Sowing the Seeds of Wonder – The Robinson School Pre-School Edible Garden

Having an edible garden as an educational tool provides many hands-on learning opportunities that complement lessons about plants, nutrition, and insect life cycles along with experiential activities. Our youngest students are harvesting fruits, vegetables, and herbs while learning where their food comes from.

By participating in the seed-to-table process, our students have the opportunity to improve their nutritional habits and taste the harvested produce. Growing plants fosters innovation and critical skills and allows many opportunities for them to learn the principles of birth, growth, maturity, and cooperation, and many other lessons that transfer to life.
After taking care of their garden, our students were able to participate in their first harvest of the semester! Our teachers integrated math skills, language arts, and encouraged the students to taste the produce. The students were delighted and were able to reinforce the following skills:
🌿 Language Arts: learned new words, such as a head of lettuce, leafy greens, chard, k for kale, peppers, cilantro, mint, and many others.
🌿 Sequence: followed and retold the sequence of events from stories read in class.
🌿 Math: searched for similar properties and sorted the leafy greens. They also compared the weight of two heads of lettuce (heavy, lighter), their sizes (bigger/smaller), and counted the leaves on the lettuce picked (number sense).

We’re amazed at how, at such a young age, students begin to exemplify the characteristics of an IB Learner by being:
• Risk-takers, as they tasted the leafy greens,
• Inquirers by asking questions about the process and their picks,
• Open-minded by being willing to engage in an unfamiliar activity,
• and communicators, as they expressed how it felt to pick the lettuce, wash it, and taste it.
They also demonstrated being principled as they waited their turn and were careful not to invade each other’s space while gardening.

Our teachers are very excited, as are our students, and will continue to integrate hands-on activities that will engage all their senses and help them develop a lifelong connection to the outdoors.