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Welcome
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0-1: A Welcome Note from Victoria 30 minLecture1.1
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0-2: Good Things to Know 30 minLecture1.2
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0-3: Why Literacy Outdoors? 30 minLecture1.3
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0-4: Ideas to Kick Start Your Literacy Garden 30 minLecture1.4
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0-5: Supply List for Reading, Writing, Listening, and Talking Outdoors 30 minLecture1.5
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Module 1: Gardens that Feed
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1-1: Welcome to The Gardens that Feed 30 minLecture2.1
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1-2: Gather Seeds of Inspiration 30 minLecture2.2
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1-3: Plant Literacy Ideas 30 minLecture2.3
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1-4: Grow Literacy Activities 30 minLecture2.4
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1-5: Harvest Curriculum-on-the-Go Kits 30 minLecture2.5
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Module 2: Gardens as Outdoor Learning Stations that Inspire Themes
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2-1: Welcome to Gardens as Outdoor Learning Stations that Inspire Themes 30 minLecture3.1
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2-2: Gather Seeds of Inspiration 30 minLecture3.2
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2-3: Plant Literacy Ideas 30 minLecture3.3
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2-4: Grow Literacy Activities 30 minLecture3.4
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2-5: Harvest Literacy Curriculum Kits 30 minLecture3.5
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LIVE Workshop #1Lecture3.6
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Module 3: Gardens that Attract Wildlife
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3-1: Welcome The Gardens that Attract Wildlife 30 minLecture4.1
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3-2: Gather Seeds of Inspiration 30 minLecture4.2
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3-3: Plant Literacy Ideas 30 minLecture4.3
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3-4: Grow Literacy Activities 30 minLecture4.4
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3-5: Harvest Literacy Curriculum Kits 30 minLecture4.5
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Module 4: Gardens for Beauty and Art
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4-1: Welcome to The Gardens for Beauty and Art 30 minLecture5.1
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4-2: Gather Seeds of Inspiration 30 minLecture5.2
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4-3: Plant Ideas 30 minLecture5.3
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4-4: Grow Activities 30 minLecture5.4
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4-5: Harvest Curriculum Kits 30 minLecture5.5
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LIVE Workshop #2Lecture5.6
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78 Comments
I think we have a beautiful space with lots of flowers, many that just grow naturally and some that we have planted. I would be okay if the entire front yard was just dandelions, I love them, my husband …not so much. We have large ferns that grow wild too. I can imagine us adding to this with signs, and stone paths and a sitting spot made of stumps and art work made by the kids hung from branches and on the fence.
I don’t have a garden, but really hope to have on for fertilizing plants and attracting insects to pollinate the plants. However, I do have some pots of green plants at home and at work.
This is a great way to talk about the rainbow and the various colors that make up the rainbow. You can also discuss the stages of plant growth. When discussing the various colors you can repeat the poem, “Red, red is the color I see” and interchange for your favorite color. When discussing the growth of the plants you can repeat the poem, “I plant a little seed.” The children usually enjoy performing the action as they relate to plant growth. To do an illustration of plant growth you can do sponge painting with black paint to represent the soil and circles from a hole puncher to represent seeds. Fork paintings can be used to illustrate new growth. My students usually enjoy these activities.
Great reflections!
We don’t have a garden for beauty we just have some flowers planted here and there around the building. I find that growing flowers is somehow much harder than planting vegetables. the kids do however, enjoy learning about flowers and they are amazed how flowers can turn into fruit. I think that it would be awesome if I could plant some flowers with the kids. I don’t know how I would do it but it would be interesting to see how the kids would react. Its also hard since we don’t have a huge space maybe I could have them plant flowers in doors for the following year or set up a section just for flowers.
Bulbs! Kids love them and it’s super easy. Hostas are also super easy and you can’t kill them. Have fun!
I do not have a garden for beauty and art, as we have a limited amount of space we decided to create a garden that feeds instead we did have a few floors here and there to attract the pollinators but other than that the area that we got provided was a small garden bed and we had to choose what kind of garden we wanted.
Have fun with it. You can always combine elements from each type of garden.
It is a challenge for me to have many gardens as I’m sharing my space with my home and husband. What I have been able to do is put annual flowers in pots around my yard and play yard. I also, have 2 small flower beds in the back yard that the children and I tend too. My challenge there is what flowers to put in that will come back every year and be healthy, ie how much sun verses how little sun or shade daily.
I have a flowering bush garden in my front yard and again some potted annual flowers around the entrances. Again the children and I tend the flowering pots.
This sounds lovely. Beans and Peas are fun to plant with kids. Easy to grow too!
We have a beautiful array of wildflowers and sunflowers and roses that adds to the aesthetic of the natural space. We often bring art supplies outside and use the gardens for creative inspiration. The children enjoy this but it can be a lot of work to set up. We have also had children take photos of inspirational nature from our natural playspace, printed it on a larger scale and had them lead a small group of painters. This also inspired a lot of their peers to find inspiration in nature and lead their own small groups.
Great!
I try to add lots of color to my home garden to attract more pollinators and butterflies. In my future school garden, I would like to incorporate a rainbow-shaped bed where the kids could plant seeds, bulbs, or transplants to coordinate with the colors. That should be quite something because you never know what kind of flowers the kids would want to plant. They may also want to plant some vegetables because they like the colors of the vegetables. It will be quite the experiment but a valuable one for talking and listening about.
Fabulous! I can almost see it. Keep up the great work!
We are thinking to create much more outside activities for our kids.We have a back yard, but we not have a beauty garden yet.We can create this the next spring. l think, because it is so good to see and build wonderful outdoor activities with our kids.
Fun ideas!
I do have a Garden for Beauty and Art. It was a couple years ago and it was in elementary. We used to build in front or side of the school to make more pretty flowers of them.
Wonderful!!
I have an inside garden boxes last summer and we plant peas and the children love it and every day kept on asking me why is not growing yet.
I don’t have a Garden of Art, but I have seen a few both in Malaysia and here in the States. They were a wonderful place to stop by.
I think one challenge with gardens (but especially these ones since beauty and art are emphasized) is the complacency that comes when we’ve looked at something for long enough, no matter how beautiful it might be. Changes on a regular basis would be good to freshen things up.
This is so true. Change on a regular basis is a MUST! It’s so easy to become numb to our surroundings when we don’t bother to shift, change and grow.
We have garden boxes at the front of our school that are filled with seasonal flowers and decorations. Out in the playground area we have an area that is not ready yet but its full of ivy all around the children are going to love walking around and get lost in there
So much to look forward to! Fun to change these spaces seasonally!
For our classroom there are a variety of garden beds right outside our classroom that were planted with different flowering plants. This worked well as a garden for beauty and attracting wildlife. We had a great oppertunity during a field trip to a wildlife reservation to make “bee houses” out of bamboo sticks and platic cups that we hung up around the garden. This added more beauty elements as well as wildlife elements as well. I am wondering do the different gardens need to be exclusively one or the other? It seems that you could mix the different elements to make multiuse spaces as well.
Love these examples! Great question….YES you can mix the elements of each garden to create your own one-of-a-kind Outdoor Classroom. I like to look at it like an ice cream sundae. Create the foundation and then add the different elements. It’s just important to know what you have to work with and all the choices you have.
We almost had a sunflower garden but got destroyed by birds and 4 year olds .
thinking of bringing paint brushes and paint and have them sit in front of flower beds and paint what they see.
I love this image of children sitting in front of a flower and painting what they see. Brilliant! Don’t give up on the Sunflower Garden. There is lot’s to learn when the birds come.
My workplace has actually achieved a garden for beauty and art. Every summer, I believe, sunflowers are grown right outside the doors. These aren’t for any purpose other then to look good. You will oftentimes see the school aged children watering it.
Yea! You can also use these sunflowers for Math lessons. Try measuring the height and comparing the height of the sunflower with the height of the child. Lot’s of good math lessons in there too.
my goal is to get more planting inside the classroom to bring nature in
Great to have a goal! A wonderful goal for exploring nature in winter.
The Very Quiet Cricket is a book that comes to mind when talking about this lesson. I found the story interesting even at a young age in the sense that it encompasses this idea about people and creatures alike are all different in their own unique way.
So true. I love how more ideas are starting to find their way forward.
I would love to use a garden for beauty and art. We struggle with having children not pick plants or waiting until they are ready to pick etc. Beginning a garden for beauty and art may be difficult and we may lose some flowers along the way, but being able to have a relaxing, pretty place for the children to appreciate nature at would be a lovely addition to our playground.
Maybe you can add a “picking garden” where children are allowed to pick the flowers. Furthermore, designate another garden as the “non-picking” garden. Just an idea.
A garden of beauty and art has to have an ascetic value to it, with lots and lots of color into it. A garden of wild flowers is the most beautiful to me, as I have one in my backyard.
Brilliant. I would love to see a picture of your wildflower garden. How wonderful! I wonder how you could incorporate one at BCLC?
I kim do have a garden I enjoy growing alot of food in my garden. I grow lettuce, peas, green beans and a ton more. Alexandria doe not have a garden at home but would like to learn more about gardening. We will focus more on gardening in our classroom this spring and summer to show our children a greater respect for the foods they eat and just plants and nature in genral.
This is a great goal! Great job! Think about what you can do now to prepare.
We do not have a garden for art and beauty. This is an exciting one because a lot of our school age children are wonderful artists and could really contribute to the space.
Oh my goodness…YES!!! Totem Polls painted by school age is the first thing that comes to mind. Awesome. Let me know what you end up doing.
I did start a garden last spring would like to start one earlier. I am working with younger toddlers which is challenging and exciting. Preparing them earlier with colors and textures books and songs about nature.
Great job thinking about starting early, especially with Toddlers. Everything always takes longer. Love your thinking with colors, textures, books and songs.
We have a nature based playground at the center where I work, there are some bright and colorful windsocks hung from trees for the children to watch blowing in the wind! Lots of hills and mounds to explore as well and trees with a variety of different colored leaves in the fall.
Awesome…lucky kids to have such a wonderful space outdoors!
This is something we are hoping to do in the spring
Yea!!
We do have a garden for beauty. The garden beds in the front of the building have beautiful flowers growing out of them. This makes the entrance of our building really welcoming and beautiful. We do “jazz up” the garden beds with seasonal props, ie scarecrows for the fall, butterfly windmills for spring/summer, etc. One challenge is finding appropriate plants to plant during the winter time to keep the garden beds looking beautiful.
Ahhh…you might be interested in the Exploring Nature in Winter Master Class. There is so much that can happen outdoors in winter.
There are a few garden beds in the front of the program at we used for flowers. It was intended to be for beauty an art, but unfortunately wasn’t maintained properly. I think one of the main reason it failed was it wasn’t a garden that feeds so the end goal was beauty instead of food.
Interested reflection. It’s so important to be clear on the goals of the space and how it is intended to be used. Creating a goal will also help with who is to maintain the garden space. Great reflections.
Growing up, my mom always had various window boxes and garden plots on our porch and in the backyard, all (besides the occasional basil or chive plant) chosen based on color. She would plant anything brightly colored that caught her eye. Aside from looking at the big tree outside our classroom window, my infants are mostly exposed to different pretty flowers and plants through our classroom picture book library.
Can you introduce a basil or chive plant to your infants and toddlers? I think they would love the smell. What about adding colorful plants to your room and outdoor space? Hang ribbons from the trees with bells and wind chimes.
We will have one once the spring comes.
Can you bring Art and Beauty gardens indoors?
I love to plant at home. It is my happy place.
Mine too!
Would be nice to create one.
I do not have a garden as I live in an apartment building where there is no room to plant anything, and I also do not have a green thumb, so anytime I have ever even had a plant it tends to die.
Different stages of plantings make a difference . I find it relaxing and children love getting dirty.
When I was growing up I remember having a garden of beauty. I remember helping my mom plant so many different type of flowers. We also had a beautiful bird feeder in our garden and pretty stones to add decoration. I remember everyday my mom as a chore would make me go outside and water the flowers. I would watch and see how much they grew everyday. I remember taking pictures with my play camera and printing them out and bringing them in for show and tell to school. I also remember picking flowers and bringing them in to my house. My favorite flower that I planted with my mom would be tulips or pansies.
I love this memory and how your mom had you watering the plants.
We have gardens with big beautiful sunflowers. They make my day so much better!
Love to have flower boxes on my back porch I often sit out there and relax in the morning
I would say most of my gardens are like this. One I made for my daughter that is all flowers her favorite color. I have rock gardens with different types. Any where I can plant I do. It’s always different. Bushes, annuals, perennials, lights, decorations etc.
we have a garden and every year we plant vegetables
I have an outside garden and hope to do inside window boxes through the winter so the children can continue to observe the growth.
If you met me, you would soon know that I have a tendency to over-think things, and therefore, to frequently over-complicate things. I like to do things on a grand scale! The prospect of having gardens at school frustrates me wildly because, frankly, I haven’t yet been able to persuade any other teachers here to take primary responsibility for some grandiose garden scheme — when all I really need to do is take it back a notch and think…. containers. I’ve often had container gardens at home due to lack of space. Why could I not see that this would be a totally workable solution at school? Reading Jamie’s comment about how she and her daughter garden happily in window boxes along the deck was a wake-up call for me! Butterfly bush in a pot? Yes, ma’am!!
I have a small perennial bed at home that is not yet well established; this will be the 3rd season for my little experiment. One of the primary features there is 2 different varieties (colors) of bee balm. I had bee balm in my first garden as an adult; knew nothing about it, but the idea appealed to me. It still does. I hope to add a 3rd variety this year. The rest of the garden is for Art and Beauty! And my garden for food? That’s all those herbs in pots on the front porch!!
Baby steps are the way to go! 🙂
I think of my home flower beds as my garden for beauty and art. I plant perennials and things that will remain constant all season as a base and then I layer with things that bloom earlier and later. I have a bird bath, a few little statues, and a mermaid on a rock in the brook. I let dandelions grow everywhere because that is pleasing to me. I arrange pots and window boxes that change with the seasons. I am a painter and it feels like painting to design flower beds. Just wish it were less costly! 🙂
Sounds beautiful! Would should create a garden tour of all the folks that live in the area. Would be fun to see each other home gardens to get ideas. Maybe we can do this virtually once the Spring arrives. 🙂
One year we planted some sunflowers seed and they grew into big plants that attracted bees and butterflies. The raised beds were near the window and the children were able to watch then from the inside the classroom.
One year we planted some sunflowers seed and they grew into big plants that attracted bees and butterflies. The raised beds were near the classrooms’ windows and the children were able to watch them from the inside the classroom.
Sounds lovely! Great job!
At our house my daughter and I plant 3 different types of gardens. We have window boxes along the deck for art and beauty. We tend to choose colorful flowers for her. We plant a vegetable garden with something different every year. The third garden ends up being a mish mash of whatever we think we’ll enjoy this year. My daughter (she is 8 now) definitely enjoys the colorful garden and picking the vegetables. It’s one of the things that helps her relax.
Oh my goodness! I love this and also love that you have different types of gardens in window boxes. Truly represents that you can create for types of gardens–all you need to add is a Garden that Attracts Wildlife….butterfly bush in a pot? I can’t wait until Spring!
I have a garden for beauty and art at my home. I sit in it to relax at the end of a long day. I started including one 2 years ago at work adding a stage to put on plays,lattice to use as paint easels and including sculptures and color palettes in flower planting.
Wonderful! Do you notice the children more relaxed in this area? Was it difficult to add a stage? How do the children use it? 🙂