{"id":129,"date":"2022-06-04T04:21:03","date_gmt":"2022-06-04T04:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/?p=129"},"modified":"2022-06-04T04:21:04","modified_gmt":"2022-06-04T04:21:04","slug":"week-nine-kindergarten-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/week-nine-kindergarten-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Week Nine- Kindergarten Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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“Mud sushi” made by student By Michaela Winkley <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoon this week at Lydia Hawk doing garden recess. We have a lot of work to get done to get the garden ready for summer. With the students, we worked on clearing beds and planting the starts that were donated to us, grown by a high school horticultural class. Michaela’s plan is to plant as many fall crops as possible, pumpkins, squash, sunflowers, etc, in order to have a full garden when the kiddos come back to school. The planning that goes into planting school gardens is interesting and takes some forethought to avoid planting only summer crops and instead focus on spring and fall crops when school is in session. I wonder about the care and watering that needs to happen over the summer when school is out of session and as I understand it is often a factor that deters schools away from establishing school gardens entirely. A school garden program that was in my neighborhood in Portland had a summer camp program that came to the garden a couple of days a week to help take care of the school garden as well as continue to utilize it as a learning space. This of course was in a city setting with many neighborhoods within the public transport system with more accessibility, funded by an organization dedicated solely to school gardens. Nonetheless, it is an interesting idea to keep students engaged in the garden over the summer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garden recess has been such a sweet and special experience for me and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with this school community. Initially, when starting this quarter I was most interested in the field trip program and did not know a lot about what the recess program entailed. Both programs are important and impactful in their own ways and I have really grown to love the accessibility and flow of garden recess. I think it is a beautiful way to give access to nature and the beauty of natural spaces in short fifteen-minute intervals throughout a regular school day. There isn\u2019t as much planning and coordination that goes into organizing a field trip and students have the personal autonomy to join and leave the garden space as it feels right to them. The contrast between the asphalt playground where students usually spend their outside time and the albeit messy but beautiful garden space is really interesting. The garden is full of insects, worms, flowers, and things to taste, smell, touch, and observe. Mudpies to make stumps to balance on, things to build and destroy, and plants to give care to. Giving students access to this space even for a short interval of their school day is huge in this modern world where we live on the screen more than we live in the soil and in the mud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Me at Mountain View school garden by Michaela Winkley <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Friday morning I visited a kindergarten class at Mountain View Elementary, I joined them during their free time and lead small groups out to the garden boxes on their campus. We had observation time as we observed the process of making \u2018worm food\u2019 or compost, aka the cover crops we are allowing to decompose under cardboard sheets. We also explored and smelled the herbs growing in the garden, chives, sage, thyme, oregano, and lemon balm. The class remembered me from their field trip to the St. Marks garden and did a really good job listening and engaging with me in the garden. I was able to stay and observe the classroom for a while, the teacher is an incredible inspiration for me and has been teaching kindergarten for many years. I really appreciated the structure and organization that she uses in her classroom as well as the care and respect she gives her students. I think that having structure is incredibly important in those early years to foster a sense of stability and confidence. I have such a sweet spot for this age group and feel that my teaching ability comes alive when working with kinders. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoon this week at Lydia Hawk doing garden recess. We have a lot of work to get done to get the garden ready for summer. With the students, we worked on clearing beds and planting the starts that were donated to us, grown by a high school horticultural class. … Continue reading Week Nine- Kindergarten Visit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-knowles-school-gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}