Quick Garden Lessons

Woodlawn Elementary School-Bell Garden, California
A new rotation brought some new smiling faces to the garden today! Transitional kindergarten and first grade learned the rules of the garden. Many of the garden’s rules are similar to those in the classroom. We talked about how the garden is like an outdoor classroom and as the children walked around we pointed out some differences as well.

The children were super surprised to find tomatoes growing in the garden.

They compared the tomato plants to plants that have tendrils to help climb and support themselves and also tasted sweet tomatoes and compared them to Swiss chard leaves.
The 5th graders in this new rotation are not new to the garden. I told the kids I will be challenging their thinking about the importance of growing food and food systems. Today after making observations in the garden, and asking a zillion questions, we sat down and wrote a super question about something they learned in the garden.

The kids then worked in pairs answering their questions and presenting them to the class and had a “fresh from the garden” snack for all their hard work! ~ alex