Belvedere Elementary School

In our world of video games and high tech devices, today's children often miss the pleasure of going outside and digging in the garden. One of our goals at Belvedere is to have our students experience the joy of seeing food grow from seed to edible treat. We would like our children to be active participants in growing vegetables that they might not regularly see on their tables at home. Our goal is to help our students grow and try new foods they do not see everyday. It is shown that children will often try foods unfamiliar to them when they grow it themselves. We experienced this last year when we grew our first few items in our 2 small raised beds. The children tried radishes and tomatoes and loved them. They also got to see the life cycle of both watermelons and pumpkins. The children were overjoyed to see the watermelons on the vine. in August when they returned to school. The new kindergartners were in awe of the garden in their playground area when they began school in the Fall. The children are excited about the chance to plant their own garden this Spring. Our goal is to expand our raised bed space and have each grade level have their own special bed in which to grow items they are interested in exploring.

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