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Back to School

September 2022


Back to School:
  • From the Executive Director
  • Lesson Highlights for Fall 2022
  • You Can Help: Become a Volunteer!
  • Our Appreciation
  • New and Familiar Faces
  • Join Us for "Growing Gardeners"
  • Reading Corner

From the Executive Director

Each August still brings fond memories of our daughter’s back-to-school excitement – learning who her classroom teacher was, which friends were in her class, shopping for the all-important backpack and school supplies.


I am still just as excited every August as Executive Director for Living Classroom for the past four years! Each year brings new staff and volunteers to train, schedules to juggle, lesson kits to be restocked, and school gardens to come alive with new growth as students begin the excitement of planting and learning.


Living Classroom is fully staffed and moving forward once again – and we are thrilled to be back at school after two and a half years of remote learning and reduced programming.


Our lessons will begin in earnest in early September at Mountain View Whisman School District (MVWSD) in Transition Kindergarten (Tk), Kinder, and 1st to 5th grades; Campbell Union School District in Tk, Kinder, and 1st grades at seven schools; St. Simon School in Kinder to 5th grades, and the Santa Clara County Office of Education’s Deaf and Hearing Impaired Program at Oster School. In addition, our after school enrichment program, Growing Gardeners, at Eddie Souza Community Park and Gardens will resume in partnership with the City of Santa Clara (see information below). We are planning to see students in person, in the classroom (following all safety guidelines). Living Classroom staff have been given permission to prepare and consume food – a hugely important and fun part of our program for introducing tasty foods from the gardens to students.


In time, we hope to bring back our popular garden tours, where the community has an opportunity to see what we do and where we do it. I guarantee that garden tour participants will be as excited about Living Classroom’s program as I am!


Also … I enjoy sharing ideas from leaders in the environmental literacy space. This article by Andra Yeghoian, a new arrival to the Ten Strands team, sres her timely vision for a new California-wide, whole-systems approach to integrating environmental and climate literacy in schools. Read the full article here.


 


Lesson Highlights for Fall 2022

In the next three months, Living Classroom will bring more than 25 different lessons to students in Kinder to 5th grade. Lessons include:

  • Tk and Kinder students will learn that the garden is an outdoor classroom, and the basics of gardening: how to use tools and plant a seedling. Some students will also prepare two varieties of winter squash, make their own butter, and create a seed packet to take the squash seeds home.

  • First graders will be introduced to photosynthesis by planting seedlings, snacking on edible plants, and measuring the growth of their plants over several weeks. Some students will also learn to tell how the structure of an animal home supports its function, to identify and discuss animal adaptations in the context of building homes, and to connect their learning to human homes. 

  • Second graders will begin a year-round multi-part lesson From Seed to Pretzel. The first lesson will be planting a wheat seed that will ultimately become a pretzel in the spring, tying in with the social studies unit of consumers and producers. Some students will match plants in the garden with the animals they provide habitat for, and in doing so, learn about the interdependence of plants and animals and the relationship between plant diversity and animal diversity. They will also learn how to be a citizen scientist by documenting the diversity of plants and animals in their school garden.

  • Third graders will learn about the relationship Native American communities have with native plants, as well as the symbiotic relationship of the Three Sisters crops (corn, beans, and squash).

  • Fourth graders will learn about the traditional native California Indians’ use of native plants and explore ethnobotany by studying the ways our local native cultures interacted with plants.

  • Fifth graders will develop a model to demonstrate the flow of energy and nutrients while planting salad crops — and later preparing and eating a salad.

  • Sixth graders will study the crops that grew in ancient civilizations and harvest chickpeas to make hummus. 

You Can Help: Become a Volunteer!

Living Classroom gardens always need loving hands to stay in great condition. If you can spare even a few minutes a week, consider helping in a Living Classroom school garden near you. Contact us at https://www.living-classroom.org/garden-volunteer-form.html


If you like working with kids and plants, please consider becoming a Classroom Volunteer or Docent. No teaching experience or garden knowledge needed or expected! Contact Alexis Li at alexisL@living-classroom.org.


Our Appreciation

We are deeply appreciative to El Camino Healthcare District, the Leslie Family Foundation, the Mountain View Educational Foundation, Los Altos Mountain View Community Foundation, the Office of Supervisor Otto Lee, the Valley Water District, and Google for providing important funding to support our programs at Mountain View Whisman and Campbell schools. Our education partners provide needed funding, maintenance support, and office and storage space. Many thanks to MVWSD, CUSD, St. Simon, and Oster Schools. It takes a village to support our children. These wonderful organizations and agencies have confidence in the work we do and value our commitment to students and environmental literacy. Thank YOU!

 

Many individuals support Living Classroom every year. Please join the Living Classroom family by making an annual gift to support our work   https://www.living-classroom.org/donate.html. Or join our Board members and me in making a monthly donation as a member of Living Classroom’s Sustainer Club.  As a nonprofit, we help our students only through the support of individuals like you and through the support of several public agencies.

New and Familiar Faces

Living Classroom is fortunate to attract talented individuals to deliver our lessons, keep our gardens green and growing, manage a myriad of support services, and provide important governance through Board engagement. 

 

Veteran staff members Susan Harder, Kim Reynolds, Mallory Shiroyama, Anne Furlong, and Maha Lakshminarayanan are returning this fall to support our Instructional Program, once again led by Program Director, Alexis Li. We are delighted to welcome April Ashlock as a new Instructor. April is a MVWSD parent and has been a classroom volunteer for Living Classroom. Before she took time to raise a family, April was a Special Ed teacher in MVWSD.

 

Our Garden Support team of Patti Berryhill, Michelle Bonfilio, and Jody McCalmont continued to work throughout the summer to harvest crops to donate to community agencies and to assure that our gardens were ready for students (and safe from critters and leaks).

 

Living Classroom is so lucky to have Stefani Brandt and Natalie Elefant “behind the curtain” wearing lots of hats (HR, bookeeping, graphic design, marketing …).

 

Many thanks to Kavita Dave Coombe for her years of service to Living Classroom, first as part of the MVWSD garden support team and then as our grants manager these past two years. She will be sorely missed!

 

Join Us For Growing Gardeners
 

In partnership with the Santa Clara Parks and Recreation Department, Living Classroom is excited to offer Growing Gardeners this fall. Young gardeners (limited to ages five to twelve years old) will get their hands in the dirt to plant, harvest, and explore what makes up healthy soil. Kids will use their creativity on garden-based craft and engineering projects, all while growing their appreciation for the natural world around them. This eight-week after-school program is located at Eddie Souza Community Garden in Santa Clara. Register online or contact the Community Recreation Center at 408-615-3140.

Reading Corner
 

Jack’s Garden by Henry Cole

This beautifully illustrated story follows Jack as his garden grows and changes. It skillfully shares the joys of planting a garden and what it takes to make it grow. Our kindergarten students enjoy this story as part of their Garden Greetings lesson, where they, too, learn the value of stewarding their school garden.

 

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Living Classroom
PO Box 4121
Los Altos, CA 94024
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Living Classroom · P.O. Box 4121 · Los Altos, CA 94024 · USA

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