Seeds + soil + teacher collaboration= growth for everyone!

During Garden Lit this spring Cedaroak students have learned about seed germination, dispersal, and planting, while focusing on the water cycle, importance of water for all living things, and now we are exploring insects and other garden critters while learning about the process of pollination. Teaching garden education that is both academic and engagingly experiential can be a difficult task in a short 45 minutes a month. We are so grateful and inspired by every single Cedaroak teacher who participates in these activities (even when side-swiped by mud, worms, and hail storms), who learns alongside their students, and even extends the lessons into their own classrooms.

A beautiful example of this is the first grade team, Michelle Flagg & Julie Hunt. In February the cold, wet weather put a damper on our outdoor gardening so we planted peas in pots for students to observe growing in their classrooms. Students made predictions as to how long it would take the peas to germinate and also planted peas in the rainy garden on the same day. Michelle led her students in charting their predictions, measuring and drawing their observations of the sprouting peas in the window, visited the garden multiple times to compare those peas to the ones in the classroom, showed students a time-lapse video of seed germination, and both Julie & Michelle had students paint beautiful watercolors of fresh flowers while discussing the important functions of plant parts.

We know how busy classroom teachers are- already squeezing every drop out of the day. We so appreciate when teachers extend our brief time together, validating this learning, and deepening children's understandings of the natural world. We couldn't do this without you!!