November School Garden Ideas

Peanut Butter Lover’s Month: Make “ants on a log” with your students. All you need is celery stalks, peanut butter, and raisins. Simply cut the celery sticks in half, spread peanut butter in the center, and place raisins on top! A healthy and fun snack that is sure to please everyone!

Native American Heritage Month: Take some time to learn about Native American cuisine. Did you know that the staple foods of the Eastern Woodlands Native Americans were corn, beans, and squash? Fruits and vegetables were also used medicinally and for dye. Try making a vegetable dyed shirt with your class. (See instructions in previous blog posts)

American Diabetes Month: A new study published in a British Medical Journal has found that eating high amounts of green leafy vegetables helps significantly reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

Nov. 14-20: American Education Week: A big thank you goes out to all the educators who try to provide every child with a quality education.

Nov. 1: Electric Light Bulb Patented: Try making a potato battery to light a LED light. It’s a great science experiment. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/g2CL3

National Family Literacy Day: Read a book such as “Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden” by George Levenson.

Nov. 2: Cookie Monster’s B-Day: Things have changed from when most of us were kids. Cookie Monster has changed his tune since 2006, showing awareness of healthy eating habits for kids. He has said that cookies are a “sometime snack” and that he also loves fruits and vegetables.

Election Day: Don’t forget to vote!

Nov. 3: Sandwich Day: Have students write a descriptive story about their favorite type of sandwich.

Nov. 7: Daylight Savings Time Ends: Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour.

Nov. 15: America Recycles Day: Recycling is more than just separating plastic and paper when it comes to your school garden. Hold a discussion about the importance of composting and consider starting your own compost!

Nov. 17: Take a Hike Day: Get active! Take a walk around the block, hike some nature trails, and just run, skip, jump, and play for the day.

Nov. 23: Eat a Cranberry Day: Visit a cranberry bog or invite a cranberry grower to come speak with your class. Did you know that Wisconsin cranberry growers annually harvest enough cranberries to supply every man, woman and child in the world with 26 cranberries?

Nov. 25: Thanksgiving Day: Enjoy this special holiday with your family! Consider having a locally grown thanksgiving meal.

What garden activities do you have planned for the month of November? Share them below!

Veggie Swap

School gardens offer a wonderful opportunity to connect with community members. 

Consider hosting your own Veggie Swap featuring the fresh produce from your garden.  Invite nearby school gardens and local and family gardeners to harvest the fresh produce from their garden and come together for a fun gardening event.

Gardeners can share and swap their produce.  Parents and students can create a pot luck with the fresh produce and celebrate your harvest.

This is the perfect opportunity to try a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and share your bountiful harvest. It can also be an inspirational evening of learning gardening advice and tips for the next gardening season.

Best of all, your students will realize that they are a part of a larger gardening community and their eyes will be opened to even more fruits and veggies.

Check out the map of school gardens in Wisconsin to find a fellow gardener near you.  If you have a school garden and aren't featured on the map, let us know and we'll gladly add your school garden!

100th Post & Photos of Sand Lake Elementary's Garden

This entry marks GotDirtWi's 100th blog post!  What better way to celebrate than with pictures of a school garden!

Fourth grade students from Sand Lake Elementary, in Holmen, Wisconsin, created an in-ground garden with their Got Dirt? grant.  They started some plants indoors and then transplanted them into the new garden.  Check out all of their hard work!

(Starting plants in the classroom)

(Measuring out the garden)

(Getting ready to transplant)

(Working hard!)

June School Garden Ideas

At the beginning of each month, the Got Dirt? WI blog features a variety of month-specific ways to incorporate your school garden into your classroom.


June means growing season here in Wisconsin.  As your garden begins to burst with produce, incorporate some of these garden activities to keep children excited and interested in the growing process!

June:  National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month--What a fabulous theme for the month! Celebrate an entire month of fruits/vegetables from the garden or visit your local farmers' market for more fresh produce.  Try something new each week and broaden your students' horizons.  They may be surprised at what they like!

June 5: World Environment Day--Celebrate environments near and far.  Compare and contrast the environment in your backyard to the environment in another part of the world.  How does the environment impact what you can/cannot grow in your garden?  Draw pictures of what it would look like outside the window at a school in another part of the world.  Hang these windows to the world around your classroom.

June 6: National Gardening Exercise Day--Have fun with this day and take your students outside to run, skip, jump and play in the garden.  They can imitate a plant growing by standing tall and stretching high.  Have students create a garden relay race.  Use a vegetable as a baton or have students balance a vegetable on a spoon.  No matter the activity, have students go outside and enjoy playing among fruits and vegetables!

June 10: Iced Tea Day--Take a break from all that watering, weeding, and gardening to enjoy a nice, cold glass of iced tea!

June 13: Weed Your Garden Day--Make today a work day in the garden.  Teach students the difference between weeds and plants.  Recruit volunteer to give your garden a good weeding so that you have a bountiful harvest!

June 15: Fly a Kite Day--Get outside and enjoy the summer by flying a kite!

June 16: Fresh Veggies Day--A perfect opportunity to pick vegetables from your garden and enjoy a summer snack!  If your vegetables aren't quite ready to be harvested, have each student bring a different type of vegetable to share at snack time.  Find out students' favorite fresh veggie snack!

June 17: Eat Your Vegetables Day--Another wonderful chance to have students try new and unfamiliar vegetables.  Have students tally all the vegetables they ate for the day.  Create a graph as a class to find out the most popular and/or most unusual vegetables eaten.

June 18: International Picnic Day--Go on a picnic with your class.  You can pack healthy foods from your garden or go on your picnic in the garden.  There's nothing like eating among fruits and veggies!

June 20: Father's Day--Give Dad a hug!

June 21: First Day of Summer

June 25: Eric Carle's Birthday--Read Eric Carle's The Tiny Seed, which beautifully illustrates the lifecycle of a plant.


What garden activities do you have planned for the month of June? Share them below!

Great School Garden Resource

While searching the web for school garden resources, I stumbled upon Florida Bureau of Curriculum and Instruction's website.  Not only does Florida's Board of Education support school gardens but they have a fabulous list of resources for educators.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I encourage you to check out their website for inspiration.

In particular, I loved the page about lesson plans.  One of my favorite ideas--the "Mix-A-Salad" Game--was in the "Team Nutrition Fruits and Vegetables Lesson Plans for Preschool Children."

1. Children stand in a circle to form a pretend bowl.
2. Each child is given a picture of a fruit or vegetable.
3. The leader says "I'm going to make a salad...and in my salad I am going to have _________ (name of a fruit or vegetable) that is _________ (say an action). 
• Suggested actions include:
• Twirling
• Jumping
• Running
• Hopping
• Waving
• Flying
• Dancing
• Clapping
• Kicking
• Rolling their arms
• Walking on tip-toes
• Splashing
4. After 3-4 fruits and vegetables are called, the leader says "Let's stir up the salad!" Then all those in the center scramble around, and all those forming the bowl make stirring motions until the leader says, "Stop! Let's eat."
5. All the children fall down, rub their tummies, and say "Yum, that was a good salad!" 
6. Play again calling different fruits or vegetables to the salad bowl.

What a fun and wonderful activity!

Thanks Florida Board of Education for the great resources and for your support of school gardens!

Field Trips and Local Produce

So you've planted your school garden and you're waiting for your fruits ands veggies to grow...what to do now? 

This is the perfect time to take your students on a field trip to a local garden, farm, or nature center.  Check out the following websites for field trip ideas near you. 

 

• Wisconsin Garden Websites 
• Wisconsin Public Gardens
• Wisconsin Nature Centers and Environmental Education Centers

The Farm Fresh Atlas is another great resource for inspiration for a field trip or to find local produce to use in your classroom.  Check out their website for a farm or retailer near you!

• Farm Fresh Atlas

April School Garden Ideas

At the beginning of each month, the Got Dirt? WI blog features a variety of month-specific ways to incorporate your school garden into your classroom.

April is full of gardening related holidays.   Use some of these ideas below to celebrate your garden.  And don't be afraid to share your own ideas!

• April: National Gardening Month: Celebrate a whole month's worth of gardening related activities.  Visit the National Gardening Association's website for some ideas. 

• April: National Mathematics Education Month: Math and gardening go hand-in-hand.  Measure the heights of plants.  Plant some seeds and estimate how many will grow.  Figure out the percentage of plants that grew.  Use fruits and veggies to demonstrate fractions.  Identify the shapes of the fruits and vegetables.  Estimate the area of a leaf.  Map out your garden and calculate its area.  The possibilities are endless!

• April: Children and Nature Awareness Month:  The goals for this year's events are first to "encourage parents to form their own Nature Clubs for Families.  And second, to invite grandparents and older outdoor enthusiasts to do their part to reconnect children and nature."  For a complete list of events in your area and for some great online resources for teachers, visit the Children and Nature Network's website. 

• April: National Humor Month: Tell gardening and fruit/vegetable jokes and riddles.  For example, What types of vegetables do you find written on a piece of music?  Give up?  Two Beets!

• April 3: Find a Rainbow Day: You may not be able to find a rainbow in the sky on "Find a Rainbow Day" but you can find one in your garden.  Have students identify fruits/veggies that match the colors of the rainbow.

• April 4-10: Garden Week: Have a whole week dedicated to gardening.  Celebrate your garden and start some plants indoors.  Invite a Master Gardener Volunteer to visit your classroom to talk about gardening.

• April 14: Look Up at the Sky Day: Go out to your garden and stare at the clouds.  Have students use their imagination to identify shapes in the clouds.  Drwa a picture of your garden and glue cotton balls to the paper for the clouds.  Don't forget to use this as an opportunity to teach what plants need to grow. 

• April 22: Earth Day:  Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day by finding ways to help your environment.  Have students sign a pledge to be good stewards of the Earth.

• April 23: National Zucchini Bread Day: Although it's a bit early in Wisconsin to use zucchini from the garden, this is still a great opportunity to cook with fresh produce.  As a class, make zucchini bread and discuss fractions, measurement, and the importance of following a recipe in the right order.  Perhaps this will inspire you to grow zucchini in your garden!

• April 23-25: Global Youth Service Days: Participate in community service.  Donate time to your school or community garden.  Have students create a service project that starts your school garden.  It is a great way to get students involved and ensure that the project gets off the ground.  Check out your Got Dirt? Toolkit for more information about using school gardens as service learning opportunities.

• April 26-30: School Building Week: "Celebrating our nation's school and reinforcing the connection between school facilitates and student learning...School Building Week provides an opportunity to draw national attention to the importance of well planned, healthy, high performance, safe and sustainable schools that enhance student achieve and community vitality."  Click here for more information.  Use this week to evaluation the sustainability of your school and identify areas that need improvement.

• April 27: Tell a Story Day: Read garden and fruit and veggie stories and have children write their own stories.

• April 29: Greenery Day: A day in remembrance of the birthday of Japanese Emperor Hirohito.  The day is a time to commune with nature and be thankful.  Go outside and explore where you will put your garden.  Start to prepare your garden for planting.  Have students imagine what it will look like in the summer when everything is growing.  As a class, research some of the cultural differences between the United States and Japan (for example: what grows in a typical Japanese garden?).

There is plenty going on during the month of April.  What do you plan to do to celebrate these fun holidays?  Share your ideas below!

Activity: Got Dirt? T-Shirts

With this fun and easy activity, children will make their own Got Dirt? gardening t-shirts.  The t-shirts will be perfect to wear while working out in the garden.

Materials

• T-shirts
• Fabric paints
• Paint brushes, sponges, etc.
• Water
• Paper towels
• Permanent Marker

Activity

• Before having students decorate the t-shirt, write each child's name on the t-shirt using a permanent marker.
• Give each student a t-shirt, some fabric paints and paint brushes.
• Have each student decorate their t-shirt with pictures of fruits and vegetables that will be in the garden.
• Don't forget to have them write "Got Dirt?" on the t-shirt!
• Place the completed t-shirts in a safe place to dry before wearing.

After decorating the t-shirts, students can wear them while working in the garden.  Students will enjoy wearing the t-shirts and parents will like that the students' regular clothes aren't getting muddy!


Work Cited:
Thumb Print Garden T-Shirts

Activity: Seed & Spoon Race

We can all remember doing an egg and spoon race as a child where we frantically ran back and forth trying  not to let our delicate egg topple to the floor. 

In a garden twist to this classic game, the egg is replaced with seeds. 

Materials

• Spoons
• Bowls
• Seeds [Note: Choose larger seeds, such as sunflower, pumpkin, or bean seeds, so that they are easier to clean up]

Activity

• Divide the class into teams.
• Give each team a spoon and one bowl filled with seeds.
• Have the teams line up on one side of the room.
• Place an empty bowl across the room from each team.
• Instruct one player from each team to scoop a spoonful of seeds and carefully run/walk across the room to dump them into his/her team's empty bowl.  If the student drops any seeds, he/she has to start over.
• After the team member puts the seeds in the bowl, he/she returns to the team and hands the spoon to the next player.
• The first team to complete the relay race with the most seeds in their bowl wins.

Alternative

• Instead of seeing who can dump the most seeds into his/her team's bowl, have students take a spoonful of seeds and, in a more traditional egg/spoon race fashion, transfer the seeds between teammates.  Each player must run/walk to one side of the room and back and then transfer the seeds to the next player.  The team that completes the relay race the fastest with the most seeds wins.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

In honor of St. Patrick's Day I thought I would post some Irish blessings/quotes.  Enjoy!

"May your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow,

And my trouble avoid you wherever you go."

"May you always find three welcomes...

In a garden in the summer,

At a fireside during the winter,

and whatever the day of the season,

In the kind eyes of a friend."

"There's a dear little plant that grows in our isle,

'Twas St. Patrick himself, sure, that sets it;

And the sun of his labor with pleasures did smile,

And with dew from his eyes often wet it.

It grows through the bog, through the brake through the mireland,

Andy they call it the dear little Shamrock of Ireland."

"For each petal of the shamrock

This brings a wish your way,

Good health, good luck and happiness

For today and every day."

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Activity: Veggie Twister!

This fun activity teaches kids about their fruits and vegetables and is a great form of physical activity.  In a "twist" to the classic game, students have fun and learn to identify their fruits/veggies.

Materials

• Colored pictures of red, yellow, orange and green fruits and veggies
• Examples:
• Red: apples, strawberries, tomatoes, cherries, tomatoes
• Yellow: bananas, corn, lemons, pineapple
• Orange: pumpkin, orange, carrots, cantaloupe
• Green: lettuce, celery, asparagus, broccoli, cucumbers
• Clear shower curtain
• Tape
• Poster board
• Markers
• Scissors
• Brad

Preparation

1. Print out images of fruits and vegetables so that there are four images of each color
2. Tape the images to the clear shower curtain in a grid pattern.  [See below]

3. Create the spinner using poster board [See below]
• Cut a 12 x 12 inch square out of poster board
• With the marker, divide the poster board into four sections labeled: Right Hand, Left Hand, Right Leg, Left Leg
• In each quadrant, draw four circles representing the four colors of the fruits and veggies
• Cut an arrow out of poster board and attach using the brad

Activity

1. Lay the shower curtain on the floor with the images facing up
2. Each time, spin the spinner to identify which body part goes on which color (Example: "Right hand yellow")
3. Have each student shout out the name of the fruit/veggie they place their hand/foot on (Example: "Corn!")
4. If a student falls onto the mat or their knee or elbow touches the mat, they are eliminated
5. Continue until only one student remains

Alternative

• Other types of images can be used on the mat.  For example: Use images of various parts of the plant or items from the food pyramid. 

March School Garden Ideas

At the beginning of each month, the Got Dirt? WI blog will feature a variety of month-specific ways to incorporate your school garden into your classroom.

It's the beginning of March, which means spring is on its way! Below are some suggestions for incorporating a garden into your classroom for the month of March.

• March 1-May 3: The Great American Cleanup--A time to beautify parks and recreation areas, plant trees and flowers, and pick up litter.  Take this time to clean up your local park or start to prepare your outdoor garden for planting.

• March 11: Johnny Appleseed Day--Read a story about Johnny Appleseed and have an apple-themed day.  Taste different types of apples, discuss how apples grow, and make apple art!

• March 17: St. Patrick's Day--You may have heard of a fairy garden, but why not create a leprechaun garden!  Think miniature! Have children imagine the leprechauns in the garden and write a story about their mischievous ways!

• March 20: National Agriculture Day--Discuss Agriculture in Wisconsin.  Invite a farmer or gardener to visit your class.  Have students eat food made in Wisconsin.  Discuss all of the ways that agriculture impacts us daily.

• March 26: Make Up Your Own Holiday Day--Have students brainstorm ideas for a new holiday and what they would do to celebrate it.  Get creative and use it as a day to celebrate your garden!

• March 30: Take a Walk in the Park Day--Go for a walk and identify different types of plants.  Identify trees and their plant parts.  Walk through your garden and have students plan what they want to plant.

Do you have ideas on how to incorporate a garden into the classroom? We'd love to hear your ideas! Share below!

Garden Songs

This great website features gardening related songs and finger plays for young children.  The lyrics are adorable and would perfect for teaching young children about gardening and what plants need to grow. 

Here's just one example:

I'll plant a little seed in the dark, dark ground.
Out comes the yellow sun, big and round.
Down comes the cool rain, soft and slow.
Up comes the little seed, grow, grow, grow!

Check out the website and enjoy!

Garden Jokes and Riddles

It's a bit snowy outside today, so to lighten the mood and make you smile here are a few gardening and fruit/vegetable jokes and riddles for you  to enjoy and share with your class...

• What vegetable do you need a plumber for?
• A leek!

• What gets bigger the more you take away?
• A hole!

•  Why do potatoes make good detectives?
• Because they keep their eyes peeled!

• What vegetable can you throw away the outside, cook the inside, eat the outside and throw away the inside?
• Corn!

• Why did the banana go to the doctor?
• Because it wasn't peeling well!

More jokes and riddles to come!

In the meantime, we'd all love a chuckle...share your favorite jokes and riddles below!


*Today's riddles and jokes courtesy of http://www.mrsmegabyte.com/garden6.html , http://www.freshforkids.com.au/jokes/jokes.html, and http://www.gardendigest.com/humor.htm