Earth Day 2015
My son's preschool has a very open door policy for parents. We are welcome to come in and read a book to the class or help with special projects. This month parents were asked to share their profession or any other hobbies/skills they have with the class. Since today was Earth Day I volunteered to share my hobby of gardening with the 4/5 year old class.
The morning started with the teacher talking to the students about Earth Day and what it means. The kids offered up ideas for ways they could help the earth. Then in groups of three the kids came outside to the front garden area where I had set up with a trowel, plants, and water can. In each group of three I had one child dig a hole, one child set the plant in the hole and the last child watered the plant. It was an efficient system which is important when dealing with preschooler's attention spans.
It was very funny to see the differences in the kids. Some were gung ho about it while others had a just get it over with attitude. Dirt seemed to be a fear of most of the kids, some where leery to step into the flower bed and other were okay as long as in did not get on their hands or clothes. A few of them jumped in the dirt and got their hands dirty without second thought. It was really fun for me and I tried to make it fun for them pointing out worms and adding in fun tidbits.
At the end of the morning the flower bed was filled with pretty purple flowers. The kids then took off on a walk as a class to see all the changes that happened in the past couple weeks due to the arrival of Spring.
Over the next month or so as the plants grow and more blooms appear I hope that the children take pride in the work that they did. I also hope that they are encouraged to help out with planting at home or to ask the adults in their home to plant something because they had a fun experience at school. The class plants seeds for Mother's Day so hopefully their new found skill and the availability of a plant will give them the perfect opportunity.
Our next Earth Day adventure was going to the hospital I work at for the ground breaking ceremony for an education garden. I am very excited about this project and was looking forward to learning all about the initiative and seeing if there was any role I could play. As a nurse nutrition education and lifestyle modification are part of my daily patient interaction and I so happy to see something like this come to my facility where my patients can learn about and gain access to healthy foods. I wish we would have made it to this event so I could network in person but a storm forced the event indoors and taking 3 kids including a newborn to an indoor formal presentation seemed far from sensible. Now I will have to network via email.
I told you we were taking our simple life and garden show on the road. This is just the beginning of many ways that I hope to interact with the community.
The morning started with the teacher talking to the students about Earth Day and what it means. The kids offered up ideas for ways they could help the earth. Then in groups of three the kids came outside to the front garden area where I had set up with a trowel, plants, and water can. In each group of three I had one child dig a hole, one child set the plant in the hole and the last child watered the plant. It was an efficient system which is important when dealing with preschooler's attention spans.
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| Before |
At the end of the morning the flower bed was filled with pretty purple flowers. The kids then took off on a walk as a class to see all the changes that happened in the past couple weeks due to the arrival of Spring.
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| After |
Our next Earth Day adventure was going to the hospital I work at for the ground breaking ceremony for an education garden. I am very excited about this project and was looking forward to learning all about the initiative and seeing if there was any role I could play. As a nurse nutrition education and lifestyle modification are part of my daily patient interaction and I so happy to see something like this come to my facility where my patients can learn about and gain access to healthy foods. I wish we would have made it to this event so I could network in person but a storm forced the event indoors and taking 3 kids including a newborn to an indoor formal presentation seemed far from sensible. Now I will have to network via email.
I told you we were taking our simple life and garden show on the road. This is just the beginning of many ways that I hope to interact with the community.
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