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The ability to attend to tasks and engage in the process of ‘learning is best met and intended for the three to five year old age group but the introduction to your garden can be fostered as your baby sleeps in a basket at hand while you tend your plants. Typically from my experience of organic food production with children three years and under, the children dig randomly and pull plants from the garden with enthusiasm. The differentiation between weeds and herbs or plants is cognitively minimal so much of your hard work can be undone within minutes of your young child’s unsupervised access to the garden. We spend one week designing the gardens with the help of gardening books and magazines. There are many avid gardeners that subscribe to gardening magazines. Placing an advertisement in the community newspaper will cultivate interest by gardeners to assist in your gardening program as many people appreciate being able to donate their magazines for an educational project. In as much as we teach the children gardening we expand our earth consciousness to recycling and utilizing community resources. Most preschool and daycare programs run on very limited budgets therefore both resource materials and public support can be stimulated by a simple request. Gardening and Growers Associations are resources rich in knowledgeable people as are government agricultural departments, conservation societies and libraries. |
Distinguishing the plot usage and plant variety is further stimulated by looking at seed catalogues. We prefer to use organic seeds but the vital component to engaging other daycares and preschools is not to overwhelm the teachers with conditions. We believe we are successful when we have requests by community members and other preschool programs for more information. We choose to grow organically because it is good for our earth and good for the children to dig in soil that is uncontaminated. A note on composting: we compost only organic produce in the preschool program.
We use our compost to facilitate discussions on the cycles of life.
Birth, growth and decay taught to children in relation to their natural world truly helps the children gain acceptance when a family dog or fish dies. We have used the following puppet show when a family member dies. One might object to the relationship of composting and gardening to grieving children but I assure you from years of practically working with children that these tangible ceremonies support a congruency within the despair.
The puppet show was designed to be non religious and therefore I have found that it has been received with great acceptance from families of all religious denominations and off the grid belief systems.
[ Click here for puppet show story ] Although there are many experts that I have consulted on about the subject of non organic vs. organic composting I would suggest that you do whatever you feel convicted to do. I have not been able to reconcile that the minute chemicals and pesticides used on produce internationally that they have no impact on children handling the soil. I prefer to use organically created compost because the children despite the very best interventions do eat the soil. Whether that occurs with randomly sticking their fingers in their mouth or pulling a carrot and liberally brushing off the dirt, it does get ingested.
Making compost supports the link between plant growth and healthy soil. Composting encourages children to be resourceful and creative. They are recycling but at the same time they are the creators of the soil.
Gathering the leaves for the compost bin
We recycle all winter long. I appreciate living in the Yukon as a conversationalist and an environmentalist because I can say with determination that “if it can be done in the Yukon it can be done anywhere”
There are many great and resourceful sites on the internet on how to make compost. Ours is very simple and has worked marvelously over the years.
We have it sandwiched between the back fence and the back wall of the greenhouse. The fence is mesh so it allows the compost to breathe and rot at the same time.
The children have a compost pail in the kitchen where they prepare food. All vegetable matter, fruit seeds and peelings and egg shells are permitted in the compost nothing else. We understand that some people allow for pet bedding but we do not. The dead leaves gather during autumn raking (after the children have tired from jumping in them) the kitchen waste and soil from the vegetable garden.
Cover with an old carpet and leave alone until you have more waste to add.
After three of four months remove the cover and dig the compost over. Leave it to rot down further.
When the bottom of the compost resembles dirt it is ready. The children can dig it into the garden as the plot is being readied for the spring planting.
Farmer Deb from Lewes River Farms
brought chickens into the Preschool
Tips? Advice
Request advice and support from the Recycling Center in your community or Growers Association when beginning compost. Compost heaps if not managed properly can invite rodents to scavenge from them. It is vital for the health of the children in your care to manage effectively your grounds as mice droppings can be harmful if children are exposed to them. This is in no way meant to discourage preschools or daycares from composting merely it is a word of proactive prevention. Management is the solution to minimizing risks your childcare environment.
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Most play activities in preschools today are teacher directed and wrapped around a learning objective as I have developed a mentorship/apprenticeship curriculum I am in favor of a balance. Play should be spontaneous and celebrated as it integrates flexibility and social competence of life itself. Spontaneous and socio dramatic play encourages the child to interact adapt and accept transitioning and self determination, however work is beneficial to the healthy development of a child. Work establishes two concepts: the manifestation of accumulative and methodical application of practice which results in a product and the conceptualization of beginning, middle and end. Our children have become so removed from the agricultural requirements of children of other developing countries that we have created a chasm of unrelated ness. If we truly are engaging our children to brace themselves for our future of global citizenship the base denominator of all people is that for our survival as a human species we rely on our earth to feed us. As global warming and the rise of global population has caused each and every one of us to consider conservation and responsible consumption when is the ‘right time’ to introduce these socially responsible concepts to our children. |
If the experts of brain development are correct and the hard wiring of thought processes occurs between 0-6 years of age are we not unconsciously contributing to the malaise of indifference to the plight of others who do not have clean water or enough food to feed their families if we do not begin the social responsible education of our children in the preschool years? In our Yukon preschool program we encourage the children to enjoy the work of the gardens and to extend the love of the work into the kitchen while they are preparing baking and cooking from the fruits of their labor for their families. Play and work provides children with a shared reality level in addition it offers an opportunity to transcend gender divisions of labor and promotes social skills. With the advent of computers and ‘gaming’ we are experiencing a disconnect with our earth based reality and cyber space. Children increasingly are becoming more aggressive and alienated. Many children are passively cared for with the use of the television and the internet. Alarmingly our children are interacting based on sharing snippets of gaming or internet constructs. We know that cohesive societies are built upon work, cooperation and social interaction. When our children do not have the communication skills to engage others, or the capacity to share and are unable to care for anybody or anything we as a society tread a perilous path towards an uncertain future.
The lessons of working together may be engendered or supported by traditional North American stories and ring games if you are unaware of international children’s stories of work and agriculture. The Little Red Hen is a fabulous story as is the Enormous Potatoes. Stone Soup is wonderful as it can be translated into re enactment of the children gathering the root vegetables from the garden with each child contributing to make a community soup. The story of the Enormous Potato entreats the children to help with the work of the family garden despite their size or age. Essentially our gardening program goal is: to encourage the child who is influenced by their community of farmers to educate the children’s’ family about growing and supporting local agricultural initiatives.
Little Old Woman from the Stone Soup Story
Once the seedlings are planted, thinning, weeding and watering become part of the daily rhythm at Alligator Pie. We invite into our program local organic growers to share with the children why we as responsible global residents choose organic growing over the use of pesticides and fertilizers.
We have First Nations teachers and elders come in and share stories that reinforce our autumn harvest theme. We dry locally harvested moose meat rosehips and leaves for teas. We celebrate both gathering and hunting. Cultivation and harvesting have a symbiotic relationship which fosters an appreciation for both manners of sustainable local diets and industries.
Dried Meat from Harvesting Moose
Celebrating Local First Nations Traditions
From our gardens the children bring home: carrots, peas, lettuce, radishes, tomatoes and potatoes to share with their families and friends. We prepare many kitchen products with the herbs we grow and encourage the children to utilize it in our baking; an example of this was making pesto parmesan bread sticks served with rosehip/mint tea. We bake twice a week in our program and all of the baking that we prepare is in accordance to the foods of the seasons and all of it is sent home to be shared with the
child’s family.
MULTICULTURAL, ORGANIC COOKING SERIES FOR CHILDREN
"You would be amazed at the transformation that takes place when
children are involved in the growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing of their own food,"
says Linda, as she and several children recife poems as they knead organic bread.
The children are highly engaged, as they have recently returned from harvesting wild
cranberries and creating their own Yukon Sourdough Starter.
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With our capital development grant last year we managed to deal with a problem that we have had in our program due to uneven ground levels. Each spring the left corner of the yard would flood and pose a threat to the children. In April and May I was in Japan on business and made every effort as possible to study the Zen gardens that could be found in every neighborhood in Tokyo. I picked up several books that would be of interest to the children and calculated the time and resources that would be required to enhance our play space and eliminate standing pools of water. Our first task was to fill in the wonderful sunken sandbox that I first constructed when I opened my program 5 years ago. I had also lowered the ground space around to emphasize the cedar logs that I had used to build the sand box with. We now have a bed full of roses, pansies, lavender and gladiolas. A fine washed granite rock has raised the level of the path by one foot. |
We have many butterflies and birds that come into the garden to feed. The children are delighted by this and spend countless hours attempting to mimic the songs that they hear in the trees above them. Next summer we will enhance our ground space with more raspberry and red currant bushes. We have a shady area in our yard and have found that low bush blueberries thrive in the shade. We invite other childcare providers over to Alligator Pie to see what we have done. I am also more than happy when time permits to go over to your program and discuss landscaping options that can be done for little money but can make a tremendous impact in how the children play and develop gardening programs within their outdoor environment.
The Chicken that wanted to stay at the Preschool
In the Yukon where we do not cultivate fruit trees berry bushes are a wonderful addition to the play environment. There are many poisonous plants that I have observed in the gardens of preschool/ dayhome programs that directors should exercise caution with:
(list compiled from Toxic Plant List Canadian Childcare Federation)
• Bleeding Hearts
• Daffodils
• Pansey Seeds
• Peony (root)
• Sweet Pea
• Potatoe (green patches on tubers and above the ground)
• Rhubarb leaves
• Tomatoes Greens.
If you are living in southern Canada there are many more however as our growing capacity is limited in northern Canada these are the plants and vegetables grown in our zone out of doors.
At Alligator Pie we embrace a multicultural curriculum. Every month we expose the children to the customs, foods, celebrations and significant contributions of the country to our world. November 2007 we established will be the month we celebrate the Dutch. Holland is the world leaders in greenhouses. We are expanding our program to educate the children about alternative energy like solar panels and windmills. We are in addition designing an indoor Yukon winter green housing growing operation.
Autumn 2008 - The City of Glass/Holland
We are committed to sharing our resources with other Preschool programs in our City and within our Territory. Our intent is to work with local experts to create the first Yukon Childcare program committed to work in partnership with Federal and Territorial Departments to facilitate a greater accessibility to alternate energy and growing options in the Yukon. We welcome all growing enthusiast to help launch our expanded programming at the Yukon Best Practice (Alligator Pie) Mentorship Program.
© Linda Bonnefoy. No part of this web site may be copied, reproduced or used without written permission
of the author Linda Bonnefoy.
For contact information:
Linda Bonnefoy
67 Pelly Rd
Whitehorse, Yukon
Y1A 4L9
Telephone 867-393-4661
Cell 867- 334-1743
Email: bonnefoyandassoc@klondiker.com
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