Urban Gardens for Kids

Let’s Build a Butterfly Garden! And learn about plants and butterflies and more Second in a series of community urban gardening courses for kids

Welcome!  I  have  designed  this  course  on  behalf  of  Loving  Garland  Green  and  its  members  to  share  with  our  community.    It  was  created  in  response  to  requests  from  two  inspired  educators  in  our  community:    Ms.  Marcie  Romero,  a  counselor  from  Beaver  Technology  Center,  and  Ms.  Jennifer  Clements,  a  teacher  from  Watson  Technology  Center.    These  two  sister  schools  are  magnet  schools  located  here  in  Garland,  Texas.    In  the  spring  of  2015,  in  collaboration  with  Marcie,  we  taught  Urban  Gardens  for  Kids—Let’s  Build  a  Community  Garden.    This  was  a  highly  successful  course  that  was  repeated  for  the  fourth  quarter  of  that  school  year.    For  so  many  reasons  it  is  important  to  nurture  and  grow  our  connections  and  respect  for  nature.    No  better  starting  place  than  with  the  youngsters  in  our  community  whose  optimistic  enthusiasm  for  learning  makes  these  classes  a  joy  for  the  teachers  too.        This  course  is  offered  as  one  of  the  botany  electives.    Each  quarter  at  these  two  magnet  schools  (K-­‐5)  students  choose  an  elective  course  for  that  quarter.    The  class  meets  once  a  week  for  45  minutes.    In  addition  to  classroom  activities,  the  students  work  in  the  greenhouse  on  the  school  grounds.    For  the  Butterfly  Garden  course  Quarter  1  they  will  also  build  a  butterfly  garden  on  the  school  grounds.        Butterfly  Gardens  is  designed  as  a  yearlong  course:    Quarter  1:  Build  the  Garden;  Quarter  2:  Add  Butterfly  Accessories  and  Tend  the  Garden  and  plants  in  the  greenhouse;  Quarter  3:  Get  Ready  for  spring  and  the  return  of  the  Monarchs;  Quarter  4:    Tend  the  Garden  and  observe  and  report  on  nature  observed  in  the  garden.    (All  quarters  will  include  various  experiments.)    The  garden  will  continue  the  years  after  as  an  outdoor  lab  that  is  maintained  by  the  students.    Volunteers  from  the  community  as  well  as  the  teachers  at  these  two  schools  teach  these  elective  courses.    In  the  Spring  of  2015,  for  example,  we  had  several  volunteers  from  our  community  teach  the  various  sessions  of  Urban  Gardens  for  Kids—Let’s  Build  a  Community  Garden.    This  year  it  is  hoped  we  can  secure  more  volunteers  to  help  us  teach  and  also  to  help  us  prepare  the  Butterfly  Gardens  for  Beaver  and  Watson  Technology  Centers.    The  children  will  do  much  of  the  work  to  be  certain,  but  they  will  need  assistance.        

 Elizabeth  Berry  

President  Loving  Garland  Green  

NOTE ON KIDS AND GARDENS If you have any doubt regarding kids enthusiasm for gardening—you should have been down at the Garland Community Garden June 3, 2015 when 110 students from the second grade class at Watson Technology Center visited the garden! Jennifer Clements, one of the teachers on this field trip reported to me that the children talked about the garden for the rest of the day. It was the focal part of their conversation. Throughout the spring of 2015, students at Beaver Tech displayed the same interest and enthusiasm for urban gardening during their class on building a community garden.