing positive events in our school, and on the day the garden was being installed, a student dropped this award off in my classroom! Totally excited and honored to have this award for this project! It's for the entire school for their participation!!! SaveSave
Notice the stepping stones are math problems? Numerous opportunities for lessons with students here.
What do you do with a low-income school, a few donated garden boxes, and no funding for plants or supplies? To this question, teachers Debbie Rutledge-Lockyear and Janet White’s response was confident. You make it work. When they received the garden boxes, the teachers began dreaming of creating a community garden where they could give their […]
Discover the steps to initiate your own community garden. Learn how to start and cultivate a thriving communal green space .
Gardening has many benefits for children. While it has great health and social implications, it also offers brilliant hands on experience for learning. Inspired by the school and community garden stories, we’ve put together a guide to help get you started – from thinking about how to use the space, to how to involve the children and school community.
The school garden offers a place to enrich teaching efforts with powerful hands-on experiences that make learning come alive.
Share the Sweetness1589 590SharesIf you’re just joining us for this Toddler School Gardening Unit, we’re just now getting to the green part. My goals for this unit are to teach Cash about the great outdoors by planting a garden together throughout the Spring and into the summer. He is very interested in how things work! The… Read More Teaching Toddlers How Things Grow | Gardening Unit
This ultimate guide to gardening with kids gives you everything you need to know to start a garden with your children. It will show you how to plan a child-friendly garden, the best plants to grow with kids, and how to fill your garden with play, math, literacy, science and fun! The ultimate guide […]
Gardening isn’t just about the hard work, it can be fun for most, and especially kids. Gardening can be a fantastic family affair, so if you have kids, why
Want to get your children’s creative juices flowing and spend time with them? Check this post for DIY garden ideas for kids and create unforgettable memories.
Today is the first day of Spring so I’d like to discuss school gardens. I always wanted to have a school garden, and I found the perfect place for it, but it never happened, mainly because I just didn’t have the time to add such an undertaking to my schedule of teaching more than five grade levels every year. So when I decided this year to volunteer at a local school, I jumped at the chance to work with the teacher who maintained the school garden there. (Links and info in this post updated on 4/3/21.) Source: The ESL Nexus There are so many benefits to having a school garden! For ELLs, especially those at lower levels of language proficiency, working in a school garden means they can participate just as much as other students because the tasks are hands-on and visual. And if you plant some crops that are used in the cultures of your ELLs, it shows that you value those cultures and gives those students and their families a chance to share their knowledge and make them feel a part of the school community. Read on to find out: a) why a school garden is a good thing, b) resources for creating and maintaining a school garden, and c) where you can obtain funding for your own school garden. Source: The ESL Nexus Benefits of School Gardens 1) Students learn where their food comes from – for students in cities who aren’t familiar with farming, this can be very illuminating. 2) Students interact with nature by spending time outdoors and seeing insects and worms in the soil and as the plants grow. 3) Students learn teamwork because they have to work cooperatively to make the garden a success and students who don’t normally work with each other can be grouped together to develop their social skills. 4) Students learn patience because once seeds or seedlings are planted, they have to wait for them to grow and students can’t force the plants to sprout faster than nature intended. 5) Students learn math and science concepts – they are so many tie-ins to curricula for students of all ages it’s impossible to list them all here but recording observations, formulating hypotheses, measuring units, learning about nutrition, graphing results and calculating percentages are a few of them. 6) Students can do writing activities such as writing poetry, writing a description of a plant, writing how-to pieces about creating the garden, writing personal narratives about their experience with the garden, comparing and contrasting two different vegetables, writing about what a vegetable or herb tastes like, creating a recipe book for the foods that were grown, creating timelines about the growing process, and writing letters about their school garden. 7) Students can develop research skills by searching for information about school gardens, by finding out which crops are best suited to their region of the country, and by reading about how particular vegetables and herbs are used in other cultures. 8) Students can learn about geography and other cultures by planting vegetables and herbs cultivated in other countries. 9) Students from different ethnic backgrounds can share their cultures when crops that are common in their cuisines are cultivated, and this can also help foster appreciation for people from those cultures. 10) Students can develop multimedia skills by creating videos, podcasts, photo exhibits, posters, and oral presentations about their school garden. 11) The student-parent (or guardian) connection can be deepened when the families of the students working in the garden are involved – if some families have gardening experience they can help create and maintain the garden, families from immigrant and refugee backgrounds can share their knowledge of gardening and grow “ethnic” foods in part of the garden, families can show how to cook various vegetables and use herbs, and families can be invited to a feast with the students after harvesting the food. Resources about School Gardens * U.S. Department of Agriculture: Information an all aspects, from planning through sustaining a school garden program. * National Agriculture in the Classroom: Lesson plans, resources, information about conferences, and more. * Slow Food USA: Research-based rationale for implementing a school garden. * KidsGardening: All about designing, starting, and maintaining a school garden. * Growing Minds: Resources for starting a school garden, related lesson plans based on the Common Core State Standards, and information on applying for a grant if you are working in their region. * Let's Move: A checklist for getting started with a school garden. * Western Growers Foundation Collective School Garden Network: Information on the benefits of school gardens, how to plan and fund a school garden, planting a school garden, teaching with a school garden, and harvesting and eating the produce from an edible school garden; also includes grant opportunities for schools in Arizona and California. * Good, Clean and Fair School Garden Curriculum, from Slow Food USA: Lessons for all elementary and secondary students that align with Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards. Funding Sources Application deadlines for grants from many organizations for funding a spring garden have passed but the following opportunities are still available: * Bonnie Plants 3rd Grade Cabbage Program: Apply by February 15th. * Captain Planet ecoSolution Grants: Two cycles: a) Apply between September 15th and January 15th; b) Apply between March 15th and July 15th. * Project Learning Tree Green Works Grants: No information about applications for 2021 but the website has helpful info about gardening. * Wild Ones Lorrie Otto Seeds for Education Grant: Program is currently suspended but if it resumes, applications will be available in July with a deadline of October 15, 2021 at midnight. The resources below include lists of the organizations, some of which are mentioned above, as well as many more whose deadlines have already passed. Some of the organizations are included in more than one of these sources listed below: * From Community Groundworks: Links to 18 grant opportunities plus links to resources about implementing school gardens. * From KidsGardening: Links to 20 grants that fund school gardens. Also offers a newsletter with free gardening activities for students. Having worked as an agricultural extension agent in the Peace Corps, I know well the joys of planting something and watching it grow. And although a school garden involves a lot of initial work, the benefits it brings to ELLs and all students is, as Helen Mirren affirms, certainly worth it.
KidsGardening offers a variety of grants to new and existing youth garden programs across the nation.
For a $5,000 per school budget, here are the top outdoor classroom features districts should prioritize.
Create a fun & beautiful outdoor learning environment. Transform your yard into outdoor classroom, science lab & backyard adventure for kids.
Last year, I started a garden at our school in a small town in Northern New York as part of a program out of Cooperative Extension. I was nominated to lead a 4-H group at a meeting I didn’t …
Every child can garden. Here are 25 ways to get kids gardening.
Get your kids involved in the garden this year with these simple and fun garden crafts for kids! They will LOVE them!
Share the Sweetness2633 5 64SharesWelcome to Toddler School! Cash & Wyatt are on another educational adventure together. For this unit, Cash is 2.5 and Wyatt is 15 Months. We will be taking the Hooligans outside and broadening our home school preschool classroom horizons. I’m Kandice, former special education and kindergarten educator turned full-time mom. You can read… Read More Composting for Kids | A Complete Toddler School Unit
A curation of resources on how to build a tippy tap which can efficiently increase access to frequent handwashing outdoors in schools.
Explore The School Garden Project's 12 photos on Flickr!
Beginning a school garden with a limited budget calls for creativity. Learn money-saving suggestions for a school garden including finding community resources, where to search online for cheap or free garden tools, acquiring and starting seeds, and best practices for buying compost in bulk.
Learn how to plan with your children in mind when deciding on a garden design.
One of the most rewarding STEM activities is when students can take a design and bring it to life in a real-world setting! Designing a school garden is the epitome of the STEM design experience that will leave a lasting impact and provide learning opportunities for years to come. We just completed t
Back in May, one of my co-workers shared a school-wide project idea that went viral on social media from Scarymommy.com. The project was a rock garden inspired by the book "Only One You" by Linda Kranz, and decorated the landscaping of Sharon Elementary School in Newburgh, Indiana. The garden was the idea of Jessica Moyes, who is the art teacher at Sharon Elementary. Jessica, your design has inspired multiple schools to create their own rock gardens within their own schools. Our school's parents were even sending links of this project to the principal requesting the garden! There's few posts from other bloggers and teachers talking about their rock garden installations at their schools. I'd love to share our story, along with the methods used in gathering materials, containing painting with K-6, incorporating all staff, and how to complete the installation. The Materials Thanks to Streamline Landscaping in Willow Springs, IL, we receive a few buckets of smooth rocks to use for our rock garden! The landscapers even came by to see how we were doing with creation, and donated even more larger stones for each class and department in the school. We also received a donation of acrylic paint and markers from Oriental Tradings! The donated materials really helped with supply management! Here's the materials you need to complete this project: 1. Lots and lots of rocks. Consider calling a local landscaping company and ask for a donation. The rock size can be your choice. 2. Table clothes. This was a life saver for all 31 of my classes who painted (700+ students). 3. Paper towels and paper plates. Tear up sections of paper towels for students to keep under their rocks while painting. Paper plates make it 100% easier to manage the paint messes and clean-ups. 4. A copy of "Only One You" by Linda Kranz. Easily found on Amazon, or other book sellers. 5. Acrylic paint. As much as it's scary working with acrylic at K-1 ages, it's the only paint that will stay on the rocks over time. Some acrylics paint on a little transparent, while others will be more opaque. Again, your choice. Here's the link to the acrylic paint used from Oriental Trading. 6. Paint brushes, cups, and water. 7. Permanent markers. If you photograph all artworks for Artsonia, or need to know who made what rock for grading, use permanent markers for students to write their names. Oh...and add room numbers too. It really helps with organizing. If you use markers for details, keep in mind that markers do fade over time. Here's the link to the sharpie marker set from Oriental Trading. 8. Acrylic clear coat. In order for the paint to stay as long as it can on the rocks in outdoor weather, you need to spray all the finished rocks with a clear coat for protection. For a safety note, make sure you spray outdoors and after school hours, because this smell can draft down the hallways. 9. Bins for storage. This is going to be heavy! For transporting from classroom to garden set-up, make sure you have plastic, durable bins to use for organization and transportation. 10. Aprons or old shirts. If you're doing this project with young students, you need clothing protection. The Objective The purpose of creating a community project was to have student leave a "footprint" in the school. The positive message in the final pages of the book is "There is only one you in this great, big world...make it a better place." All the students from grades K-6 were read the book and took in the words of wisdom shared. Each student painted their own "fish" rock with their own colors and patterns. The Project I allotted two full weeks for all classes to complete their rocks. Each of my classes are 40 minutes in length, and visit once a week. Prior to starting the painting, I sent a note home to each student explaining the project and materials being used. Since we had so many younger grade levels, I made a huge recommendation to parents to have their children bring an art shirt to school or an apron to protect their clothing. One parent donated a box of plastic aprons, which really helped with the younger grade levels! The teachers even helped with mentioning the extra art shirt in their weekend newsletters, which really helped!!! For prepping, I set up a plate of colors for each table. If I made the plates last longer than two classes, I called it a success. Kindergarten classes only received 5 colors (red, blue, yellow, green, white) because no matter what you do, the plates only last about 10 minutes of pure colors. Once the students see that colors mix, the plate very quickly turned to brown. On the first day of class, the book was read and we had a small discussion about the wisdom shared and how they can help in creating a garden for the school. For the rest of the class, the students painted their rocks. I organized drying areas for each class by placing colored paper and a painted large rock with the class name on it. When students finished painting, they placed their rocks on a paper labeled with their class. Students were also asked to sign a class rock that their fish will swim around. Since Kindergarten and 1st grade finished quickly, they were only given one day to work on the rocks. Afterwards, I glued a google eye to the fish. (The google eyes will not stay on for more than a few weeks. It's good for the beginning pictures, but it will not last forever with a glue gun.) On the second day of the project, grades 2-6 used permanent markers to trace out eyes, mouth, patterns, fins, and details in their rocks. Since this step only takes about 5-10 minutes to complete, I found worksheets on Linda Kranz's website that students colored and filled out. The worksheets can be found here. Remember when I said that departments also receive a rock? I painted fish rocks for the front office (administrators, nurses, secretaries), lunchroom, custodians, Title 1, ELL, Special Education, and Specials! They're mixed in with the class rocks below ready for installation! Now the fun part...getting over 7 bins of rocks and large river rock into the courtyard! With lots of helping hands, we transported all the pebbles to the courtyard so I could spray them with the acrylic clear coat. The custodians were also very helping in clearing out an area in our courtyard before installation! And the sign has been made... On the day of installation, students and staff were invited to participate in the installation process. ALMOST DONE!!!! And here's the finished project! Our school has been passing around the golden pineapple award for teachers sharing positive events in our school, and on the day the garden was being installed, a student dropped this award off in my classroom! Totally excited and honored to have this award for this project! It's for the entire school for their participation!!! SaveSave
FREE Kids Gardening Curriculum for youth. These gardening lessons for children are a fun and educational program for kids to learn gardening.
