In keeping with Prices Fork Elementary School's literature-based garden program, the preschool class has been reading THE THREE LITTLE WOLVES AND THE BIG BAD PIG. They learned that the Big Bad Pig was mean and destroyed the little wolves' homes of brick, concrete, and steel. Finally, after building three houses, the wolves built a house of flowers. When the Big Bad Pig came to huff and puff and blow down the house, the sweet scent of the flowers caused a distinct behavior change! He became friendly and has "love in his eyes," as one preschooler said! The preschool class at Prices Fork Elementary School has been busy preparing to build their own flower house as part of the school garden.
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 | The Pizza Garden is the fourth-grader's garden project. The idea is to plant things that go into making a pizza. This year the children have planted vegetables, herbs, and flowers such as you see here. Also, the children tomatoes, squash, and peppers for the local YMCA. These vegetables will be planted for the elderly in the community who wish to have a garden but may not be able to manage it themselves. The students wrote why they wanted to help others in the community and here are a few examples of their responses. Currently, the children have their seeds in their classroom under grow lights and are recording when the seeds are planted, when they sprout, and in the future, will keep other records such as the date they were put in the pizza, and how long it for everything to grow. In the fall, the children will have their own pumpkins to harvest. What I hoped to accomplish was to get the children comfortable with planting and using their greenhouse so, in the future, the gardening program can be maintained by the children themselves. |
Each Tuesday afternoon I travel to Prices Fork Elementary School to help out with the kindergarten class and their weekly "Centers". During "Centers" the children are in small groups and they rotate between activities. I work with a mother of one of the children and our "Center" usually involves scientific experiments. This is very relative as horticulture encompasses not only plants but dirt, bugs, weather, and other environmental factors. Some of the topics we have discussed have been the weather, the seasons, dinosaurs, seeds, plants, and rocks. It is such a unique experience for me to spend time with young children each week, something most college age people don't get to do. And the kids probably teach me more than I am teaching them. The most amazing thing, which still gets me every time I go to kindergarten, is the amount of energy that is inside each and every child. Do we just naturally lose this as we grow up bigger and taller? Hmmmmmmm. . . .
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