One of the exciting things about the Mainspring School food system is our precious little vegetable and herb garden.
Mr. Brendan, Lead Teacher in the Songbird (3 y/o) classroom, is the one who heads up the operation and it is located on the older kids' playground (on the East side of the school). Currently, the garden is pretty small. It really just serves as a teaching point, making significant contributions to the school lunches just two or three times per month.
Teaching gardens like these are rising in popularity around the nation. And for good reason! You should see how attentive the kids are when there is a living plant in front of them that they can use to better understand the infinite complexity of nature. And they are all absolutely giddy when they interrupt their recess time to make a delivery of a tiny harvest to my kitchen door. If you are interested in the school garden movement (and who's not?!), do check out Alice Waters's Edible Schoolyard project:
Without further ado, here are some hi-lites from Mainspring's own school garden in the past month:
Larkin and Nicola help pick rosemary for that day's spinach lasagna!
Okra from the garden put to good use in black bean vegetarian chili...
And of course Austen's acorns. They are not necessarily from the garden, but he does definitely collect them on a daily basis from the playground and presents at least one to me at lunch time. On this particular day, I found this gift ontop of my bussing shelves after lunch:
That, I think, will suffice for today's post. More to come very soon!
-Ms. Rachel-
Love...the garden is such a neat way to teach children about responsibility and about the food they eat! And of course, I love the shout out to Austen and his acorns...he always has like 5 in his pocket :) So nice he decided to share with Ms. Rachel!
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