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Veggie Gardens

FoodCorps Resources to Support Remote Education has adapted their creative hands on lessons to be taught at home to ages 5-11 years old. A collection of Video Lesson by FoodCorps AmeriCorps Service Members can be found here.
FoodSpan (for High School students)
This free, downloadable curriculum provides high school students with a deep understanding of critical food system issues, empowers them to make healthy and responsible food choices, and encourages them to become advocates for food system change.
Growing Minds Farm-to-School Preschool Tool Kit contains all of our farm to preschool resources, including lesson plans, “This Week in the Garden” activity guides, “Farm to School Goes Home” parent handouts, local food sourcing guidance, and tips for cooking and gardening with young children. It also includes a resource developed by the NC Farm to Preschool Network, “Reach for the Stars with Farm to Preschool“, which aligns the Early Childhood and Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scales (revised editions) with farm to preschool activities.​
Junior Master Gardeners is an amazing resource of featuring "Virtual Learn, Grow, Eat and Go! Online Course for Elementary Students." The International Junior Master Gardener Program also brings additional circulcum materials, certification options and checklists to help prepare teachers and leaders to engage students. ​​
Nourish Curriculum Guide  (for Middle School students)
A rich set of resources to open a meaningful conversation about food and sustainability. Beautifully designed and brimming with big ideas, the materials contain a viewing guide, seven learning activities, student handouts, a bibliography, and a glossary.

The Nourish curriculum and a companion DVD may be used in social studies, science, health, or English classes. Activity themes include The Story of Food; Seasonal, Local Food; Food Traditions; Food and Ecosystems; Analyzing Food Ads; School Lunch Survey; and Action Projects.
Slow Food School Garden Good and Clean Curriculum
​The “Good” curriculum consists of an introduction and two chapters. Chapters include “Sensory Education” and “Kitchen Tools and Skills.”
The “Clean” curriculum consists of a short introduction and two chapters. Chapter 1 is titled “Basic Garden Skills and Knowledge” and Chapter 2 is titled “A Slow Food Garden.” Available in both English and Spanish!
Harvest of the Month - Each month CAFF purchases produce from local growers, packs the produce items into educational kits, and works with a local distributor to deliver the kits to participating schools and classrooms. This model enables teachers to take the lead on food and farming education and allows kids to taste fresh, local fruits and vegetables while learning about the farmers who grew them, empowering them to make healthy choices. HOTM is a perfect segue into more robust Farm to School programs that link the cafeteria to the classroom, because it allows both educators and food service staff to focus on one local seasonal produce item a month.
Early Sprouts, Cultivating Healthy Food Choices in Young Children www.earlysprouts.org - Creative, research-based nutrition curriculum with a seed-to-table approach. Encourages preschoolers to eat more vegetables by helping grow, harvest, and prepare organically grown foods. Includes information for planning, planting, and maintaining a garden that works with a variety of climates. ​
​​LifeLab's Common Core & Next Generation Science in the Garden 
Lifelab has created a comprehensive list of resources to help you integrate new content standards into your garden program.
The Growing Classroom This foundational year-round gardening curriculum is a teacher and NGA staff favorite! Developed by the LifeLab Science Program and revised to meet current science standards, this renowned teacher’s manual features strategies for managing garden-based science instruction — including planning a garden laboratory, facilitating investigative lessons on ecology and nutrition, and involving the community.
The School Garden Doctor promotes evidence-based practices to sustain school gardens. Check out this classroom-tested approach to developing food literacy in the classroom, kitchen, and garden. This pedagogical approach begins with a shared food experience that sets context for literacy and science lessons. The cycle can be extended to include Planting-Growing-Harvesting activities in the school garden. Lessons connect to food literacy themes and align to Common Core State Standards for ELA/Literacy and Next Generation Science Standards.
Botany on Your Plate: Investigating the Foods We Eat - This investigative science curriculum book introduces the world of plants through foods we eat. Children explore edible roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds through observation, dissection, journaling, discussion of findings, and, of course, tasting!
Readers to Eaters promotes food literacy through stories about our diverse food cultures.
Krista Gasper creates videos on YouTube about composting, eating local, soil nutrients and so much more! Krista is the garden educator at Harmony School. Her lessons are separated into K-3rd grade and 4th-8th grade. Check out her channel! ​
Marin Child Care Council has created dozens of short Youtube videos targeted to preschool teachers who wish to incorporate gardening into their curriculum. Their mission is to "is to improve availability, accessibility, and affordability of quality child care in Marin County."

LEARNING ECOSYSTEMS

Create a Seasonal Wheel
Every place has its own set of seasonal events that nature unfolds every year, and creating a seasonal wheel is one of the easiest and most effective teaching tools to help students have a relationship with their home-place. Developing a seasonal wheel is a highly adaptable project suited for classes of various sizes and grade levels.
Asphalt to Ecosystems is a compelling guidebook for designing and building natural schoolyard environments that enhance childhood learning and play experiences while providing connection with the natural world. With this book, Danks broadens our notion of what a well-designed schoolyard should be, taking readers on a journey from traditional, ordinary grassy fields and asphalt, to explore the vibrant and growing movement to "green" school grounds in the United States and around the world. This book documents exciting green schoolyard examples from almost 150 schools in 11 countries, illustrating that a great many things are possible on school grounds when they are envisioned as outdoor classrooms for hands-on learning and play.
​Opening the World Through Nature Journaling by John Muir Laws. A free download that includes great kid tested sketching activities, poetry writing, and more detailed tips on drawing in nature (you will love the material on drawing plants). This is a great resource for teachers, outdoor leaders, and home school parents.
Greening School Grounds: Creating Habitats for Learning - This book has numerous ideas for school projects, from school composting to native plant gardens. This book also includes outdoor classroom activities for teachers to use with their lessons.
Acorn Naturalists - A fantastic collection science and environmental education supplies for teachers, outdoor educators, schools, educators, entomologists, trackers, storytellers, parents and their children.
No Student Left Indoors -Nature is not a destination, it is everywhere — including right in your own schoolyard! This essential educator’s guidebook helps students discover, observe, and record nature in their urban, suburban, or rural schoolyard. A wonderful multidisciplinary hands-on project that teaches children to learn to appreciate nature…and find it in the most unexpected places.
PEAS Digital Lessons with Nearby Naturalists is a comprehensive suite of standards-aligned outdoor learning experiences that can be seamlessly integrated into your district's existing curriculum.
Teaching in Nature's Classroom - In a garden we are able to cultivate children's love of learning and connection to life. This book presents 15 guiding principles of garden-based education.
Schoolyard Activities by Green Schoolyards. This free guides for schools are a compilation of activities, aligned with standards for 3-18. See the chapters on Wildlife Habitat and Watershed Stewardship in the Living Schoolyard Guide. Other editions are also available in Chinese and Spanish.
Outdoor Biology Instructional Strategies (OBIS) by the Lawrence Hall of Science. This curriculum was developed in the 1970s to help adults take young people outdoors to experience ecological principles in their local area. Activities are versatile, easy to lead, easy to prepare and require mostly simple or homemade equipment.
Project WILD is a wildlife-focused conservation education program for K-12 educators and their students.
Symbiotic Schoolyard Curriculum includes NGSS-aligned and project-based curriculum, with 13 detailed lesson plans, handouts, PowerPoints, and more!
Five Hundred Yard Field Trip
A series of curriculum units for teachers, parents, youth leaders. The goal of the Five Hundred Yard Field trip is to help students create a habitat using native plants and learn about the ecosystem created. Includes "Pussytoes Project" (K-2) and "Caterpillarpalooza" (3-5).

honoring indigenous LAND STEWARDSHIP & Foodways

Decolonizing Dinner by PBS

This collection of documentaries and programs explores stores of Indigenous chefs and communities uplifting their cultures through traditional cuisine and foodways. You can also find recipes to try and discussions on why food sovereignty is key.
Three Sisters Gardening by Fresh Farm

In The Tree Sisters Garden book by Food Works, Inc.
Indigenous Learning Resources by Outdoor Learning School

NATIVE PLANTS

​Kid's Corner & Other Native Plant Activities & Native Plant Education 
The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) offers a range of native plant curriculum and activities for kids - including nature journaling, native plant walks, botanical games and word puzzles, instructions for pressing flowers and making homemade herbariums, etc.
Native Plant Curriculum by Save the Bay
Native Plant Cards by Calscape
Calscape offers the option to print Native Plant Cards to help introduce your students to native plants and their ecosystem value. Simply click 'Print Plant Sign' found at the bottom of each plant page.
Native Plant Educational Resources by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy
  • Seeds to Flowers (Grade 2)
  • Petal Pushes (Grade 3)
  • Green Thumbs Up! (Grade 4)
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Affordable pre-designed signs for your garden can be ordered from the Life Lab website.

Pollinators & bugs

Teachers & Educators by Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
The Xerces Society has created some wonderful educational resources about pollinators.
Why are pollinators so picky?  lesson by Life Lab (Grade 3)
WWF Teaching Tools about Monarchs
This resource guide, interactive classroom presentation, posters, and word puzzles are designed to give you all the information you need to teach your students fun monarch facts, and information on why they matter, what threats they face, and what kids can do to help.
 Butterfly Life Cycle
Bee Smart School Garden Kit by Pollinator Partnership
Pollinator Quest by Captain Planet Foundation

BIRDS

Download BirdSleuth’s Explorers Guide for a Habitat Scavenger Hunt (you can receive 10 laminated Habitat Scavenger cards and 10 Bird Bingo cards for $10). BirdSleuth also offers ideas for making DIY bird feeders which are great for aiding bird observation.
Cornell University has developed a wonderful  Citizen Science program called Nestwatch which is linked to a 5-8 grade free curriculum called Thinking Outside the (Nest) Box.

 soil & the living microbial food web

All About Soil by The Outdoor Garden Classroom
Lessons for 3rd graders about soil, water absorption, amendments, composting, and worms.
Soil Food Web - Learn about the magical microcosmos! If your school has a microscope it can be especially fun to watch these microorganisms move around under a lens.
Soil Texture Ribbon Test - An easy and fun activity to find out the texture of your soil (ratio of sand-silt-clay).
Complete Soil Testing Handout - Take a soil profile sample, determine your soil texture, and test your soil pH.
Healthy Foods From Healthy Soils: A Hands-On Resource For Teachers- invites you and your students to discover where food comes from, how our bodies use food, and what happens to food waste. You’ll participate in the ecological cycle of food production > compost formation > recycling back to the soil, while helping children understand how their food choices affect not only their own health, but farmers, the environment, and your local community

EARTH-BASED Arts & CRAFTS

Onion skin ink making (basic hot extraction method) by Ione Maria Rojas
Red cabbage ink making (basic hot extraction method, with an example at the end of some easy modifiers) by Ione Maria Rojas
How to Make Oak Gall Ink by Craft Invaders
 Eco-printing 'hapa-zome' style by School Garden Network
Collaged Creatures by Ione Maria Rojas
How to Make Ink Creatures by Sketchbook Skool
Blind Contour Drawing (aka Don't Look Drawing) by the Artful Parent
Fibershed Learning Center ​in Point Reyes Station, California has courses for teachers to learn various crafts.

OTHER books

For 4 year olds, to set the tone and get students thinking about seed dispersal in an age-appropriate way, we read the wonderful picture book, The Dandelion Seed, by Joseph Anthony and illustrated by Cris Arbo. This book very gently and somewhat magically traces a floating dandelion seed’s journey through the big wide world, how it finally finds a home and lands, and grows into a new flower the following year. The story has gorgeous full page illustrations and is also a good exploration of the seasons.
​A classic many of you may already be familiar with is the story, “The Garden,” from Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel. This story shows the importance of patience and taking “the long view” when gardening, in a very cute and funny way. I read this story to the first grade class, and following the book, we planted bare-root strawberry plants.
The delightful story, Chipmunk Song by Joanne Ryder is perfect for 5-year-olds, as it traces a human child in the form of a chipmunk on her wanderings through fields and underground burrows. This was a great story for a cooped-up rainy day since the main character is chewing, stretching, scampering, and burrowing, and there is plenty of opportunities through the reading to have the children move around and act out the same.
Growing Sustainable Children offers "useful overviews of the history of gardening education and the evolving consciousness of children through its detailed age-appropriate curriculum and activity listings from nursery and kindergarten through high school. This book will be an indispensable resource for anyone already teaching in a gardening program, for those planning on starting such a program, or for anyone working with children in a garden or other outdoor setting as a homeschooler, community organizer, or friend of the Earth."
Schoolyard-Enhanced Learning shows how the school grounds—regardless of whether your school is in an urban, suburban, or rural setting—can become an enriching extension of the classroom. In this comprehensive handbook, Herb Broda blends theory and practice, providing readers with practical suggestions and teacher-tested activities for using the most powerful audio-visual tool available—the outdoors.
Easy PEASy Guidebook for Place-Based Outdoor Learning - Designed with busy educators in mind, the guidebook provides easily digestible content and practical lessons to integrate into your curriculum. Tailored for 1st through 3rd-grade students, but are adaptable for younger and older grades.
The School Garden Curriculum
Provides a unique K-8th grade gardening activity plan and over 200 weekly lessons that weave science, permaculture, and environmental education into place-based and immersive learning. With this program, children will be inspired to live out an environmental and social ethic of stewardship that the world needs. ​
​Math in the Garden -This engaging curriculum uses a mathematical lens to take children on an education-filled exploration of the garden. Dozens of hands-on activities hone math skills and promote inquiry, language arts, and nutrition.
More Recommended Children's Books:
Hello, Trees by Bailey Bezuidenhout
Home is Calling by Katherine Pryor
​Every Little Seed by Cynthia Schumerth
Beatrice and Barb by Kate Jink Landry
A Butterfly is Patient by Long Aston
The Pie that Molly Grew by Sue Heavenrich
Monarch and Milkweed by Gore Frost
There's a Hummingbird in My Backyard by Gary Bogue
On Meadowview Street by Henry Cole
Planting the Wild Garden by Kathryn O. Galbraith
Outside Your Window, a First Book of Nature by Nicola Davies
A Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin
A Packet of Seeds by Deborah Hopkinson
A Seed is Sleepy by Diana Hutts Aston
Chipmuck Song by Joanne Ryder
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman
Oliver's Vegetables by Vivian French
Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington
Seedfolks by Paul Fleishman
The Dandelion Seed by Joseph Anthony
The Reason for a Flower by Ruth Heller
The Snail's Spell by Joanne Ryder
​The Vegetables We Eat by Gail Gibbons
Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens
Two Old Potatoes by John Coy
Wonderful Worms by Linda Glaser