Growing Healthy Kids
Alice Burns and Marian Woodard are our pair of educators within the Growing Healthy Kids program.
Alice visits on Mondays and Wednesdays. Marian visits on Fridays.
Growing Healthy Kids (GHK) is a garden-themed, nutrition education curriculum best aligned to Common Core Standards for students at Oak Grove Middle School.
GHK includes seven-week lessons with options for an outdoor, indoor, or hybrid (combination of activities from both mural and indoor gardens) garden, to give students opportunities to learn basic plant parts and try a variety of fruits and vegetables. Along with core journaling and gardening activities, lessons include food tasting activities, recipe print-outs, physical activity options, coloring sheets, and suggestions for supplemental storybooks to go with lesson themes.
The GHK program used community gardens as a vehicle for providing low-income families that are raising young children access to information about proper nutrition and healthy eating. The project also provided these families an opportunity to work with their children to grow fresh vegetables for their families. Some of the vegetables and fruits grown include lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, potatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, onion, strawberries, melons, roselle, lemongrass, hot peppers (various), beets, carrots, cilantro, mint, basil, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, gourds, and peas.