Last week students from Wendall Phillips Elementary, in the Kansas City Public School District, planted their eight raised beds with fall vegetables. The garden is used by the 3rd – 6th grade classes, each classroom chose two or three vegetables to plant in their raised bed.
Students entered the garden ready to learn and get dirty. Students brought notebooks with them and recorded their observations of the soil, the insects they found in the soil and the tools and processes they used to plant the garden.
One 5th grade class found a surprise in their bed…. Sweet potatoes! Many of the sweet potato vines had died and weeds had covered the bed, but we were always excited to find an unexpected treasure under the soil.
Each classroom will take responsibility for their own raised bed. They will weed, water and harvest throughout the fall as well as continue to observe and record the garden.
Way to be a great example of how gardens can be great teaching tools!
