The Orca K-8 School Garden Blog!

Mulching- not the most glamorous activity BUT I think it is a powerful, fun, and super interactive way to understand the full cycle of the garden. Plus, leaves are free and in abundance right now- a renewable and highly valuable resource to cover our garden beds for the winter. The kids love the raking, the piling, the teamwork, and the hustle bustle of it all. It’s a little wet and dirty out there, but that’s kind of what a garden is all about.

We have been covering most of the beds on both sides of the school. After all the harvesting this fall, this activity really brings it all home. Now we just gotta wait until the spring to uncover it all and start again….

Our 6th grade school lunch program turned out awesome. Students designed 5 lunches that incorporated the new USDA guidelines and the student’s own creative & delicious ideas. There was also a push to use local & organic foods. They had 2 weeks to work on this project and they came out with some very insightful and dynamic school lunches. I threw in a couple curve balls- one lunch had to be gluten-free and another had to be vegan. They had to illustrate the lunches and then do a written reflection on the project. Jeff & I were beyond impressed by all the hard work! A great part of this project was having the students walk around and put observations on post-it-notes and then stick them to lunches that intrigued them. Can we start changing the lunch system now please!

Red wigglers are squirming in their new home inside a wormbin in the greenhouse. We finmally got to harvesting the worm castings (aka POOP) from the last year. So we had students set up the new bins, learn about worm composting, and even make their own 3 dimensional worm bin art creations.

More cider, goats & chickens, leaf & plant crowns/tiaras, an amazing spread of food, and more! It was another amazing harvest festival as the Pre-K through 5th grade got to come out and celebrate all the hard work that we have put into the garden in the last year. Thanks again to all the volunteers who made this happen- WE LOVE YOU!

Fresh cider, corn husk dolls, home baked treats, a punk band, and more were part of the joyous celebration that occured for this years harvest festival. This event could not have happened without all our incredible volunteers! So much work goes into making this happen! Fresh tamales by Tamara! Jaala & Lily with the Makery doing buttons and art! So many parents helped out- we love you all!

6th grade students have been researching school lunches from around the world for the last couple of weeks. We looked at this slideshow and got some inspiration for our assignment to design our own school lunch. The USDA recently recently came up with new guidelines for what school lunches should be. Check out the new standards here.

There were some great ideas presented. There were many local, organic, and healthier options. There were also many outside the box ideas too. Check the pictures out and get ready for a whole weeks worth of lunch menus that each student will create. We all know that something has to change with school lunches and students should be at the forefront of that revolution.

graaaaaaapes!

We love the Hillman City P-Patch. It is a community garden of epic proportions. We do a lot of great growing there for the food bank and for cooking projects at Orca. Today we went down with the kindergarteners and had a ton o’ fun eating cherry tomatoes, picking grapes, and harvesting at least 20 pounds of tomatoes for the food bank.

ripe!

Learning, eating, & sharing: the Orca Garden way.

squash parade