Edible Education for the Home Classroom | The Edible Schoolyard Project

Edible Education for the Home Classroom

Lessons from the Edible Schoolyard for students to complete at home

Overview

At the Edible Schoolyard, we believe that students’ experiences outside of school are just as meaningful as their experiences at school. During this time, we have an opportunity to support students in deepening their practice of life-wide and life-deep learning. We’ve designed our lessons around the themes of imagine, create, learn, connect, reflect, and support. These themes represent the aspects of learning we create in the Edible Schoolyard classroom. We hope you will continue to learn with us as we join each other at the table— the dining table—to grow together and share stories.

We are developing and posting new lessons every week to support students, families, and educators. Be sure to check back frequently, or subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates featuring the latest lessons.

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.

How To: Read a Seed Packet

Did you know that seed packets contain a wealth of information on how to grow the seeds they contain? This lesson will introduce you to gardening vocabulary terms that will assist you in reading seed packets. Knowing how to read a seed packet will help you become a great gardener!

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.

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.

Knife Skills: Knife Safety

Do you want to learn and practice knife skills to improve your cooking? The first step towards that is learning how to work with knives safely. This short lesson will explain a few important practices that help keep you safe as you develop and practice your skills. You’ll watch a short video and then answer a few questions about what you learned in the video. Then you’ll practice what you’ve learned and prepare a simple snack of cut vegetables.

Knife Skills: Mincing

Do you want to know how to use a knife like a professional chef? Mincing is an essential knife technique that allows you to cut foods into very small pieces quickly. It is easy and satisfying to learn how to do! This lesson will help you get started mincing and prepare a delicious Italian topping called gremolata that is excellent with roasted vegetables, soup, or grilled meats!

Discovering Flowers

Ever wonder why a flower looks the way it does? Or what the different parts of a flower are for? In this lesson, you will explore the structure of flowers and learn about flower parts and what they do. You will examine a flower and draw and label different parts of your flower.

Learning How to Flip Food

Have you watched chefs on TV effortlessly flip an egg or pancake without using a spatula? Do you want to be able to impress your friends with your skills? In this lesson, you’ll learn how to flip food in a sauté pan and reflect upon how you learn new skills.

Roasting Vegetables (Kitchen)

In this lesson, students learn how factors like oven temperature and vegetable size affect how the vegetables cook. Students will draw a picture of their favorite vegetable and then will watch a video and complete a worksheet. Finally, they will get in the kitchen and roast some vegetables.

Student Version Parent / Teacher Version

How Do We Smell? (Kitchen)

Have you ever wondered how smell works? Have you ever smelled something and it sparked memory? If so, that’s because our bodies are working with our brains to help us smell. Today, we are going to learn about how we smell and do some fun activities!

STudent Version Parent / Teacher Version

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

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.

How To: Direct Seed

The process of direct seeding (also called direct sowing) involves planting seeds in the garden, rather than buying small plants or starting seeds indoors earlier and transplanting them outside. This lesson will walk you through the steps of direct seeding so you are ready to direct seed something yourself!

Create Your Own: Planter Box

Building a planter box is a simple way to start gardening. This lesson will help you build your own planter box using a few simple items that you can get at any hardware or garden store or by upcycling things you have already.

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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.

Growing From Your Food Scraps

Did you know that a lot of the produce in your kitchen will sprout new growth just by putting it in water or soil? This activity explores growing food from the ends and scraps of produce in your kitchen.

Five Ingredient Recipe Lesson

Sometimes the best recipes begin with the ingredients you have in your house. Along with some essential tips, and if you need it, help from a friend, you can create and discover new recipes all on your own! This lesson will show you how to take five ingredients and build a list of flexible recipes you could make with them.

Making Seed Balls

Want to make a recipe for something that isn’t edible? We have just the recipe for you! In this lesson you will learn how to make seed balls to spread the beauty of flowers; any place plants will grow.

Create Your Own Yogurt Sauce (Kitchen)

Have you ever wanted to write your own recipe? Would you like to feel more confident cooking without one? In this lesson, students create their own Yogurt Sauce recipe and learn that recipes don’t always have to follow a typical format.

The Perfect Slice (Kitchen)

Why is practice important to mastering a skill? In this lesson, you will listen to a short story from StoryCorps on the topics of taking pride in one's work and the importance of practice. You will then practice slicing onions and prepare quick pickled onions.

Student Version Teacher / Parent Version

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.

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.

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.

The Germination of a Bean Seed (Garden)

Have you ever wondered what happens below ground as a plant grows? Today, you are going to watch a time-lapse video of a bean seed growing and make observations! You will write a haiku poem and draw a plant, including its hidden root system.

Student Version Parent / Teacher Version

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.

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.

Heritage Box Lesson

In this lesson students make a family heritage box, a keepsake box that contains items that represent family, culture and history. First students will watch a video of an artist talking about how she uses art to honor her culture and family. Next, students will connect with their family around food, music, and stories. Then they will create a heritage box and add some of their stories to their box.

Mapping the Sounds Around You

What sounds do you hear around you? How many different sounds can you identify? This activity asks you to listen to sounds in your environment and record them in a sound map.

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

Support

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

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.

Read More Tips for Using Video

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.

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

See More Lessons

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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