You may remember a blog post of mine in May about my kindergarten class's adventures in gardening. With the insanity of the end of the school year over and done with, I thought I would post an update as to how our garden turned out.
Just about every sunny day my class and I went to the garden to tend our vegetables, enjoy the garden, and compost our fruit and vegetables peels from our snacks and lunches. Even though is was a small part of our school day, my students would cheer every time we set on our way. Once we were in the garden they proudly checked on our vegetables, emptied our classroom compost, and greatly enjoyed looking around the garden and discovering all the plants and bugs living amongst us. When our classroom butterflies hatched, we released them into our garden as well, and enjoyed visiting them and seeing them fly free.
Finally, on the day before the last day of school, I told my students that we would pick some of our vegetables tomorrow and make a delicious, gigantic, and nutritious salad from our garden, they were extremely excited. Children, excited about salad? It's true!
I had a child and her mother ask a couple of days prior if they could make a special treat for the last day of school, cake pops. I told my student that we wouldn't have time to eat that treat on the last day of school (which is only a half day) as we were having our special salad. At first she was disappointed until her mother suggested they make special salad dressings for the class. Immediately, she thought that was a great idea and was just as excited to contribute to our healthy snack as she was with the treat food.
I also had a mother who offered to order in pizza for the last day of school, which was very generous, but I politely declined as we were having our special salad. Her response "Salad? Good luck with that". Well, in actuality, I didn't need any luck because my students were so invested in their garden and what they had produced that every child tried the salad and most came back for seconds and thirds. In class I cut and my students helped me to prepare cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, craisins, and sunflower seeds to go with the lettuce and radishes they grew and picked, and then they added a dressing of their choice. It was a huge hit and a great way to end off our school year.
Our garden project was a massive success and I enjoyed it as much as my students. Two green thumbs up!
