One summer, I was working in my garden when an 8 year old boy from my neighborhood came over to check out what I was doing. I am passionate about gardening and find so much peace when I spend time in nature and get to work with my hands. It is one of my favorite self-care practices! Anyway, when he saw me pulling the carrots out from the dirt, he asked me why I would put my carrots in there. He had no idea that little seeds could grow into carrots in this dirt in my backyard! He had learned about that in school, but without the hands on knowledge he didn’t quite understand. His only experience of eating carrots is after buying them from the grocery store. This motivated me to apply for a grant that would allow me the funds to start a garden at my school so that my students could have the exciting experience of using the knowledge their learning in their classes to our garden! The potential to use this garden for character development is endless – patience, hard-work, persistence, cooperation, confidence, self-care, coping skills, planning and organization, and even health and wellness for mental health!
You can find a great lesson embedded below that I used to accompany our garden project that we are doing at my school. I wanted to use a lesson plant that supported the core curriculum and the character development curriculum at our school. I thought that this one did a good job of doing just that, and will allow us time in each class period to allow students to get their hands dirty in the garden as they work in the garden. My students are so excited to see their seeds and starter plants grow and are amazed that in a few short months we are going to have fruits and vegetables that we can harvest and eat in class!
Here is the lesson plan I used:
Love for the Elementary Counselor 