Graland Country Day School

Garden Leader: Maureen Kechriotis – mkech@comcast.net

Locally Grown at Graland

Visitors to the Cherry Creek Farmers’ Market gazed in awe as they watched a group of young children conversing with local vendors — in Spanish! Graland Spanish Teacher and Service Learning Coordinator Christi James and her third grade Spanish classes took a trip to the farmers’ market to practice using their foreign language skills in a real life situation. Students purchased various fruits and vegetables, such as maiz (corn), zanahorias (carrots) and sandía (watermelon).

Not only did these students get to purchase locally grown produce, they also grew their own! Last year, these former second graders helped plant Graland’s own vegetable garden and have now watched the entire harvest cycle.

Christi incorporates the school’s vegetable garden into her Spanish classes with a game called The Secret Vegetable Mission. A few students pick a vegetable from the school garden and bring it into the classroom without showing it to the rest of their classmates. The class is then allowed to ask “sí” or “no” questions in Spanish in order to guess the vegetable that was chosen.

Students especially enjoy being able to taste the different vegetables grown in the garden. One of Christi’s lessons has students create their own salad recipe, which they write down in Spanish and share with the rest of the class.

Graland’s garden allows students to try new vegetables and encourages healthy eating habits. Christi’s approach to incorporating Spanish, locally grown food and healthy living into her lesson plan is one of the innovative ways in which Graland teachers educate students and open doors of opportunity for discovery.