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How does your garden help kids care for each other?

  • 1.  How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-26-2022 12:05:00 PM

    Last week of the Kids Garden Month celebration and last chance to win a prize package of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day products, seeds, gloves, and more!


    I'm really excited to see the responses to this week's prompt! As always, thank you to everyone who has participated throughout the month. Your responses illustrate so many ways that gardening has a profound impact on our lives.


    This week's topic: How does your garden/gardening help kids care for each other?



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    Amelia Dupuis
    Kids Garden Community Manager
    KidsGardening
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  • 2.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-26-2022 02:07:00 PM
    Our garden club is made up of a diverse group of girls and guys that usually probably wouldn't hang out together.  By working together in the garden, I have seen them practice cooperation and decision-making skills.  I've also seen them help each other when someone wasn't available to water their garden or needed help carrying a heavy water bucket or even help weed each other's beds if they had spare time.  What has surprised me most is that usually they volunteer to help each other without any prompting -- they are looking out for each other and care about the success of each other's garden beds.

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    Eliza Mantooth
    Science Teacher
    Gulf Coast Academy of Science and Technology
    Spring Hill, Florida
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-26-2022 02:10:00 PM
    Our middle school students are eagerly setting up for our plant giveaway day where they will share over 500 vegetable, herb and flower starters for our community to plant in their gardens over the summer. A large part of our plant donation will also go to our local YMCA and their "Giving Garden" where produce will be offered to food pantries and communities. Our student volunteers how learned these past few months how some seeds, soil and their efforts can help so many this year.
    https://twitter.com/SekingerN/status/1518296342585565186?s=20&t=F9cGx9A8mmvwL7i-7I6VSQ

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    Nathan Sekinger
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-26-2022 02:11:00 PM
    I watch our School Garden help kids care for each other in their volunteering to serve their school community with help planting and harvesting.
    I see kids care for each other as they teach each other the skills that they have learned and take pride in while respecting our outdoor space and nature.
    I witness kids caring for each others as they clean up litter around our school campus, because we care.
    I am blessed to work with volunteers, students and staff that help care for each other by pitching in on a long task list to make our School Garden GROW!!

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    Karla Geiger
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-26-2022 02:50:00 PM
    When we spend time in the garden, I see my students help each other.  They help with planting, weeding and watering.  I see students being kinder with each other, letting others go first, using kind and encouraging words, and helping their friends be kind to the plants growing in the garden.  All of the classroom drama just kind of melts away and we are left with some amazing and loving kiddos!

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    JACQUELINE LACEY
    Kimbark Elementary School
    San Bernardino CA
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-26-2022 03:06:00 PM
    In my position of AgStream teacher this year, many great things have blossomed.  Our raised beds are mended and thriving with herbs, pollinators, natural grasses, strawberries, and cold crops. Our learning trail includes the garden area and gives the community a place to exercise and relax.  We are so thankful for our community partners that have worked so hard this past year to ensure that our students have what they need to be successful. Students are learning about the journey of food from the farm to their homes, tried and tasted new things, and processed garden harvests for eating (ex- apples into applesauce) Throughout this year students have worked in the garden without complaint.  They help each other and are kind to one another.  It makes this teacher's heart very happy to send the bonds that have "bloomed" in the garden.

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    Becky Dennis
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-26-2022 03:14:00 PM
    With our spring school library project, Plant a Salad/Flower Garden, we noticed that students are planting in pairs, helping take care of each other's seedlings. Several high schoolers call themselves plant parents and like planting as a group. It's rather wonderful to see and hear. I come in on longer weekends to water since I live close. I will see if I can pass the watering torch to select students over the summer for those plants replanted outside near the garden. Plant parents unite!

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    TLC (Tracey) Nielsen
    Grayslake Community HS District 127
    Grayslake IL
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-26-2022 05:37:00 PM
    The children work together to care for the garden. They share tools, and plants, take turns and use caring language. The teacher talks about caring for the plants and how the plants need water and sunshine to grow strong and healthy. She then talks about what the children need to grow strong and healthy. She also talks about how certain plants need other plants to grow. The plants work together just like the children in a classroom need to work together.

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    PATRICE FARQUHARSON
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-26-2022 09:21:00 PM
    How does your garden/gardening help kids care for each other? 

    Our school garden is a place where a see students work together as they tend the garden. Some specific examples include;
    • The time one student ended up with an itchy rash after harvesting okra, and his fellow garden classmates showed concern and helped him.
    • The time a student was sad that a plant she had planted was not doing so well, and a fellow garden student, encouraged her, and helped her plant a new plant.
    • Very often students will form small groups of 2 or 3 in the garden to perform tasks together. It is wonderful to see them working together to complete a task, while they talk and laugh.
    • Our program includes students cooking and eating what they have grown in the garden, and I often see students care for each other as they try new foods. Sometime a student is reluctant to try a new food, but with encouragement from fellow students, sometimes they give it a try.
    • Harvesting produce is a wonderful way for the students to care for others, by generously giving away what they grow.
    • Lastly, I believe that as students learn the discipline of caring for a garden, that this can and does carry over into their peer relationships.


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    Anne Baines
    Cornerstone Prep Academy
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    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-27-2022 10:27:00 AM
    Our garden class is made up of 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. The older children help the younger children by showing them all the ways to properly care for the garden and by encouraging the younger kids to not be afraid to try the various veggies that we grow.

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    donna Logan
    Penn State Master Gardener
    Erie PA
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    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-27-2022 11:23:00 AM
    The garden is a great way to draw a parallel between how fragile the plants are and how you have to take care of them and how it is important to be kind and caring with each other. That care will result in a much more peaceful schoolday (and great vegetables to share).

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    Gloria Wilson
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    Original Message


  • 12.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-27-2022 11:32:00 AM
    Within our garden club I have seen older siblings assist younger ones with various activities. Also, we sometimes have teen volunteers who assist children who are participating in the garden club.  However, I also see little ones helping each other, whether it's holding a cup while the other fills it with dirt, sharing watering duties, pointing out a new tomato growing, or picking something up that someone else has dropped. I like to think that these actions are partly due to learning how to take care of plants. Children learn that plants need sun, light, and water, and also that they are responsible for making sure their plants receive enough of, but not too much of, those things. They are able to see the results of their nurturing as their plants grow, which reinforces the fact that caring for others is a fruitful endavor.

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    Karen Stuppi
    Children's Librarian
    New Brunswick Free Public Library
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    Original Message


  • 13.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-27-2022 12:13:00 PM

    It's important to me to find ways for kids to feel engagement and ownership with growing and gardening. They are often so excited to see the results of their own efforts! Such enthusiasm helps kids develop connection with healthy foods, their communities, themselves and each other.

     

    Today, our gardening class took place in the rain. Our lesson was about transplanting.  Kids planted a dozen or more take-home container gardens with seedlings of their choice, including tomatoes, cukes, basil, parsley, onion, peppers, spinach and lettuce. Together, in a spontaneous, drippy, giggly, free flow 'assembly line,' we also transplanted 40 cherry tomatoes, 62 sweet red peppers, and 17 lettuces. Kids also sowed pots of seeds including nasturtiums, snap dragons, sunflowers and marigolds, as well as the 4 packets that arrived just before class in the mail from the Kids Gardening Project: poppies, Hubbard squash, tarragon & asters! (Sadly, we didn't get any photos of our rainy class yesterday. These photos are from today!)

     

    Our gardening project is becoming more collaborative all the time. As kids sow pots of seeds and watch them sprout to see so many, they are excited to transplant and share. Together, we are learning, seeing and feeling that we can grow food and flowers together, and that there is enough for everyone. Together, we are sowing community, confidence and knowledge - and having a whole heap of fun in the process!



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    Lisa Smith
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    Original Message


  • 14.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-28-2022 12:50:00 PM
    I've noticed that my middle school students will help each other water plants or work together to transplant plants. They share tools more readily. They are usually highly competitive with each other, but when we garden, they tend to assist each other and cooperate more. We seem to be on the same team for once. Perhaps caring for plants helps them develop compassion when working with each other.

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    Eleanor Mocker
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    Original Message


  • 15.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 04-29-2022 12:38:00 AM
    Time spent observing and working in our school gardens help students care for each other. Whether my students are jumping in a fresh pile of racked leaves, strolling through the pollinator garden looking for seed pods, or reading to one another, they are spending peaceful time together caring for their physical and emotional needs. We are planting seeds for a future of caring naturalists. Of course, I have many kids running through the rocks and yelling about their finds, but that's learning too.

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    Sarah Clancy
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    Original Message


  • 16.  RE: How does your garden help kids care for each other?

    Posted 05-09-2022 11:46:00 AM
    Sorry for the delayed response to this last discussion from Kids Garden Month - @Anne Baines was selected as our last weekly winner! Even though Kids Garden Month is over, I hope that we all can continue to celebrate and uplift the benefits of gardening with kids all year. You all inspire me so much!!!!​

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    Amelia Dupuis
    Kids Garden Community Manager
    KidsGardening
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    Original Message


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