In November the chores in a school garden slow down a bit, giving us opportunity to reflect on the many reasons that we have to be thankful for our Teaching Garden. We are especially thankful for the many who enthusiastically give their time and strong backs to contribute to the growth and success of our program.
The opportunities that come our way both locally and nationally give us reasons to be thankful. These opportunities have provided us with valuable leadership learning for our students and their personal growth has been amazing!
Our thankfulness reaches out to include our school district, administrators, and corporate sponsors, who support and give us the freedom to create a program that has developed a best practice approach to learning and growing healthy kids through our Teaching Garden. Our supporters have helped launch us, maintain us and change the culture of our neighborhood through promoting healthy living.
The lessons that are learned in the garden are many. Our students not only learn state required learning objectives, but also about the Earth, water cycles, life cycles, compost cycles, animals, organics, soil amendments, protecting natural resources, tending, caring, collaboration, seasons, and the list goes on forever. So, being thankful for the opportunity to create a hands on, project based, real world learning environment goes without saying.
There has been a change in our students. Their enthusiasm over farm fresh produce, active learning and healthy living is ever present in their daily lives. For this, we are most thankful. When we hear about the poor health of our nation's kids and the problems that go hand in hand with that, we are thankful that we are on track for growing goodness and healthiness through our Teaching Garden. Our students and community have a great opportunity for healthy bright futures.
