Kindergarten through 3rd grade is getting stone soup. A great story about everybody giving a little and sharing a lot. The soup featured Orca cabbages, carrots, greens, and purple potatoes. Good to the last drop.
delicious
The tomatoes are winding down- what an amazing harvest this year. But onward! Calculating the distance food travels is a great science & math activity. It gives us an idea of how small choices can have big impacts, especially over large amounts of time. This activity of listing the ingredients in pasta sauce and coming up with a mileage amount really shows how corrupt and unsustainable our food system is. To top it off, we made Orca spaghetti sauce and the idea really hit home. Local food is better for us and the environment.
More Orca tomatoes, more Strega Nona, more art, and more spaghetti! I put up a blog post for this activity yesterday BUT these photos are just beyond cool too. This activity was very engaging and involved for these guys- they were slurping, drawing, and listening the whole time. Learning through eating….
load em' up!
Mr. C’s class trekked down to the Rainier Valley Food Bank to donate some Orca produce and to get a tour. This is a great connection with the community and allows the students a chance to donate time and food. We are starting a huge giving project where we ask students to bring one can/package of food per month for the entire year. We had a great time walking down there and we will be delivering more organic produce soon.
Strega Nona!
Today was amazing. We have been harvesting buckets of tomatoes this week. So I cooked up Orca tomato sauce for some spaghetti noodles. I even added rosemary, oregano, and thyme from the garden. We then read the story Strega Nona– one of my favorite books starring everybody’s favorite witch- Strega Nona and her sidekick Big Anthony (ok- a little biased there). A magic pot of spaghetti is involved and madness ensues. Students got to get their art on by retelling the story with their own words or pictures (and yes it takes hours to sharpen a class set of colored pencils- but they are better than crayons!). It was a lot of fun to combine eating, drawing, stories, and garden. Plus the kiddoes thought the sauce was delicious.
Matt’s class was faced with the task of clearing a garden bed of old tomatoes, and planting some fall crops. They exhibited great teamwork and were able to harvest many tomatoes and get some new plants in the ground. Successive planting is an integral part of keeping a garden producing delicious food.
Before
After
Jeff’s 6th grade math and science class took a sunny walk to our neighborhood Hillman City P-Patch to plant some fall crops. We got some cabbages, greens, beets, cauliflower, and more in there. We got to talk about the importance of community gardens and how they benefit communities in need. These gardens provide better access to local, organic produce- in a very economical way. Seattle has 73 gardens that equal more that 23 acres and over 4,400 gardeners. Read more here.
Jeff's class!
In keeping with the harvest theme of this month, we collected tons of lavender and put it into jars of olive oil. This will make an amazing oil that kids can take him. The medicinal properties of lavender oil are discussed here. The greenhouse was smelling amazing during this activity (the brewing Orca mint tea probably helped too).
helping hands
We harvested mint from the garden w/ kindergarteners. Luckily I have already been harvesting this summer and had some dried out- so we could make mint tea! Most students thought it was delicious. This tea will keep us warm this winter as we hang out in this cold greenhouse. What a treat. We also picked some super ripe tomatoes and some green ones too.
Once you pick a carrot from the ground, you will always know that they don’t just come from stores! And they are delicious beyond words! These little youngsters loved the carrots….
The Orca K-8 School Garden Blog! 