Hillsboro Early Childhood Programs
Francine Luckett, Director Barb
Winkler, Secretary
The following is a reprint of an article appearing in Little Prints (Volume 3/Issue 2)--a publication of the Illinois State Board of Education: Early Childhood Education.
Hillsboro Garden Enriches |
|||
Science Teaching and Family Ties |
|||
It started with the seed of an idea. Kathy Howard, parent coordinator for Hillsboro Community School District, thought prekindergartners might enjoy planting a pole bean "tent" that they could crawl into, sit under and look for bugs. They might even like to grow a little garden.
Plenty of land was available at the elementary school in Coffeen, a rural community about 50 miles southeast of Springfield. All the children needed was a small patch of dirt.
From such tiny seeds a beautiful garden grows. After five years, the garden now covers about 750 square yards of ground where wild flowers, annuals, vegetables, bushes, and trees flourish. It has become an outstanding tool for teaching science and much more. It's a magnet that draws parents who were otherwise uninvolved in school activities.
"That garden is the pride of Coffeen," says Annette Middleton, whose daughter, Amelia, is now in second grade. "The garden encouraged parents to come out of their cocoons. I've become so involved with the garden and enjoy it so much. I bring my tools and do the dangerous things such as weed whacking or lawn mowing, and I help keep it watered during the summer. I love to hear the kids shout, "Hi, Amelia's Mom! What are you doing today?" and during free time they come out to help.
GETTING STARTED
The garden's start was modest enough. Howard asked a prekindergartner's farmer father if he could plow a space. He did so during school hours, so the children could see a tractor and plow at work.
A note to parents explained what the school was doing, invited participation in planning, and asked each family to donate a plant. A committee of enthusiastic and resourceful parents blossomed.
"I went to stores around town and asked for donations," says Sheila Callahan, mother of a prekindergartner and five older children. "Nobody turned me down, because it was for the school. They gave me flats of flowers and vegetables of all kinds."
Parents and teachers asked for and received donations from lumberyards, hardware stores, Wal-Mart, farm supply stores and the district's high school biology teachers. A group of mothers contributed a bird bath.
With a starting budget of about $100, the school bought wildflower seeds, an apple tree and a few bushes, including a butterfly bush to attract butterflies. They divided the space into four areas, two for wildflowers and two to replant each year. Parents did the planning and heavy work; children did the planting and harvesting.
"The children planted the wildflowers on a windy day and it was so much fun for them to just let the wind carry the seeds from their packets," says Howard. "We probably put enough seeds out there for about five acres."
"We planted a beautiful tree and had a little ceremony," says Callahan. "The kids did a dance around it to make it grow, and then they watched it grow."
Bark chip paths were laid down with the children using child-size wheelbarrows and shovels to assist.
INVOLVING ALL CHILDREN
Two prekindergartners in wheelchairs had difficulty navigating the paths. A secretary secured a donation of 4x4s, and Howard ordered sand for a foundation. The owner of the sand company, a prekindergartner's grandfather, donated the load. On a weekend Family Work Day, the path was built. With the help of a grant, additional wood was obtained to build raised planting boxes that the wheelchair-bound children could plant and tend from their chairs.
Two big hollow logs were donated for the children to crawl through. Volunteers cut the top off one so the children in wheelchairs could "walk" through the log, using their arms.
At the time the garden was started, the school housed a deaf education class. With grant money, using wood burning tools, the school made signs for the garden with the words "Children's Garden," "Butterfly Bush," "Birdbath" and more, and drew the sign language sign for the word beneath it.
THE GARDEN AS A TEACHING TOOL
Each of the three full-day and two half-day pre-K classes works in the garden one day a week during good weather. Children have the choice of the playground or garden during outdoor free play. They wear child-size gardening gloves (just putting them on is a fine motor skill, and the gloves lend importance to the work), and they dig with child-size shovels, haul with child-size wheelbarrows, and make mud with water they've brought out.
"Sometimes they dig too deep and we end up with big holes," says Francine Luckett, prekindergarten program director, "but it's not a problem--the next class fills them in. The point is that the children have a great variety of experiences that they do not have anywhere else."
Before planting season, children start seeds in the classroom, monitor and measure seedling growth with Unifix® cubes, and plant them outdoors when the weather allows. Children water the garden with spray bottles, which requires another fine motor skill and prevents over-watering. Teachers guide activities and learning. They meet weekly to brainstorm and share ideas for activities, and they utilize Discovery Science, authored by Dr. Dave Winnett, SIU-Edwardsville, for ideas. Debra Keillor, who has taught prekindergarten at the school for 17 years, offers a small sampling of the kinds of activities that the garden spurs:
- We talk about what plants need to grow, and why we need sun and rain. We'll cover plants so they don't get any sun, or pot and not water a plant, or place a plant on the path, out of soil, and observe and talk about what happens and why.
- Windsocks and pinwheel provide opportunities to talk about the weather and whether it's a windy day, and a rain gauge tracks precipitation. Binoculars assist in bird and butterfly watching, and magnifying glasses help children observe plants and bugs at close quarters.
- When the garden is lush, children compare leaf sizes and seriate leaves according to size. Color hunts and shape hunts help teach these important concepts.
- In the fall, children remove the seeds from a sun flower with tweezers--a good fine motor activity--and compare the number of seeds from two flowers. They harvest vegetables and make a salad to eat.
- The children take clipboards with paper outside to sketch flowers, and indoors they paint the pictures.
CREEPY-CRAWLY THINGS
Worms, bugs and spiders fascinate children, and teachers plan a lot of bug-related activities. They'll bring in bugs from the garden for children to observe and discuss, and then they return them to the garden.
Indoors, classes raise butterflies in an aquarium or butterfly tent from commercially supplied caterpillars. They observe and learn about the butterfly life cycle before releasing them into the garden.
TRACKING NEW EXPERIENCES
As prekindergarten children enter their classrooms each day, they see a question written on an easel, below which are "yes" and "no" boxes. The question might be, "Have you ever planted a seed?" or "Have you ever touched a butterfly:"
Keillor reads the question to the first child or two, and after that the children ask each other. It generates language, spurs conversation, and is something the kids look forward to.
"The children have to 'sign in' to answer the question," says Keillor. "They write their name on a piece of paper and put it in the "yes" or "no" box. Even though the children have their written names in front of them to copy from they range in age from three to five, so not all of them can write. We take any kind of scribble. It's fine motor skill practice, and it makes learning to write their names more meaningful"
Activities are planned so that children who answer "no" to a question can put their names in the "yes" box later in the week.
THE GARDEN GROWS AND EXPANDS
After the first year, when some of the prekindergarten children had moved on to kindergarten, they missed their regular garden activities. The solution was to plant smaller gardens -- and place bird feeders -- outside the window of every classroom. The children love to observe birds and squirrels at the feeders, which they help to fill.
"For teachers, the Children's Garden is a natural teaching tool," says Luckett. "It provides unlimited opportunities for scientific inquiry, exploration and experimentation. For children,the garden has planted the seeds of curiosity and allowed their imaginations to go far beyond the walls of their classroom."