Edible Education for the Home Classroom

Lessons from the Edible Schoolyard for students to complete at home

Overview

At The Edible Schoolyard Project, we believe that students’ experiences outside of school are just as meaningful as their experiences at school. We seek to bring students’ lived experiences into the classroom to connect their lives to their learning. Now, widespread distance learning has created a moment in which learning primarily occurs outside of formal learning environments. The Edible Schoolyard Project aims to support students, teachers, and families through a suite of lessons and activities designed for the home classroom.

Cooking with Curiosity

We are excited to share Cooking with Curiosity a new curriculum written for both distance and in-person learning. It is designed to introduce students to cooking skills while building reflection practices so that they can cook confidently on their own terms. Cooking with Curiosity is a four-unit curriculum with approximately 40 lessons designed to be completed over the course of a semester. Lessons are written for middle school students but many will adapt easily to elementary and high school audiences. The entire curriculum is now available to view, use, and share.

View Unit 1 View unit 2

View Unit 3 View Unit 4

Know, Sow, Grow

This set of six hands-on, garden-based activities is geared towards teaching the basics of plant parts and processes. The lessons emphasize and actively teach vocabulary because gardening’s rich lexicon can often seem intimidating or unapproachable to new gardeners. Our Know, Sow, Grow lessons provide scaffolding and pull back the curtain to introduce students to a world of new words in a fun and approachable way. All of the lessons are designed so that they can be taught in-person or remotely, synchronously or asynchronously.

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Resource Library

The Edible Schoolyard resource library is a searchable database of gardening, cooking, and food systems lessons. Using the resource library you can search and sort by grade level, classroom type, key concepts, or even instructional strategies.

View the Resource Library

Additionally, there are a few lessons written specifically for distance learning that are not included in the resource library. You can find those lessons below.

Imagine

Activities and lessons using creative expression, including poetry and drawing, to engage with the garden, food, and cooking. Activities range from short five-minute prompts to longer explorations.

Exploring Home With Food

Our personal associations with food provide powerful ways for us to connect to our family, our emotions, and our senses of belonging, comfort, and joy. In this lesson, students will reflect on a food that reminds them of home. They will then make that food and capture their cooking process in a photo diary.

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Coloring Together: The Anatomy of a Wheat Kernel

In this activity, we encourage students to color with their family while learning about the anatomy of a wheat kernel.

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Coloring Together: Seeds We Eat

In this activity, use our coloring sheet to color different seeds as a family. While you color, consider using the conversation starters to talk about the different seeds we eat.

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Coloring Together: Strawberry

Coloring, sometimes considered a child’s activity, is a documented stress reliever for adults! In this activity, use our coloring sheet to color as a family. While you color, consider using the conversation starters to discuss strawberries.

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I am Poem

Have you ever read a poem or a piece of text that created a rich visual in your mind? Want to learn to incorporate more vivid imagery into your writing? In this lesson, you will learn about imagery and record different facets of imagery for a strawberry. Then, you will take what you learned about imagery to write an I am poem.

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Learn

Content-rich learning experiences for students around gardening and cooking. Students will learn and practice hard skills, develop their knowledge of food systems, and connect to their core academic studies in 5 to 60 minute long lessons.

All About Flour

What is flour? Why are there so many types? What makes them different? If you’ve ever read a baking recipe that called for bread flour, cake flour, or unbleached flour and wondered any of those questions, this is your chance to learn all about flour.

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Seeds We Eat

What seeds do you eat? Most people eat seeds every day, even if they don’t realize it. Edible seeds come in many forms and make up a large part of human diets. In this lesson, you’ll think about seeds you eat, do a coloring activity, and learn about different categories of edible seeds.

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Strawberries and Pesticides

Conventional (non-organic) strawberries can contain up to 20 pesticides. Why are so many pesticides used in growing strawberries? Do those pesticides hurt your health? What about the health of the workers who plant and harvest strawberries? In this lesson, you’ll learn about the history and impacts of pesticide use in strawberry farming.

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Strawberries and Labor

Did you know that California grows almost 90% of all the strawberries grown in the United States? Or that strawberries are one of the most labor-intensive crops to grow? In this lesson, you will use an infographic and close reading to learn about connections between strawberry growing, production practices, and immigration policies.

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How to Read A Recipe (Kitchen)

Have you ever read a recipe only to still not know where to start? Gotten halfway through cooking something and realized you missed a key step? These are common setbacks that can be avoided with purposeful recipe reading. This activity will help you read recipes like a professional chef!

Student Version Parent / Teacher Version

Support

Thought pieces and resources for educators and parents adapting to the home classroom.

Prompts for Mealtime Conversations

Our curriculum developers have put together a few conversation prompts that can help young people begin or continue conversations around the table about race, equity, and injustice.

Utilizing Videos as an Instructional Tool

Videos can be rich instructional texts for learning at home. This piece explores how to best use video in your lessons.

Supporting Students to Take Age-Appropriate Risk

Students need to be exposed to appropriate risks to learn how to manage risk. The kitchen and garden are great classroom for them to develop these skills.

Create

Projects and lessons that produce tangible results in the kitchen or garden. The activities support students of all skill levels to engage in new activities ranging from 5 minutes to 90 minutes.

Call for Citizen Scientists

We need your help with a research project! The Edible Schoolyard is seeking 25 students for a citizen science project investigating how the age of seeds affects seed viability. Click the link below to learn more!

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Saving Scraps for Vegetable Stock Lesson

No matter the season, vegetable stock is a staple for many cooking projects and is also a great way to reduce food waste. In this lesson, you will learn how to make stock from kitchen scraps, reflect on food waste, then make some delicious spring and summer soup recipes.

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Reflect

Prompts practices such as listening, meditation, journaling, and free-writing—activities range from 2 minutes to 20 minutes.

Reflecting on Food: Mindful Eating

Can you enjoy eating more just by focusing your attention? How does the experience of eating change when you eat slowly? In this short lesson, you will try a mindful eating exercise guided by an audio prompt.

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Reflecting on Food: Food Choices

How do you make decisions about what to eat? What is important to you? This short reflection activity will help you think through your priorities when you make food choices. You’ll listen to a short reflection prompt and use (or create) a set of consideration cards to map out your preferences. There is no right answer to these questions, but it can be useful to know how you are thinking about it.

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Reflecting on Food – New Food Rituals

When is food joyous for you? Is there a moment that involves eating in your day that you look forward to? This short reflection activity will help you think about your food rituals or routines and practice gratitude.

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Food Memory

What is a food memory you have with someone you love? Today you will watch a video from StoryCorps of a granddaughter telling a story about cooking with her grandmother. After reflecting on some of the details of the story, you will get a chance to write your own story or food memory.

Student Version Parent / Teacher Version

Family Activity - "I Remember that Smell!" (Kitchen)

This family activity encourages families to reflect on smell memories evoked by spices in your home cabinets.

Smell Memory Activity

Connect

Activities are interactive and focus on building relationships, connections, and conversations. Activities range from 5-minute challenges to hours-long family conversations.

Five Ingredient Recipe Challenge

Connect with someone through our five ingredient challenge! Share with us what you created from the Five Ingredient Recipe Lesson. Our five ingredient recipe challenge will take place from May 18 to June 5, 2020.

Take the Challenge!

Yogurt Sauce Challenge

We want to see the yogurt sauce you made! Share with us what you created for the Create Your Own Yogurt Sauce activity and challenge others to try your recipe at home. The Edible Schoolyard’s yogurt challenge will take place on Instagram over the next two weeks. This sheet details how you can participate.

See the Challenge

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Family Activity - "I Remember that Smell!" (Kitchen)

This family activity encourages families to reflect on smell memories evoked by spices in your home cabinets.

Smell Memory Activity

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