New cameras, same ole magic

Posted on November 14, 2013 by kidsingardens

Kid with Cameras 4.0 just came to a lovely close. Through Julian United Methodist Church’s Gallo Fund, we were able to purchase ten “teaching cameras” for the project. Formerly, we worked with whatever cameras the kids had access to, and we spent a lot of time fiddling with each one. It worked, but everything is now so much easier–the cameras are always available, batteries are charged, instruction is given once to everyone, and we don’t need to download images at the end of every class.

Over seven weeks, we had a classes taught by various local photographers. Jeff Holt and Bill Bevill taught camera fundamentals:

Then Anne Garcia took us through principles of composition, using her own work as examples as well as a few photos of Graham Wilder’s.

We headed out to shoot in the school garden, with the objective of using some of the best images for a Garden Club photo card fundraiser.

Photo courtesy of Bill Bevill

Another class was held at Down the Road farm for farmer/chef portraits. Enlargements of some of the day’s best photos will be hung in the school cafeteria to help children make connections between their lunch and the people that had a hand in growing/preparing it.

Dave Pierce taught a class on still life, described here.

Graham Wilder, a new instructor with Kids with Cameras, showed the students some of his images, encouraging them to find the “extraordinary in the ordinary.”

Then we walked to downtown Julian to do just that.

Another new addition to the class was the process for choosing the “best photo” to exhibit. In the past, the instructors got together to look at film to pick the image. This year, each instructor took home the memory cards for two students after our last day of shooting. From those photos, the teacher narrowed them down to the best 10-12 images. Then during our last class, they sat with the students for 1.5 hours and talked through each photo, discussing them at length and asking the kids for feedback. Ultimately, the student picked their favorite. I think this approach worked great: the student had ownership of the photo to be exhibited, but they chose from a small pool already screened by the instructors, drawing upon their expertise. As educational experiences go, I think this class was simply incredible.

As is now our tradition, we ended with an evening reception at the public library. Instructors spoke about the class, students talked about their photos, and everyone enjoyed refreshments while milling around with the artists.

Photo courtesy of Bill Bevill

All photos remain on display for two weeks, and then the students get to take them home, along with a CD of all of their photos. Thanks to everyone involved for making this program an unqualified success!

Photo courtesy of Bill Bevill

Photo courtesy of Jeff Holt

Photo courtesy of Jeff Holt

Food Day: An educational feast!

Posted on October 31, 2013 by kidsingardens

The following article will appear in next week’s Julian News. Great photos follow after the story!

Joining with individuals, schools and cities across America, Julian Elementary School celebrated its first National Food Day on October 24^th. From 9:00 to 2:00, K-5 students were treated to eight different workshops spread across campus focusing on food, agriculture, cooking and nutrition. Simply put, students and staff ate it up.

All sessions were experiential, interactive and expertly taught by a team of volunteers. Representing the Julian Apple Growers Association, Mary Prentice and Teak Nichols related the history of the apple while having the students press their own cider. Josh Rasmussen, from Down the Road Farm, led students in a planting activity as well as brought farm animals for the kids to enjoy. Farm Smart, a program of the UC Desert Research and Extension Center, lent us Stephanie Collins for a wonderful program that included churning butter, comparing animal feed, and milking Bessie, a wooden cow equipped with an inner stainless steel container filled with real milk. Camp Stevens staff Ryan Wannamaker and Correen Walsh captivated kids in the garden with pollinator games, honey tastings and dressing up as beekeepers. Led by Tricia Elisara and Gina VanderKam, students played vocabulary-rich “Garden Bingo” and interacted with the outstanding documentary film “Nourish” about global food issues.

Cooking was another key ingredient of the day. Chef Greg from Healthy Adventures Foundation enlisted students to help make lettuce wraps and flavorful tostadas. Across campus, Chef Jeremy Manley and Carie Quick talked with students about the new school lunch program (catered by Jeremy’s on the Campus) and had the students brainstorm new menu items. To tie it all together, Carmen Macias led a game in classifying edible plant parts, decorating a “My Plate” diagram with healthy choices and ending with a fitness activity. Many parents, Garden Beneficials and other dedicated community members generously gave their day to assisting at each workshop.

To add to this educational banquet, the campus was decorated with posters made by students in the weeks prior, promoting good food and healthy habits. At 11:00, students gathered on the playground for a scheduled exercise break led by Coach Dobby from the Julian Fitness Center. Just before starting, however, music came on the load speaker and Principal/Superintendent Kevin Ogden moved to the center of the campus, dancing. Teachers joined him from all directions, and the first ever flash mob at Julian Elementary was performed, appropriately enough to the song “We can change the world” on a day dedicated to making a healthier world for all of us!

Celebrating Food Day was an idea generated by the school’s Farm to School Team as part of the year-long USDA planting grant awarded to the district and spearheaded by Pathways Executive Director Susi Jones. To learn more about National Food Day, or to begin planning activities for next year, please visit www.foodday.org and/or contact the Farm to School Coordinator Tricia Elisara for more information.

Students made these posters in University of Wednesday

Cranking the cider press (Photo courtesy of Karen Alexander)

Wait a minute….is that Gina VanderKam playing Garden Bingo? (On a visit from Washington, she was my right hand woman all day!) She is still trying to get the crayon off her fingers….

How adorable is this?

An activity to classify the edible parts of the plant

Working on a “My Plate” activity

After this class, the girl pictured told me “Best day ever!”

Food, ready for its closeup

Posted on October 15, 2013 by kidsingardens

Under Mr. Pierce’s instruction, today’s afterschool photography program Kids with Cameras class tackled still life, starring fruits and vegetables, to go with our “food focus” for this semester. Stacey Peyakov from our local produce stand Wynola Flats donated produce for us to work with (thank you, Stacey!)

I threw in my own week’s groceries as well as every basket, platter, small bowl and linen in my house. Other instructors added vases, spools of yarn, a jug of paintbrushes, bowls, shells, lanterns….. We ended up with a great selection of props.

Mr. Pierce gave an excellent short presentation on the concept of “still life,” and then outlined a few things the kids should be thinking about: light, texture, color, shadow, etc.

Then the kids went for it. And I loved it. 100% of the kids, 100% engaged, for 100% of the class. I was in pedagogical heaven.

Selecting materials:

Our ratio of instructors/adults to students was almost 1:1. The kids consulted with the teachers, and the teachers helped to set up their shots.

One of the students suggested we tip over the tables to make areas to create the arrangements This worked great as a way to hang linens or butcher paper for backdrops.

Watching the students exercise their creativity was a joy. They’d work with one set of items they collected, arranging and re-arranging, and after getting their photographs, they’d head back and try something totally different. I’d say they were definitely “in the zone.”

These faces say it all! A great day!

Garden journals

Posted on September 6, 2013 by kidsingardens

Every year I volunteer to be a parent reading helper in my kids’ classes. This year I asked the teacher if I could be the garden teacher instead! She said “yes,” and so every week I have the class for a 1/2 hour of garden class. During our first class, each table of children received a pile of patterned and handmade papers, old seed packets and pages from gardening catalogues as well as a 50 cent composition notebook. They then proceeded to decorate the books they will use all year long to record garden vocabulary, keep their drawings and make journal entries. Last week we listed the words “snapdragon” and “transplant” and then made a chart of warm season and cool season vegetables. We went to the garden to plant a cool season veggie (broccoli) and tasted a warm season veggie (tomato.) I like that they will have these keepsake journals to take home at the end of the year, full of all of their new gardening knowledge.

Harvest of the month: peas

Posted on May 11, 2013 by kidsingardens

Next year I will be leading the effort to introduce a Harvest of the Month program at our school. To get it started, we’re doing a pilot this month.

The backbone of this program is a set of excellent resources provided by a Network for a Healthy California (http://www.harvestofthemonth.cdph.ca.gov). For each fruit or vegetable, they provide an educator guide, a parent newsletter, a community handout and a menu template on which you can print your school lunch calendar.

I attended the all-district staff meeting at the beginning of the month to introduce the program and pass out information to the teachers. These multi-page guides have lots of information about the selected fruit or vegetable: nutrition, history, botany, recipes, science, literature links, etc.

During a University of Wednesday class, the children rotated to three stations related to peas. Here’s a craft template I created for an indoor station. (It was windy that day!)

Tip: Michaels has a single pack of cardstock greens in all different shades.

At another station, the students did a set of drawings of peas, which were planted in succession so that they could observe them at different stages of growth—also, to stretch out the harvest.

At my station we sampled sweet pea hummus, and we talked about all of the ingredients. We also did a fennel taste test because I had some to use from our donated produce box.

I’m going to teach more pea-themed lessons this month so I’ve been checking out every children’s book I can find with the word”pea” in the title and creating a working annotated bibliography. I’d love to find a grant to eventually purchase every title on the list.

We also made some decorations for the garden to announce the monthly harvest. Here our 8th grade PLUS leadership kids are finishing up a banner started by the fourth grade.

This is a banner I had printed locally.

And finally, a taste test! Snap peas were in our Be Wise Box this week, and I supplemented them with 2 lbs. from the Warner Springs Farmers Market I visited last night. An ambassador took data (“”Do you like it?”), and once again, the peas have it!

Kindergarteners + math + garden

Posted on May 7, 2013 by kidsingardens

One of my favorite things about the school garden is discovering ways it is being used by teachers, staff and families. A few weeks back, a mom was out at the table, orchestrating a birthday celebration for her son. Earlier in the day, the kindergarten class was looking for patterns. What a great lesson, Mrs. White! She wrote to me later:

So…we had an amazing day in the garden! It really helped our math work to “come alive!”

Photo courtesy of Mrs. White

Photo courtesy of Mrs. White

Something’s fishy with the strawberries

Posted on April 30, 2013 by kidsingardens

On Science Day, the upper grade students did a scavenger hunt. (The questions are copied below for those garden coordinators among you.) The prize? Lunch in the garden, with treats.

A week later, the dozen students with the most correct answers joined me for lunch at the garden table, and I laid out organic strawberries and oranges from our Be Wise Box.

Interestingly enough, one of the students had a box of store-bought, non-local strawberries with her, and as she shared them, the kids started an impromptu comparison taste test. And as you can guess—it was no contest. The kids said the local, organic strawberry on the left was intensely flavorful and juicy–the one on the right had virtually no taste at all.

Photo courtesy of Marisa McFedries

So wonderful to see kids connecting the dots themselves….It’s like the girl on the right is saying “Hmmmm, something ain’t right here!” (You never know what teachable moments will present themselves in the garden.)

Science has a lot to do with….

asking good questions

and being observant

Read the questions below. The answers are somewhere in the garden. If you are observant, you will find the answers! The kids with the most correct answers found will be have lunch in the garden after Spring Break, with garden treats!

We can measure the temperature of the air, of water and of soil. Soil usually has to be a certain temperature in the spring before it’s wise to put plants in the ground. Find a soil thermometer in the garden and report the current soil temperature:

There is more variety in vegetables, flowers, herbs and fruit that you’d expect. Find the seed catalogue and write down the number of different kinds of peas you can order (add the snow peas, snap peas and shelling peas together.)

How much rainwater is currently in the tanks? (The gauge is at the top)

Seeds usually look and feel smooth. What are their surfaces generally like when viewed under a microscope? Why do you think this is so?

Name one poisnous plant.

Notice how some of the fruit trees are flowering. Why is this not necessarily a good sign in Julian in late March? What could happen to these flowers? What would happen to the fruit?

Beds #2, #3, #4 and #6 are planted out with peas. Which bed was probably planted first? Which was planted last?

How much rain did we get during our last storm?

Look at bed #1. How many DIFFERENT varieities of daffodils are in this bed? (There are 2600 different named hybrids of daffodils in the world.)

Take a look at the bucket of finished compost in the wheelbarrow. What did this soil used to be?

Name three herbs we are growing in the garden.

What are the four things that are necessary for habitat?

Find the seed packets. Which plant will be the last to harvest?

A trellis is a fence-like structure planted in a garden bed for plants to grow up. How many of our garden beds have some type of trellis?

There is one small tree in the only round garden bed in the garden. What is it called? Is it dead?

Science Day in the garden

Posted on April 3, 2013 by kidsingardens

Last Thursday was Science Day at our school during which students went from “station” to “station” spread across campus for science-based lessons. For example, San Diego Country Office of Education brought their traveling Splash Lab (microscopes and chemistry experiments) and Green Machine (soils, integrated pest management, water cycle) programs.

Almost every student passed through the garden for a 30-minute class. In the morning, we had the younger classes combined by grade so I divided the children into groups with an adult (teacher, parent, and/or aid) and explained that they would go to 5 different stations for 5 minutes each. Each station was set up with a clipboard of simple instructions and the necessary equipment. I went from group to group to answer questions, point things out and re-set materials.

Station One: Planting Peas

Station Two: Watering peas

Other classes had already planted peas in other beds. At this station kids observed their growth and watered.

Station Three: Storytime

Station Four: Smelling herbs

Station Five: Looking for habitat elements

Mrs. White demonstrating how our beautiful fountain turns on when she holds the panel to the sun. A wonderful day for hands-on learning!

Indoor gardening activity: rosemary wreaths

Posted on December 13, 2012 by kidsingardens

I experimented with making rosemary wreaths for our sale on Saturday, and we sold every one of them. Today was threatening rain, wind and temperatures in the 50’s (note: this is cold in California), so I put together an indoor lesson about rosemary for University of Wednesday.

First I harvested about 400-500 sprigs of rosemary from my yard. (Like the laundry basket?) I also cut 10 inch lengths of floral wire, and 24 pieces of 20 inch thicker gauge wire. I also gathered spools of ribbons.)

Beforehand I popped a whole lot of popcorn with olive oil and fresh rosemary.

After talking a little bit about the history and uses of rosemary, we tied the mound of sprigs at each table into threes with floral wire, and then wound the clusters to the wire circles they shaped with the thicker wire. Students finished the wreaths with ribbons/raffia, and we dined on popcorn.

For the last five minutes we took a quick garden walk and identified the rosemary bushes in three different locations. After working with them, touching them, smelling them, tasting them—they were easy to identify. Students happily went home with their wreaths—this one as a hair piece!

Mint, mum, mulch…

Posted on November 10, 2012 by kidsingardens

Garden educators know that it is challenging to work with a full class in the garden. Most garden tasks just don’t lend themselves to 25 (or more) kids. As such, I am experimenting with creating “discovery-based” activities that spread the kids out independently, with the teacher giving content and instruction up front and then acting as a resource to the kids as they complete the task. Yesterday’s lesson confirmed to me that this is a good way to go, with dozens of opportunities to teach words and concepts one on one.

I enjoyed the alphabet scavenger hunt with first grade so much that I decided to adapt it to fourth grade. To begin, students gathered at the table. I told them that the day’s lesson was paying attention when we’re in the garden, for two reasons. One, there is always something going, and you’ll miss it if you’re checked out. Two, Mrs. Elisara is sneaky.

I then gave a ten minute talk on what’s current in the garden. As I spoke, I referenced a list of vocabulary words on the white board behind me: cool season vegetables, annuals, perennials, solar fountain, photovoltaic cell, etc. At the end we repeated all the words together. Then I erased them.

I explained that there were 26 clipboards with crayons placed around the perimeter of the garden in alphabetical order, clock-wise. Students could go up to any clipboard and write down a word they “saw, heard or felt” in the garden. If the word was already on the sheet, they couldn’t repeat it. The clipboard had to be put back in the same place. It was perfectly OK to ask an adult for the names of things. (We had four volunteers on hand to teach vocabulary to every child who really paid attention to this rule!) Every word used the first time was one worth one point. Every time a child had to be asked not to run—minus one point. Every word that was on the board that I talked about earlier: worth three points! (Sneaky!)

Points would be awarded for creative words but not silly ones, and the top five point-earners would be invited to have lunch in the garden the following day with me, with a special garden treat (zucchini bread).

Read the “M” list, with special attention on the last word!