Planting, Harvesting, Preparing, Eating, Compost
By:
Gan Shalom (Garden of Peace) and the Culinary Center are important parts of the learning experience at Temple Emanu El Early Childhood Education Center. In late March three year olds participated in a round of planting, harvesting, preparation, eating, clean up and composting designed as a series of hands on activities enabling children to understand the cycle of healthy eating from plant to plate.
PLANTING:
Working with our Garden Educator, the children plant seeds and transplant seedlings into the tilled soil. The Gan functions as an educational space with several small areas where the children plant and tend herbs, greens, and vegetables which are used in the culinary program as well as spaces designated for cultivating flowers.
HARVESTING:
Thanks to a mild winter and early spring, the gardens were filled with herbs and greens available for the children to harvest. They picked lemon balm, oregano, cilantro and cardoon along with mustard greens, mint, and a few calendula and pansy blossoms.
PREPARATION:
In the Culinary Center all the class stands in front of the washed harvest along with cooking implements and additional items from a local Farmer's Market delivery. With the direction of the Culinary Center teacher, they will prepare the greens and herbs from the garden and add carrots, peas, and green pepper for a stir fry dish.
Using child friendly knives for chopping, the class begins cutting vegetables into small pieces for the skillet. They tear large and small leaves from the spines of the larger plants such as the greens and separate the herbs from stalk and stem. One dish is for the edible portions they will eat and they place the rest into a bowl for composting.
The food goes into the skillet with olive oil and spices. The children watch as the greens wilt and diminish in size and the chopped vegetable saute and soften.
EATING:
Participation in selecting foods and herbs from the garden, assisting in cleaning and preparing them for cooking, and watching as they undergo changes in the cooking process encourages children to be more adventuresome. There is a higher level of curiosity about the plants they have seen growing or brought from a farm and in which they have an investment of time and interest. All the children sample the stir fry; everyone can find familiar vegetables in the mix and all are eager to identify the specific plants they remember seeing and working with in the kitchen. Even reluctant vegetable eaters give it a try.
CLEAN UP AND COMPOST:
Cleaning up cooking tools and dishes is an important part of the full experience of responsible and healthy eating. The children scrape plates and bring dirty bowls to the sink for washing. The stems, rinds, peelings and other parts of the items brought in from the garden or the market and set aside during preparation and eating are taken to the compost bin in the Gan. The compost is nourished by the wastes from the children's cooking classes as well as from the healthy snacks and lunches consumed during the school day. Earthworms thrive on the non edible waste put into the compost and as it decomposes, fertilzer for future plantings in the garden is being created.
Beginnings and endings in the garden is a complete process of learning about healthy food - how it is grown and prepared, the pleasure and fellowship of eating it, and the clean up and return of scraps for nurturing more food. As active participants, even the youngest of children learn to understand and appreciate the totality of consuming food. Using the Gan and the Culinary Center as an integral part of our curriculum gives all the children of the Early Childhood Center opportunities to have baseline experiences in forming life long habits of respecting the environment and making healthy food choices.