Gardening Project

Vic House Gardening

Once a week the primary students have an opportunity to go outside to explore and work in the garden areas around the Vic house. Each Thursday I start by collecting two or three children from each classroom. They put on boots and gardening gloves and gather tools needed to work.

Each outdoor class has been a different and fun learning experience. I will share the events of a gardening day in October.

On this particular day we started by gathering the tools and trugs we needed to work. Then we took a walk around the garden to see if we could find vegetables that had fallen off the vines.

There were many grape tomatoes on the ground so we each collected a handful and headed to the chicken coop. After treating the chickens we put on our gardening gloves and searched for carrot tops. We found several and everyone had an opportunity to pull up a carrot.

There were several varieties of root vegetables that the children had fun digging up. The Mammoth beats were a huge crowd pleaser. Collin is holding one in the photo above. The baby pumpkins were easy to get to and we gathered several.  The vegetables went into the trugs we had filled with water and we washed off the dirt. Everyone took a vegetable back to their classroom to show their classmates.

When there were no more vegetables left in the garden, we moved grass, leaves, pumpkins and worms to aid in the school composting. We cut the remaining flowers and pulled out corn stalks and vines. We put away trellises and raked leaves.  Even though the weather is colder, we are continuing to work and help Nola prepare the beds for next season.

Our garden is a rich, multisensory learning environment with different shapes, colors, textures, smells and sounds. Learning in the school garden is learning in the real world at its very best!