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Happy Leap Day: Let’s Leap into a Season of Volunteerism

Wednesday, February 29, 2012 | Filed under Volunteering , Environmental Stewardship , Community , Family Activities , REAL Supporters

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the worms are emerging from the earth and flowers are beginning to bloom…the signs of spring are among us. With the spring season rapidly approaching, the need to provide maintenance to gardens becomes even more essential.

Garden Maintenance volunteers provide support to school gardens of REAL School Gardens’ partner schools throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Some of the typical tasks include assisting with the planting, caring for and gleaning of fruits, vegetables and other edible plants; grooming, edging, watering, composting, digging, hoeing, weeding, thinning, planting, pruning, shoveling, etc. If you enjoy ...

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Hungry for Knowledge

Friday, February 17, 2012 | Filed under Health and Nutrition

Students' line up for lunch

“Is this all we get” they say? …and I respond with a reply sure to fill them up with pride but maybe not to quench their desire for the food of the gods – Broccoli. It is shared with them that what they have been handed may not look like much for sustenance but they are not so much hungry for Broccoli as they are hungry for knowledge, and I think they believed me.

So it was suggested that if they wanted to make their brains bigger they eat the miniscule piece of Broccoli ...

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Teacher Training, We Want More!

Monday, February 13, 2012 | Filed under Educators , Instructional Aids , Science

4^th grade educators from across Fort Worth ISD recently joined us for another science module training that utilizes the schoolyard as a resource for rigorous and relevant learning. Yes, another teacher training after school! We know the educators we work with are exhausted—how can we possibly engage them after a long day of teaching after a long week of before, during, and after school meetings, deadlines, and commitments? Well, the same way we engage students after days of worksheets, videos, textbooks, and testing pressure. Take them outside!

The module written for the district’s curriculum framework is ...

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Watch A Learning Garden Grow

Wednesday, February 08, 2012 | Filed under School Garden Installation , Community

We planted a new school garden at East Handley Elementary this past Saturday! Over 200 people came out to help this school community build a garden in a day. Thanks to the generous leadership grant from Chesapeake Energy, the East Handley school community can now enjoy their new outdoor classroom!

Because going fast is fun, scroll down to watch their learning garden grow in fast forward!

The East Handley school garden site was a bare patch of lawn, which bloomed into a full-blown outdoor classroom.

The students contributed some fantastic garden designs, learning about area and ...

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Code Talker

Friday, February 03, 2012 | Filed under Environmental Stewardship , Language Arts

While REAL School Gardens was facilitating lessons outdoors in the Birdville Elementary garden laboratory, kindergarten students observed a Wooly Bear Caterpillar, Pyrrharctia isabella; (see the drawing in the journal picture above), dining on some native Texas plants. Upon the “teachable moment” students were asked to record observations in their journals. When the students were finished they were asked if anyone would be willing to read their recordings and observations. The student pictured, stood up and promptly began reading from her journal – a reading that took 2-3 minutes and she didn’t take her eyes from the page. Two/three minutes is ...

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