Fun Outdoor Learning - Youth Graden Project 6/22/2011

Today, was my first day working on the farm, digging and planting with the youth to build a garden. Gardening is a fun hands-on learning experience outside the classroom. Gardening benefits kids health and well-being, their attitudes towards learning, their connections to community, and so much more. I had the opportunity to work with two young males. One of the young males appeared to be very interested in planting the sunflowers while the other one felt it was too hot and boring. Now, I can agree with him about it being too hot, the sun had me cooking. I don't see how the slaves survived. So, I asked him what he liked to do and related it to gardening. He said he like football. I told him just like he block the team from scoring a touch down you block the weeds from growing in your garden. Today we put three bags of germinating soil mix into the garden pots, created four horizontal lines and planted approximately ten sunflowers seed in each line. Today's lesson was teamwork. There is no "I" in team. Teamwork teaches students how to communicate, bring different ideas together to solve problems and create a masterpiece. After the kids left I connected six water hose together just to water the sunflowers. I'm eager to see them grow. Instead of running a water hose two miles long, sooner than later we need to put some sprinklers over there to keep them water. However, I need my peers to get more practice on who to operate a water hose. They had more water outside the garden box then in. Despite the heat, today was fun.