Very Merry Rosemary Times
Our Thursday garden class at Lassen St. Elementary was as productive as it was fun! The fifth graders were able to plant some fall friendly edibles- kale, broccoli, cabbage, chard and dill. I laid some burlap over the young plants to protect them from the sun and our critter friends. Fingers crossed the squirrels will find another food source!
The kindergartners followed their nose into the garden on a herb tour. We smelled the basil, oregano, sage and rosemary. I snipped a sample for everyone to take home to cook with their parents.
Bon Apetite!
PS- our new shade tolerant plants are doing well! They bring nice perennial color to the south side of the garden.
Exploration at Valley View
By Hillary Williams |
Hands in the soil
By Angeles McClure |
Garden Artist in Action!
By Angeles McClure |
Growing in the City…
By Marina Frugone |
Welcoming EnrichLA to Jefferson Elementary!
By Andrea Trujillo |
PASSIONate about Gardening @ Kester!
By Andrea Trujillo |
Curious Yorkdale Bean Sprouts
By Lisa Friedman York |
Working the compost at Bryson Elementary
By Christine Lai |
Drawing our Garden at Utah!
By Rocio Prado |
When Alta Loma Gives You Lemons…..
By Judi McKee |
Growing in the City…
Between Westlake (McArthur Park) and Downtown LA you’ll find Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, a high school made up of several ‘sub’ schools. One of them, the Academic Leadership Community or simply ALC. The after school garden group meets every Tuesday from 1:30-3PM in a small but oh so mighty garden overlooking downtown. From day one,…
Getting Kids Going with Composting @ Micheltorena
Kids are awesome! No, really, they are! They intuitively get things that take adults years to understand, and they don’t have all of these ingrained barriers. With that said, let’s get dirty. Compost. EWWWWWW right? Not really as it turns out, I only heard one “ew” from my classes and we moved on. I was…
Adjusting Lessons for Autistic and Special Needs Kids @ Micheltorena
One of my biggest challenges has been teaching children on the autism spectrum, not because they are different, but because I had such a limited scope of what these kids are able to accomplish individually. Initially, I believed that the lessons were too complicated for them to grasp, and after seeing how well they adjusted…
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle @ Micheltorena
The kids at Micheltorena had a great time with our reduce, reuse, recycle lesson. Not only were the kids already fairly aware about recycling, but they were ready to get their hands dirty by helping me sort items we use on an everyday basis at home. After reviewing definitions of reduce, reuse, recycle, we laid…
Learning can be meditative
As mentioned in the last blog post, we have been learning about what an eco-system is and studying the eco-systems within each garden bed here at Taking The Reins this Fall. Each student is assigned a garden bed to explore and within that bed, I’ve challenged the students to each choose one plant to explore…
A praying mantis steals the show
We were enjoying a lovely day following the class outline I had planned. We’ve been studying eco-systems for this session at Taking The Reins and everyone was busy working in their assigned garden bed. All of the sudden, a couple of students found a rather large praying mantis hanging out in the lemongrass. This lemongrass…
Tasty Inquisition at KIPP Comienza
Our friends at KIPP Comienza had the opportunity to use all of their senses in the garden this month; to learn about and respect all critters that call the garden their home; and how the world around us affects the plants we grow. Students have been bringing their science journals to the garden space this…
How Lovely is the Science of Growing Things at KIPP Comienza
Our kindergarten and first grade friends at KIPP Comienza have been spending Tuesday mornings learning about soil pie (it’s delicious for plants!), the life cycle of plants, food chains, and diversity in the garden. We are very lucky to have a classroom available for our lessons, and the children get really excited when I walk…
Hamlin Charter Academy loves vegetables!
October 16, 2018 was a big day at Hamlin Charter Academy. The irrigation system in the new garden has been successfully fine-tuned, and our seeds are starting to germinate in numbers to be proud of. It was thrilling to see the new seedlings emerge from the soil at last! Previously only a few peas had…
Lassen Elementary Kindergartners Learn to Garden
The Garden Program at Lassen Elementary School started the 2018-2019 school year with three classes of kindergartners. They enthusiastically learned to hold their hands to make a safe cup so their seeds wouldn’t fall out or blow away. Then each week we practiced using our “planting fingers” to determine the proper planting depth (one knuckle…