Drink a rainbow

Posted on January 27, 2016 by kidsingardens

An effective phrase for teaching nutrition to children is “eat a rainbow!” The simple idea is that eating fruits and veggies of all different colors builds a healthy diet. We made this a theme on Food Day 2015, and I want to keep building upon it.

Sage Garden has provided us with their notebook of recipes which includes a different color smoothie for each grade. I pulled all of the different colors and am doing “Drink a rainbow!” workshops for my after school students.

I began by setting up the Sage Garden cooking cart with all of the equipment and ingredients laid out and the recipe written on the whiteboard.

Then I gave each pair of students a stack of laminated fruit and vegetable cards produced by the California Department of Education. The students sorted the fruits and veggies into two piles: orange/yellow and other. We talked about all the orange and yellow examples we found.

Students came up one by one for the various jobs: juicing the oranges, peeling the bananas, pressing the limes, adding the strawberries, measuring out the yogurt.

The next week we did purple smoothies, and this week we will blend up red ones. As you can imagine, it’s a very popular class!

Garden Fashion: Say yes to the t-shirt

Posted on January 20, 2016 by kidsingardens

I know what you’re thinking…cool season vegetables and microscope work and educational outcomes are all very well and good, but what are garden educators wearing this season?

It’s a slow news week in the garden, so let’s take a peek into my garden-forward wardrobe:

This tee represents the genre of conference souvenir. You’ll remember I loved my time at the Edible Schoolyard, so I love remembering it with this rooster.

Related to the conference shirt is the “organizations I support” look.

Ripped from Friday Night Lights, this tee makes people think I am a football fan. Which I am not. But I loved that show, and I love this sentiment.

Found on an internet search for gardening shirts. I couldn’t resist adding one more take on the “keep calm” craze.

Is there a day when we don’t need to remember this? A gift from a friend purchased at Sherry Horton’s gorgeous Julian shop, E. Barrett General Store.

My husband went to Peru and brought back a t-shirt with a drawing of a stuffed pepper, a local delicacy apparently. True love.

Purchased on the clearance table at the Monticello gift shop. I guess I’m one of the few that couldn’t resist a drawing of an eggplant— the most beautiful plant, according to Jefferson.

Another trip tee—this one from the Washington Mall during cherry blossom season.

Local food t-shirts work well in the garden.

Let’s not forget the event t-shirt—my go-to baseball-style shirt for our annual Food Day celebrations.

Naturally, I have a couple school spirit numbers:

And I’ve saved my favorite for last: a Tracey Allen original. This is “Choose Kindness.” See her lovely designs here!

In closing, I should mention that any of the above shirts can be paired with jeans and tennis shoes. Or a funky skirt and sandals. Hats optional, minimal accessories. The options are endless in the world of garden fashion!

In which service volunteers are celebrities…

Posted on January 11, 2016 by kidsingardens

It was a good morning in November when I answered the Pathways phone and an AmeriCorps team member was on the line, asking if we would like a group of volunteers for a day of service at school.

Um, YES!

On December 18th, we welcomed eight young people from all around the county on a 10-month term of community service across the western states. They had been in Julian for six weeks, staying at Camp Stevens and working on building and clearing trails, planting natives on Volcan and helping out around town, such as assisting locals in hanging all of the holiday decorations on our historic Main Street. On our day, they worked with Pathways, helping to wrap presents for our toy drive, moving a sandbox for the special ed. department, planting bulbs, painting our table, and installing a hoop system over our raised beds.

I also asked them if they would be willing to do a 15-minute presentation to the 4th and 5th grade classes. They were happy to do this and visited each class to discuss the concept of AmeriCorps, what projects they had already contributed to, where they were headed next, and what they had learned about committing a year of their young lives to service in various communities. I also asked the team to share some of their reflections on living in Julian with our students, as it’s always great to get an outsider’s perspective on what is just “daily life” for you. They talked about the natural beauty of Julian, the close-knit community who had welcomed them wholeheartedly and of course, the apple pie.

After taking a few last questions, I hustled them out the door so the students could get ready for lunch. As I did, some fifth graders followed us with pen and paper and started asking the AmeriCorps members to sign their names. Suddenly I realized the kids were asking for their autographs! The AmeriCorps members realized this too as they signed paper after paper, laughing that this was definitely a “first” for them.

Oh to live in a world where the people who volunteer and serve in communities are the celebrities! And thank you to the amazing Mrs. McFedries who has taught her class to respect and be grateful for people who serve others. Bless you AmeriCorps team as you continue to make the world a better place!