New Program
Recently, Stella Maris was awarded a grant from Monsanto to fund our garden and nutrition program. In addition to the physical and environmental benefits of planting this garden, our preschool staff have begun to implement this learning process into our curriculum. Our garden program directly coincides with our newly added curriculum approach, Reggio-Emilia. This approach to teaching young children puts the natural development of children as well as the close relationships that they share with their environment at the center of its philosophy. The environment is viewed as the child's “third teacher” and is used to connect the child with the whole school as well as the surrounding community. This is key to our project with Monsanto as we utilize our garden area to teach children about nutritional improvement through agriculture, discovering the science behind plant growth, and involving the community in this program.
Children utilize growth charts to track plant development, learn the history and uses for the plants, vegetables and herbs that they cultivate, and focus on taking care of their plants on a daily basis. Our staff uses pictures, written descriptions and children's verbiage to demonstrate knowledge advancement in this area to parents and administrators. Stella Maris Child Center is also actively involved with Project Weed and Seed which focuses on community improvement through clean streets, garden projects, and neighborhood involvement. Through this collaboration, Stella Maris is able to bring the larger surrounding community into our program.
Through our Monsanto award, we were invited to collaborate with Child Day Care Association and Gateway Greening to install our garden and educate children and teachers about gardening, composting and nutrition. When our vegetable and fruit garden is ready to be harvested, our cooks will also receive a training on how to utilize the fresh fruit and vegetables in our menu.
