“I’m going to grow up and work in the garden”

Another great day in the garden! It seems as if fall has finally caught up with Florida. Bright and early we arrived at Lakewood finding it to be a bit chillier than anticipated. Having not been out to the garden in over a week I was amazed at how much it had grown. The plants seemed to double in size. The first part of the morning was spent weeding the beds and preparing for our class of kindergarteners.

When the kids finally came out we were pretty excited. They seemed a little cautious at first (and cold), but as we started talking about plant parts they jumped right in and before long all of the kindergarteners were jumping up and down with their hands raised to answer the question “what do leaves do?” Even the kids who had been more timid in previous weeks warmed up and were very excited to see what was growing.

After passing out clipboards with paper to draw the plants in the garden, we helped the kids write their names on the papers and find the plant parts we had talked about. While they seemed to have fun drawing, I’m sure the favorite part of their day was watching the bee we found on one of the radishes. We took this opportunity to remind the kids about pollinators and talked about how you actually don’t want to kill the bee.

The time seemed to fly by. Before we knew it the 20 minutes had passed and the kids were getting back in line to go inside. When I told one of the girls I would see her next week, she looked at me for a second and then replied, “I’m going to grow up and work in the garden.” What a wonderful way to start the morning.

-Emma