Kinder-Gardeners Grow Carrots

The word kindergarten is a German word that literally means "children's garden" with the original idea that kindergarten would be an engaging, fun, social time, where children would sing songs, learn rhymes, play and learn together in a euphoric children's sort of garden.

Kindergarten has evolved over the years to include a greater emphasis on learning but one thing that hopefully hasn't changed at Seeley Lake Elementary (SLE) is that kindergarten is engaging, fun and children are definitely learning. Our kindergarteners are continually immersed in fun and meaningful educational projects like a recent one where our students were literally "kinder-gardeners"!

The learning project actually began last May and June when most of the now kindergarteners were in prekindergarten at SLE. The children began last spring studying seeds and learning how a seed sprouts and then reading books and doing internet research to learn the best way to plant and grow carrots.

I was actually their preschool teacher last year and now teach kindergarten! I set up some safe computer websites that the prekindergarteners could select on the SmartBoard that would take them to sites where they could learn about seeds, carrots and gardening.

While the prekindergartners were conducting research on growing carrots, our maintenance man John Devins used scrap lumber to build some planters. The children took turns gathering dirt and hauling it through the halls with a garden cart to the school courtyard where our planters were set for growing carrots. Students took turns meticulously filling the planters with dirt and ultimately planting their carrots and putting a timed watering system in place, since school would be out and they wouldn't be there to water their carrots.

Two things the students learned from their research and their seed sprouting experiments were that seeds need sunlight and water to grow. Students thought the courtyard was an excellent place to grow our carrots because it received lots of sunlight, it had a water source and deer would not be able to get in and eat our carrots!

During the summer the carrots were left to grow. When I went to check them near the end of June I discovered that the timed water system had tipped over, so only one of our two planters of carrot seeds were receiving water. I set up the watering system again and staked the lines with wire so it wouldn't tip again. Although I hadn't planned this, now when the children harvested their carrots in the fall when they would be kindergarteners, they would be able to compare the carrots that had water and sprouted right away to the carrots that didn't get water right away and sprouted a month later.

In September, I took the children to the courtyard to see their carrots. We discussed the changes to the seeds and the wonderful and amazing growth process that had happened, then we harvested. Even the additional students that hadn't helped plant the carrots were thrilled to be pulling up carrots. Science abounded as the kindergarteners noted the effects of water on the carrots. The ones that received the most water were big, the others were much smaller.

We had been conducting experiments in the classroom with worms. The students had learned that worms are a gardener's helper because they dig tunnels and make the dirt loose and airy so carrots can push through the dirt easier. The kindergarteners looked for worms. There were no worms and the dirt in our planters was hard. The carrots were difficult to pull. The children were quick to note that we needed worms in our dirt.

Math abounded as the kindergarteners counted their carrots. The ability to count to one hundred is a kindergarten goal. Although that is a goal we are still working on the students chanted with me, recognized the counting pattern and counted one hundred, sixty-five carrots!

We ate some of the smaller carrots for classroom snacks. We shared some of the carrots with the current prekindergarteners, because they had helped us fill the planters with dirt and plant carrot seeds last spring. Next we took the bigger carrots to our school cook, Susie Ferdinand. Susie cut them up and we came down to see her add them to an enormous pot of stew. The kindergarteners were so excited when it was announced over the loud speaker that the stew contained carrots grown by the kindergarteners. At lunch time the kindergarteners concluded that our carrots were delicious and that they really were kinder-gardeners!