Holistic Education and Gardening Teacher
We have been interviewing teachers for the holistic gardening position and we have narrowed it down to several qualified exceptional candidates. Some have planted and educated children and adults abroad in the field of sustainable living, some have worked locally with children in Santa Barbara, what I do know is that in the last few weeks the children have learned about solar energy, gardening, planting, how seed germinate etc. All of the people interviewed share the message of creating a space for the children where they can imagine, explore freely, be challenged and the final teachers understood what it meant to facilitate and see where the class led the discussion and projects. This is a sample documentation that was done about their experience with this new program last week.
Today the children helped each other plant seeds from tomato, pepper, lettuce and basil plants. We talked about the different parts of a plant and what plants need to grow. The children explored plant parts and patterns as well as many other objects with magnifying glasses, which they seemed to love using. We also talked about insects and their role with pollinating and dispersing flowers and seeds and played with some toy insects that I brought in. Many of the children enjoyed drawing on the white board while waiting for turns to fill pots with soil, plant or use the magnifying lens. In general the children were very involved and excited about the activities and were good about sharing and helping each other. I really enjoyed working with them and their curiosity.
The projects that have been done focus on the children ability to explore and discover new things relax and be outside. We are really looking forward to adding a holistic gardening and education documentation board in the hallway in the coming weeks; it will be fun to see what can be created in the garden this year. We are hoping that once our garden starts to produce the cooking teacher will then again be able to cook with items that we have in our yard. Will update blog next week with official times and information about what is to come from this program in the next month. We also have several UCSB Students who will be doing a class project on gardening with children and will be doing projects with the kids in the next few weeks. We welcome students into our center to help educate and inform the community about our programs and to help other teachers explore the benefits of gardening, composting and making sure that all aspects of their class reflect a class who cares, loves and respects each other the community and the earth.
