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Gardening for Wellness
by Lynn Wilson |
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I have always enjoyed gardening, almost to the point
of distraction! As I like to say to people (no pun intended), gardening
keeps me grounded! The problem is that I could literally spend all day
in the garden, which is impossible, because I have many responsibilities
including homeschooling two of my children! However, gardeners being the
great improvisers that they are, it did not take long for me to realize
that gardening could make for a very enriching part of our weekly and/or
daily school work! Using the garden as a teaching tool gives me some
important "me" time in the garden and allows my children to learn and do
something outdoors at the same time.
Our gardening as a part of school work began several years ago when I
had all the children start keeping nature journals. I will be forever
grateful to Karen Andreola. Her writings encouraged me greatly to plunge
ahead with my ideas for using my garden to teach. The same year we
started our nature journals, I planted quite a few perennial and annual
herbs and flowers that would attract butterflies. It was a huge success.
We were able to watch the entire life cycle of the blue swallowtail
butterfly. I felt a wonderful sense of victory in this. The children had
beautiful, creative drawings in their nature journals of a larva, a
chrysalis, and, finally, a newly emerged blue swallowtail butterfly
drying its freshly unfurled wings!
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Last year, during one of our first gardening
outings of the season, my children and I all gathered around an
amazing and somewhat gruesome sight! A veritable army of ants had
subdued a spider that was much larger than any of them. They were
working together, dragging this spider closer and closer to the hole
leading down into their underground fortress. We watched, spellbound,
as the spider neared the hole, its legs collapsing in on each other as
it was pulled out of sight and down into darkness! I had my creative
writing assignment for the day! Each child old enough to write was to
write a story based on what they had seen. They were to use 10
adjectives from a list I had given them and recount the story as
vividly as they possibly could using those adjectives.
Our garden space has evolved over time, with the front yard of our
small 1/3 acre being solely for flowers and herbs, and a 20-foot x
25-foot space in the back yard being solely for fruits, herbs, and
vegetables. The back yard garden is one of whimsy and creativity! We
have a flower pot in one corner to hold "treasures" that we dig up. We
put a small, but cute wire fence around the garden to add a boundary
to help us with weeding. The entrance to the garden is an arch arbor
with a grape vine making its way up higher each year. And, at
intervals all along the fence are shepherd's hooks with various wind
chimes and garden art hanging from them.
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If you want to start your own "school garden" I would suggest
tapping into the writings of any of a number of gardeners who have had
experience and success teaching children with gardens. I personally am very fond
of the work of Sharon Lovejoy. From one particular book, Roots, Shoots, Buckets,
and Boots, we used her idea for planting a "garden of giants." It was a lot of
fun.
In this writer's opinion, including nature and gardening in you life brings a
sense of emotional wellness. So, make sure you adequately protect yourself
against the hot sun, grab your best nature identification book, get your tools
and your students and start digging and learning in your own school garden! |
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Lynn Wilson, mom to four delightful (and perhaps challenging) children, is the
eclectic and nature-loving owner of The Healthy Homeschool
(http://www.thehealthyhomeschool.com
). She welcomes you to visit her any time at her website! |
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