While the winter weather is keeping us indoors and away from our gardens, it’s not too early to begin thinking about what makes our plants grow. The following activity and discussion, adapted from Life Lab, can help your students begin to explore how their vegetable plants grow. Objective: To introduce the concept of photosynthesis. Time: […]
Snacks from the Schoolyard Garden – The Best Part of Growing Your Own Food!
The most exciting part of growing vegetables is getting to eat all the yummy veggies. While the Schoolyard Gardens team is partial to eating veggies straight from the garden, it’s fun to try them in a few inventive ways as well. Below are a few of our favorite kid-friendly recipes. All of these recipes require little […]
Why Schoolyard Gardens Need Winter
In the dead of winter, the cold can seem endless for teachers and students alike. Those warm, sunny days, like what we’ll experience this week, are often treasured during the bleak months of January and February, but as gardeners, we should be thankful for the cold, icy and snowy days that the winter brings! But […]
Preschool Gardening Spotlight: New Young Scholars
The New Young Scholars early learning center in Kansas City became a member of our Schoolyard Gardens program in the summer of 2016. With no real gardening experience in their background, the teachers were nervous but willing to learn how to grow a summer vegetable garden. Over the month of May, determined to keep their gardens […]
Great Garden-Themed Books and Activities to Break Out This Winter
Winter is officially here and trips to your schoolyard garden probably won’t be happening until you plant again in March. Keep your students interested and talking about the garden with some easy garden-themed activities you could do in the classroom. Discuss what your students did and did not enjoy about the garden and have the […]
Winter Doesn’t Slow Us Down
Our Schoolyard Gardens staff is often asked, “What happens during the winter?” Freezing temperatures and snow and ice may keep vegetables from growing, but there is still much to be done in January and February. Our staff uses these months to add soil amendments and compost to gardens, repair damaged beds, help schools expand their gardens, […]
This Winter, Make Garden Signs with Your Students to Prepare for the Growing Season!
Have you ever had trouble identifying plants in your garden, or forgotten what you planted in a bed? Plant markers help students and adults alike with vegetable identification. Rather than using the small plastic markers that can fall out or wash off, consider making larger, more permanent signs to make your schoolyard garden more informative […]
Season Extension Coming to Schoolyard Gardens!
Our schoolyard gardens team has worked creatively to fit the growing season into the school calendar. Unfortunately vegetable garden seasons do not fit into the typical academic year, so we try and work around this in a variety of ways! We encourage schools to plant crop varieties with shorter maturity times and have planted larger […]
Burke Elementary Schoolyard Garden Growing Strong for Seven Years
The vegetable garden at Burke Elementary in the Hickman Mills school district has continued to thrive over the last seven years thanks to the continued dedication of one teacher—Swapnam Kumar. Swapnam is a teacher for 4th grade English language learners. She is passionate about gardening and has partnered with KCCG since 2009, when the students […]
Indoor Celery Dye Experiment for the Classroom
As the weather turns cooler, and the days become shorter, it is hard to think about growing a vegetable garden! Both the soil and gardeners need the winter months to rest and replenish before the spring season. But winter and rest time can still excite students’ minds about the wonders of growing food! Use classroom time to […]