Growing Together: Open Forum

Would any of you be willing to share how you structure your garden time with students? Is it an open time or students can move through the space? Do they have stations?

I wanna mix things up a little bit from what I've been doing and would love to hear different formats to follow?

thanks in advance. 

Hi Lara-

What age students do you work with?  

Shauna Farmer

Chapel Hill, NC

Got it.  I work with middle school kids, so quite a different group.  What I've noticed across all groups (elementary, middle, adults) though is that a time for independent exploration and observation followed by discussion is often welcome.  The Teaching in Nature's Classroom course (https://www.teachinginnaturesclassroom.org/) introduced me to the prompts "I notice..." (to teach/encourage observation)," I wonder.." (to teach asking questions), and "It reminds me of..." (to teach making connections), and when kids seem stuck or overwhelmed, these can help get discussions started.  Even if we just start a session with 5 minutes of independent observation without much discussion (never enough time!), the students are more grounded to the space and ready to proceed.

I should note that I am a volunteer, and my background is healthcare, not teaching, so a lot of I've learned about working with kids has been learned from the excellent teachers I volunteer for!

Hi, Lara.

I'm a parent volunteer at a TK-8 school garden in West San Jose. 

When younger grades visit the garden, we might form a circle (perhaps around a giant pumpkin) and talk a bit or do a follow-the-leader walk through the garden where kids observe but don't touch. Students end up sitting in the outdoor classroom space for 5-10 minutes of interactive instruction from the teacher and/or me. Then, we typically break up into four groups and rotate stations (e.g. planting carrots, watering plants, exploring the garden, digging for insects, reading garden books, coloring).

My first year was just a crazy year of learning. Tried doing too much. Last year I had A & B days. A - classroom lesson - May be garden related or STEM related, since we're a STEM school. B - Garden work - prepping, planting, cultivating, harvesting, weeding, etc. This year I am going to add a third rotation. With grant money that I received I purchased garden curriculum from Junior Master Gardener. The C rotation will now be garden lesson which could include garden time as well. 

All my classes start out with a reminder of the class expectations. I would assign what we were doing and then take them outside to get started. I found it was a lot to keep track of with so many areas being worked. I feel adding in stations and garden work as one of them will be easier. Let's see how this year goes.

Maria, Thanks for your response.  It's always an evolving thing, isn't it?  Each year building upon the last…trying to simplify and improve at the same time.  Wishing you a  great year.

Lara

Hi Lara,

I often do stations where students rotate around from activity to activity. Ideally these are stations that they have repetitive experiences in like watering, compost sifting, weather log, seed saving, sweeping, deadheading flowers, and monitoring the compost. Kind of like caretaking chores. These are stations that we usually just do at start of a garden day or for early finishers. I like the caretaking chores cause some engage the students as scientists and others help care for the garden.

If we are doing stations that are new to them we usually have to model all the activities before they set off to do them. 

I have documented many of the stations I have done here

https://www.lifelab.org/resources/garden-stations

There is also link to a presentation on more stations that I have done over the years.

John Fisher - Life Lab