Your curriculum is amazing. Thank you for the amount of detail you put into this post. It is extremely helpful.
Original Message:
Sent: 03-05-2024 02:32:21 PM
From: Laura Aprill
Subject: Sharing Summer Nature Curriculum
Here's a write-up of my garden activity planning for the summer. It's a lot, but hopefully helpful! We typically have 45 minute periods. Younger groups are K-1st grade, older 2nd-5th grade.
Growing a Garden 101
Composting
Introduction (5 minutes) What is composting? What kinds of things can be put into compost? What helps break down compost?
Garden compost (20 minutes)
We build it like a lasagna and then let it sit for a year. If we build it properly, it should get really hot inside (150-160 degrees!) and break down into compost we can use in the garden!
What do you see in the bottom layer?
Carbon-rich materials like shredded cardboard, hay, leaves, paper, napkins, sawdust, straw, and woodchips
What about the second layer?
Nitrogen-rich materials like vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, spoiled produce, young weeds
We need equal parts carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials
Microgreens compost (10 minutes)
Show the group the composting system we have for microgreens. Explain that since microgreens are so small, they break down faster, and we can use the compost to grow more microgreens.
Demonstrate how we turn the compost–why do we do this? Give each camper a chance to try to spin the barrel, mixing the compost.
(if you have time, have the group plant and/or taste microgreens)
Garden Taste Test Tour (10 minutes)
Garden Bugs: Good vs. Bad
What is an insect? (10 minutes)
To the tune of Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
Head (Point to head.)
Thorax (Point to chest.)
Abdomen – abdomen! (Point to stomach.)
Head, thorax, abdomen – abdomen!
Eyes (Point to eyes.)
And mouth (Point to mouth.)
Antennae (Stick 2 fingers up.)
And six legs (Wiggle 3 fingers on each hand.)
Head, thorax, abdomen – abdomen!
Optional: Leave off a verse each time you sing and hum.
What are the parts of an insect? Head, thorax, abdomen
What insects do you think you could find in the garden?
What are some bugs that are not insects that you might find in the garden (hint: they have more than 6 legs)? Pillbug (terrestrial crustacean/isopod), spider (arachnid), millipedes and centipedes (myriapods)
Go through examples of good bugs (predators, pollinators) and bad bugs (pests)
Older group (25 minutes)
Brainstorm ways to get rid of pests
Form groups of three or four. Each group will get a bucket of water with a little bit of soap.
Lead them to plants that commonly have pests (potato beetles/larvae, asparagus beetles/larvae, cabbage worms on brassicas). Have them look carefully for signs of damage and pests. If they find pests, have them pick them off and put them in their bucket.
If you aren't finding any pests, see what other bugs are around the garden. Hand out laminated sheets to see if they can identify them.
Younger group (25 minutes)
Go on a bug hunt around the garden
Hand out laminated bug sheets and tell the kids to look very carefully on leaves, on flowers, in the soil, etc.
Report back to the group with what you found
Garden Taste Test Tour (10 minutes)
Younger Groups: 6 Plant Parts
What are the 6 parts of a plant? (10 minutes)
Roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds
Draw diagram and have kids help label it
What does each part of the plant do?
6 Plant Part Yoga (10 minutes)
First you are a seed planted under the ground. It is very dark and you are waiting to grow.
Now feel the rain coming down (make raining motions with your hands). Now that the soil is wet, we can begin to grow our roots (have kids stick out one leg at a time). Pretend your legs/roots are soaking up the water and nutrients from the soil.
With enough water and nutrients, your stem can now grow. (Have them place their hands together and begin to slowly reach up). Now you've popped through the soil and can feel the sunlight. You grow taller and taller. (They should be standing now, with their arms stretched above their heads)
To collect the sun to make food for the plant, we need to grow some leaves. Spread your hands wide and hold your arms wide open to catch as much sunlight as possible. Can you feel the warmth of the sun on your leaves?
Once you've gathered enough sun to make food, you will have enough energy to make a flower. (have the kids form a circle around their faces with their arms) What a bright beautiful flower garden!
I hear some bees coming (have everyone buzz like a bee). They are here to pollinate the flowers. They will move the pollen around and collect nectar to make honey. As they move pollen around, the flowers can make fruits (have the kids pretend they are holding a fruit in their hands)
Now inside of these fruits are seeds. Let's take a bit of our fruit to see if we can find some. (Take a bit of your imaginary fruit. Pretend you found a seed in your mouth and pretend to spit it out.) ptooey!
Now the seed is in the ground (crouch back down into a ball) and the cycle of the seed will begin again
Guess that plant part game (10 minutes)
Hold up cards with pictures of fruits and vegetables
Have one hoola hoop representing each part of the plant
Have the kids guess the part of the plant by standing by the corresponding hoola hoop
Eat all 6 plant parts (15 minutes)
Older Groups: Pollination
What is pollination? (5 minutes)
Insects (bees, butterflies, flies, etc.), hummingbirds, wind
Pollinator profiles (everyone gets a card, find your partner, match animal cards to flower cards) (5 minutes)
Look for flowers and pollinators in the garden (10 minutes)
Play hoolahoop pollination game (15 minutes)
Garden Taste Test Tour (10 minutes)
Additional activities:
Introduction to Garden
Where does our food come from? (5 minutes)
What do gardens/seeds need to grow? (25 minutes)
Goals and Objectives
Review with students that all living things need nutrients (energy, food) and water to grow.
Talk about what a plant needs to grow (air, water, light, soil). Ask what happens if a plant gets too much or too little of any of these elements.
Compare to people's needs and point out that we need to eat food, drink water, and get adequate sleep to grow.
Supplies Needed
Six toy hoops.
Bean bags (one each of red, yellow, blue, and green make one set;several sets needed per group; additional black or patterned bean bags for optional activity).
Space to run and move
Set up
Scatter toy hoops throughout the gym or other open area.
Randomly divide bean bags into several piles. No need to sort by color or divide equally between piles.
Divide the class into six groups, one group at each toy hoop.
Inform the students that they will be "planting" a garden. The bean bags will represent what is needed to have a garden grow. The toy hoop represents the garden.
Have students name what is needed and write the answers on the board. When one of the following is mentioned, circle it and assign the bean bag color:
Activity
To make their garden "grow," groups will need one seed, one sun, one water, and one plant food. (One each of red, yellow, blue, and green inside their toy hoops.) Every additional set of bean bags can be counted as an inch of growth.
Groups can send out one person at a time as a messenger to take a bean bag from a pile. The messenger can only carry one bean bag at a time and can take a bean bag from any pile. The team must communicate what color is needed to the messenger. At the end of 10 minutes, students will return to their group and count completed sets to see how much their garden has "grown." For each red bean bag (seed), have students tell the name of a Wisconsin grown fruit or vegetable they are "growing" in their garden.
Closure
Garden rules/any questions before we go into the garden? (5 minutes)
Garden Taste Test Tour (10 minutes)
Potato Heads
Introduction (5 minutes) What are potatoes? What part of the plant are they? What do we need to do to harvest them? How can you eat them?
Harvest and wash potatoes (15-20 minutes)
Have campers line up at the edge of the potato bed where they will be digging. You can mark the area with arrows to make it easier to see.
Explain how to use a trowel and be aware of the people around you. If they do not use them correctly, they will not get to participate. Pass out 1 trowel to each camper.
Have them dig for potatoes–you can either have them dig 1 or 2. If they dig 2 they can pick out which potato they would like to send to the food pantry.
Have a wheelbarrow full of water set up where they can wash their potatoes. Send them there when they are done digging. Then meet under the tent and wait patiently for supplies to be handed out.
Decorate potatoes (15-20 minutes)
Gather vegetables/edible flowers ahead of time for the kids to decorate their potatoes. Cut large vegetables into small pieces. Make sure you have at least a couple pieces of each vegetable for each camper.
Explain how to stick the toothpicks into the potato and then add vegetable decorations.
Hand out a few toothpicks (I usually use ½ toothpicks) to each camper along with a few pieces of each vegetable. If there are extra veggies, you can hand out more later.
Clean up/Eat decorations and pack into bags to take home (5 minutes)
Campers can eat the vegetable decorations off their potato if they desire–just make sure the toothpicks are out! The potatoes should be taken home (in a ziplock) and cooked before consuming.
Make sure any vegetable scraps on the ground go into the compost and any garbage goes into the garbage can.
Older groups: Flowers
Introduction (10 minutes) Why do plants have flowers?
Flower dissection (10 minutes)
Pre-pick flowers for the kids to dissect, try to pick flowers with easily identifiable parts
Dissect a flower with a partner, see how many parts you can identify
Flower stamping (15 minutes)
Collect flowers from in and around garden (if picking flowers in garden they need to ask first, wildflowers outside of garden are fair game)
Brush flowers with paint and make impressions on paper
Garden Taste Test Tour (10 minutes)
Rain Day Activities
Vermicompost/Worm Bin
Deconstruct Your Lunch (https://farmtoschooltogo.wordpress.com/lessons/deconstruct-your-lunch/)
Where does food come from?
Trace back each ingredient that makes up a hamburger
Print and laminate pictures.
Use velcro and felt board?
What does each ingredient have in common? (Sun, rain, soil)
Ask about what kids are having for lunch. Trace back something from their lunches.
Challenge them to come up with a food item that does not trace back to sun/water/soil
Food Groups/MyPlate
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Laura Aprill
Original Message:
Sent: 01-21-2024 11:40:34 PM
From: Kalie Johnson
Subject: Sharing Summer Nature Curriculum
Hi everyone, I love the idea of mutual aid and sharing curriculums so I wanted to share my upcoming summer nature education curriculum! I work in limited settings in residential care and foster care, so that limits some of what we are able to do, what we can bring in, and sometimes if there is a garden space available at all! That being said, some things will look different than your traditional garden programming. We use a STEM and nature-based arts education approach. We will start some things late and the kids will be reminded that these things are often started sooner in some cases, but we work with the time and the restrictions we have in order to give the kids programming! Any suggestions are helpful and if you'd change anything or add anything, feel free to comment and suggest! If you want to take some of this curriculum, I wanted to share it too! Mutual aid is important and powerful!
Summer 2024 Garden Curriculum: Weeding and fertilizing are often maintained by staff and volunteers! While it is important to teach children that gardening is hard work -- we get the children for 45 minutes a week and we don't want the whole time to be spent weeding. Watering is done in shifts by the kids and they love it! It is not written into the curriculum but expected. Weeding is always encouraged, but never demanded. Harvesting is done when available and garden maintenance is as kids are able or willing to do so!
Week 9 is the only week I regularly think of changing because it isn't garden-centric, but it combines activities we have done in the garden successfully previously! Open to suggestions of course.
Week 01: Plant Vegetables, Introduction to the Gardens, and Surveys
Garden Surveys, Beginning Plants in the Ground, intro to class structures, intro to teacher, pre-garden survey, garden rules, garden planning and planting beginning plants
Week 02: Garden Planning Practice and Design, Companion Plants introduction
We'll make our own lego gardens out of lego flowers and veggies! we'll have a contest and share on social media to vote on! Will introduce companion plants, talk about sunlight needs, and show examples of garden designs then let students design their own raised garden bed using paper and share with others. Then, in a following class, we can vote on student bed designs and implement the winning one from each class if possible in the next upcoming classes.
Week 03: Planting Winning Garden beds, Direct Sowing in ground, Pollinator Education, Chaos Gardening
Planting the winning voted on garden beds if applicable and possible! starting seeds in garden, using seed tape, talking about pollinators/sowing pollinator mix with pollinator activity books, put up pollinator homes if applicable, Chaos gardening experiment, fertilizing established plants, watering, amending soil, planting requested plants, and weeding where needed!
Week 04: DIY Bird Feeders, Birdwatching, Bird Call and Nature Coloring
Make our own natural diy pinecone bird feeders to place around the garden and bring the wildlife to our gardens! We will play around with birdwatching and binoculars. We will also do some mindfulness nature coloring and activity books in our free time after! Bird call tool used too.
Week 05:-Chalk Obstacle Course, Painting Garden Pavers, and Garden Scavenger Hunt w/ Binoculars
Bring back binoculars (because of birdfeeders) for biodiversity and scavenger hunt, chalk obstacle courses if applicable, and free chalking activity (places w/ sidewalks), painting garden pavers personalize activity if applicable, and garden educational and sensory and mindfulness scavenger hunt with binoculars and reward for scavenger hunt completion.
Week 06: Planting, Soil Testing, and Compost in a Jar
Planting additional plants! We will test our garden's soil from 6-10 different locations in our gardens to make sure we know what we are working with! We can add compost if needed or a natural fertilizer. We will do a few other tests to see what we need to do to our soil to be taking care of it. We will do a compost in a jar experiment and monitor the project over the coming weeks!
Week 7: T-Shirt Design Contest OR Flag Design, Honeybee Education
Design t shirt or flags for garden, have students design thank you or greeting cards, honeybee education discussion and tasting if no allergies present!
Week 8:- Kindness Rocks, Mutual Aid, and Discuss Causes for market
Painting kindness rocks and intro to mutual aid and community, all harvested food will be donated to community free food boxes during our summer program, introduction to harvesting without grown up help for the boxes, discuss causes for our market, discussion of farmers' market and jobs, garden maintenance day, voting for market causes, show pictures from other markets
Week 09: Rock and Gemstone Excavations and Bingo, Air Dry Clay Flowers and Crack Geodes Crafts
Rock and gemstone excavations and bingo identification games, air dry clay free craft – examples of air dry clay flowers, crack a geode, maybe egg carton geodes depending on if able to get these done in advance!
Week 10: Solar Dehydrator, Floral Arrangements for Staff, At-Home garden take home sheet, and personal Garden Journals
Make floral bouquets for staff members // family if applicable, practice bouquets for the market, solar dehydrator or introductions, take home sheet of indoor or at-home garden activities, garden journals passed out and introduced, garden journaling time, can continue last week's activities by painting air dry clay projects that have dried now. Some organizations will not allow solar oven, clay, or dehydrator.
Week 11: Garden Artwork – Using New Mediums: Seed Artwork and Nature Printing and Collages
We will bring back binoculars for birdwatching in case bird feeders brought birds out, using seeds and glue and cuttings from around garden and paint and butcher paper to create artwork to introduce clients to different art mediums, Nature prints and seed artwork, Nat Geo magazine collages, collages used in art show in fall
Week 12: End of Garden Celebration before Market with Crafts, Face Paint, Edible Flower Salad, Lemonade with Mint, Solar Ovens, Surveys
Celebration with games and Crafts, food from garden and edible flower salad, homemade lemonade with mint from garden, solar ovens science food experiment! Recipes in garden handouts for home and to take. Some organizations will not allow solar oven or dehydrator.
Week 13: Garden Market and Goodbyes!
Garden market for staff and invited guests, practice sales and donations go to the cause we previously discussed and voted on! Kids get to raise money for a cause they care about and sell their artwork, veggies, flowers, etc in one giant harvest! They have jobs and roles.
Rainy day activities and Indoor activities for shifting if activities are banned or not applicable:
Garden indoors minute to win it style games for garden prizes
Nature library day with snack
flower smashing or pressing - depends on organizations
watching a fly with a carnivorous plant and nature coloring
diy seed tapes
air plants watering demo and care // intro to houseplants
Sprouts
growing mushrooms kit
regrow veggie scraps
Garden suncatchers craft
Egg carton geodes
rainbow scratch art
seed bombs
create plant tags and garden signs -- depends on organization
SEED PAPER POETRY typewriter activity
All activities are subject to change depending on the organization's requirements and needs! Some activities will not apply to certain organizations.
Hope this helps someone or maybe someone will help me and point out any area I am missing~!
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Kalie Johnson
Fostering Hope Ohio
OH
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