Connaught Heights is a small school with approximately 180 students. Our school has a beautiful courtyard and teachers use this space to grow strawberries and vegetables using planters. We want to teach our students about the interconnectedness of living things in the environment.  We have two teachers who raised butterflies with their students while I raised mason bees in the courtyard with my class. With some of the money from our Farm2School grant, we started a pollinator garden and planted heathers, cone flowers, and lavenders. We hope to see lots of pollinators visit our garden!

Here is my mason bee house and a female bee sunning herself in the morning.

 

 

We planted heathers, cone flowers, and lavenders in our pollinator garden.

 

Here is a Kindergarten student watering the snap peas.

 

Students learned to harvest strawberries.

One activity that I do with my students is mindful tasting where they need to stay quiet, smell the food, and have their eyes closed while tasting the food. The goal of this activity is to develop an appreciation for food.

 

We have two intermediate classes in the portables on the upper gravel field.  The teachers also want their students to have hands-on experience with plants and gardening.  However, there are no planters on the upper field so we used some of the grant money to buy two wooden planters for their classes. Here are some students assembling the planters. The students are also learning how to use simple tools.

We will be doing a few more school-wide health and nutrition activities in the next school year so stay tuned!