PACT Garden

The PACT garden committee is jointly operated with the other two programs at Castro School. The garden committee has coordinated hundreds of volunteer hours to create the school's redwood garden, vegetable gardens, classroom-owned planting beds, taught children how to compost their lunch scraps, and introduced site-grown vegetables to Castro students.

Interested in joining the garden committee? The PACT garden committee consists of parents with diverse skills. We have parents who use their experience in landscaping, irrigation or carpentry to build and maintain our beautiful garden areas. We have parents who are avid home gardeners. We have parents who live in apartments without a yard and enjoy the opportunity to participate in a garden at school. We have parents who want to learn gardening skills. And we have parents who never dreamed they would or could teach a garden class, but who have been infected with the kids’ enthusiasm for learning outdoors and wish to help continue this valuable program.

“It’s garden day!” “Are we going to the garden today?” “What are we doing in garden today?” “Do we get to taste something today?” The kids’ excitement about the garden makes it a lot of fun to teach this class. Many garden parents enjoy it so much they return as garden parents for multiple years. If you are enthusiastic about getting kids outdoors to learn hands-on, don’t let having limited gardening experience scare you off. Garden committee members support each other with their gardening and curriculum expertise.

The main committee positions are as garden parents (generally 1 per class) who take the kids into the garden once a week in small groups. In addition, we have need of people with other specialized skills (such as landscaping, carpentry, composting, irrigation) who can help out from time-to-time with maintenance and other garden projects.

For more information about committee positions, or the garden program in general, email garden@pactschool.net.

Look Around!

A flower in the style of Georgia O'Keefe, by PACT kindergartner Andrew S.

One kindergarten had a feast of salads, using greens they grew and harvested themselves. Click to see a short

(pop-up window).

The Little Red Hen was featured in a story in the Mountain View Voice.

One Garden Parent wrote all about the experience and even compiled a book about it for the classroom. You can read her notes to the other classroom parents are in the Room 34 Garden Blog.

Another parent made a "Room 13 Website" about their Garden of the Senses project.

Tornadoes in Mountain View? The K/1 class finished up their weather in the garden section studying the rain gauge - not very exciting in the Bay Area in June. So like many lessons - we improvised, with each of the children playing a part of the gathering storm. The water evaporated from the Pacific Ocean, forming cumulonimbus clouds which were then blown east by strong winds, the barometer fell, lightning split the sky, thunder boomed, and tornadoes spun out of the clouds. The storm gathered intensity as it moved east, finally the rain poured down. When it was all over the meteorologists reported that 4 inches of rain had fallen in just 5 minutes!

Long after St. Patrick's Day, one gardening parent asked the grade 2/3 kids to create small structures using whatever natural building materials they could find. The children experimented with sticks, flowers, leaves, dirt, stones and stems and created their miniature structures, dubbed "Leprechaun Houses". That evening the children's parents were listening to excited explanations and stories of these dwellings and bridges during their family dinner conversations. The next day at school, as part of the class literacy studies, the children wrote long, detailed stories about their Leprechaun Houses.

Another 2/3 class tied some of their garden classes into their classroom studies of the Ohlone Indians. They learned about the Native American planting tradition of planting while the moon is waxing, studied native California plants including those plants special to Ohlone (oak, willow, tule, milkweed) and made acorn mush.

Kids measured plant heights, estimated and counted numbers of pumpkin seeds, measured bed length, breadth and perimeters, divided fruit into fractions, made garden maps, and weighed produce. They observed the changes with the seasons, studied insect lifecycles, learned about the importance of worms and other decomposers, and painted flowers in the style of Georgia O'Keefe.

Finally, just before the year was done, the Little Red Hen arrived to tell the kinders her sad story about the wheat seeds she had found, and that she had no-one to help her plant them. Of course the story ends happily as the kinders eagerly offer to help, and lead the Little Red Hen to a garden bed, which just happens to be empty and freshly tilled! They all work together planting the wheat, and look forward to the Little Red Hen returning in the fall to ask the then 1st graders for help in harvesting the wheat and baking pancakes. The children learn, as they never could from a book, how the cycle of planting, growing and harvesting enables them to have food on their plate.

While the adults like to incorporate all kinds of standards into the lessons, a highlight for the children is always preparing and sharing treats from the class garden. Children excitedly munch on fresh snow peas, green onions, carrots, radishes, edible flowers and herbs from their garden bed. Mint tea, mint lemonade, stir-fry greens, herb bread, salads, fries, green onion cakes, baked potatoes and zucchini bread have all featured on the menu. It's gratifying to watch kids enjoying fresh produce - and even hearing from their parents that they have requested fruit or vegetables that previously they had refused to eat.

The garden is full of surprises for curious kids (and also for adults!)…A white California poppy in a bed of orange poppies; a coconut is a seed; John's foot is more than a foot long; the steam that comes off roasting coffee beans has weight - a lot of weight; a baby ladybug looks like a tiny alligator; the Mercury News temperature predictions are not always correct; the stevia plant tastes like sugar.

In the garden we can be meteorologists, poets, scientists, historians, thinkers, dreamers, mathematicians, artists, landscapers, teachers, chefs, environmentalists, authors….what will your child be?