Harvest Kitchen Sisters

From the country...

I was invited into Nate's classroom to instruct a little planting projects with his class. After some really fun research I came up with bean planting and sprouted egg heads. I wanted to teach the kindergarten children about growing but in a fun and creative way.

We started out with talking about black turtle beans. While the children were shucking their dried beans from the pod, I talked a little bit about the culinary use of the bean. Then we took the beans, wrapped them up in moist paper towel and placed them in a plastic bag. This was so that the children could see the bean in all the stages of germination and it would mirror what was happening in the soil. Next we planted the beans in soil. By this time all the children were excited to play in the dirt and to poke their beans into the soil. Nate's teacher also had a vermicomposter so the class used their worm castings to mix with soil.
Once the beans were planted we move on to the egg heads. We took hollowed out eggs (which the children drew faces on) filled them with soil and sprinkled them with broccoli raab seeds. I had brought in an example of an egghead and each child sampled some of the sprouted greens. The classroom was electric. Each child was so proud of their little pots and egg heads. It made my heart swell to see Nate in his element sharing his passion with his peers.
My next project with the school is a bit of a school garden. I am excited to continue to work with the kids.. and getting my hands dirty at the same time.