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!

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!

May School Garden Ideas

It's the beginning of May, which means its time for Monthly 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.

Here are just a few ideas for the month of May.  Enjoy! And share your suggestions below.

• May: National Salad Month--Celebrate salads and fruits and vegetables.  Highlight a new fruit and vegetable each week.  Have students research the origins of fruits and vegetables.  Enjoy a salad with fresh fruits and vegetables.

• May: National Hamburger Month--In a unique spin to this monthly celebration, teach students that all of our food comes from soil and the Earth.  Break down the elements of the a hamburger and trace them to the soil.  (Example: Hamburger>Beef>Cow>Grass>Soil; or Bun: Flour>Wheat>Soil).  Listen to the song "Dirt Made My Lunch."

• May 2-8: Compost Awareness Week--Start a classroom composting project.  (Check out these website for helpful resources Journey to Forever or The Adventures of Herman the Worm)

• May 2-8: National Postcard Week: Find a school garden in another state and exchange postcards.  Tell each other about your garden and what you are planting.

• May 2-8: Teacher Appreciation Week: Thank you teachers for everything you do! Thank you for starting school gardens and changing the lives of your students!

• May 4: Bird Day--Make birdhouses or birdfeeders for your garden.  Talk about the types of birds that will visit your garden.

• May 4: National Weather Observers' Day--What is the weather like in your garden?  Draw a picture!

• May 7: National Family Child Care Provider's Day: Thank you child care providers for everything you do! Thank you for starting school gardens and for changing the lives of your children!

• May 9: Mother's Day: Celebrate mom! Invite her to your garden.  Decorate a container and plant mom's favorite fruit or veggie. 

• May 20: Pick Strawberries Day--Although it may be a bit early to pick strawberries in Wisconsin, you can still have a strawberry-themed day.  Have students wear red, eat strawberries for a snack, make strawberry smoothies, draw pictures of strawberries, or read a book about strawberries.

• May 23-30: National Backyard Games Week: Play games in your garden! Do a relay race, go on a scavenger hunt, or simply enjoy being in your garden!

What school garden activities do you have planned for May?

Activity: Farmers Market

In this activity, students will practice their addition and subtraction skills.

Materials

• Fruits and vegetables (either real, plastic, or pictures)
• Price tags
• Budget or play money for students
• Shopping list or recipe (optional)

Activity

• Set up your classroom like a farmers market so that each student's desk sells a different fruit or vegetable.
• Create price tags or signs with the price of each of the fruits and vegetables.
• Have the students rotate between being shoppers and farmers.
• When students are shoppers, give them play money and have them figure out what they can purchase at the market.  Shoppers can also use a shopping list or recipe so that they have some direction on what they can purchase.
• When the students are farmers, they must calculate the appropriate change for the shoppers.
• Have the students rotate between being shoppers and farmers.
• When you are finished, use the fruits and vegetables for a snack.

Extensions

• Using copies of a grocery store's weekly flyer have students figure out what healthy foods they can purchase for a designated dollar amount.  Have students describe how much they spent, how much money they had left over, and why they chose the foods that they did.
• Have students complete the Grocery Shopping Worksheet.

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!