Preschoolers gaze upon a new picked strawberry , mighty from their garden .
When teachers recite the baby’s room rhyme , “ Mary , Mary , quite contrary , how does your garden grow ? ” preschool children in California and Arizona will have the solvent .
In January , 100 preschools and day care centers in California were present $ 1,000 fromWestern Growers Foundation , a kindly division of Western Growers Association , a trade group for produce growers in California and Arizona , to start food gardens .
The California Department of Food and Agriculture and the state Department of Education will allot the President Grant . Teachers can expend the funds to buy yield , vegetable andherb flora , seeds andgardening equipment .
“ Children , in general , do n’t know where their food add up from , ” explains Paula Olson , director of the Western Growers Foundation . “ The gardens get them excited about eat unfermented fruit and vegetables . ”
Olson believe that intellectual nourishment gardens should be a part of all schooling curricula and distributor point to moral about scientific discipline , nutrition and teamwork taking place while kids get the picture in the dirt and watch matter rise .
“ The child are wild with excitement about the garden , ” she says .
Rachelle Pastor Arizmendi , music director of early child education for Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment preschool in Los Angeles , Calif. , one of the Western Growers Foundation grant recipients , believe the garden will answer as a living schoolroom , teaching the 3- to 5 - year - old students important lessons about goodly eating habits and where their food for thought come from .
“ We can marry so many aspects of learning into the garden , ” Pastor Arizmendi say . “ It ’s a great chance for our students , who would n’t have [ had ] the chance to produce their own vegetables and realise how the flora they plant turned into the food for thought on their tables . ”
Pastor Arizmendi used the $ 1,000 President Grant to purchase raised - bed kits , soil , tool and plant for the preschool . Without funding from Western Growers Foundation , PACE would n’t have been able to afford to install a food garden on their preschool campus .
The school start its garden in January . teacher make for alongside students to plant lettuce , hemangioma simplex , bonce , carrots , chardand other veggie . The fry used pint - sized tools to excavate hole and irrigate the flora and take duty for tending to the foods growing outside their classroom window .
“ The garden really stimulates their rarity , ” order Pastor Arizmendi . “ They are developing skills that we hope they bear on for life . ”
Western Growers Foundation begin grant concession for school garden in 2003 . To date , the organization has helped 600 school in California and Arizona establish onsite gardens with funding total $ 600,000 .
“ Our member wanted a way to give back to their biotic community , ” says Olson . “ They are passionate about this program and the difference it ’s making at school day across Arizona and California . ”
