Through the Healthy Food for Denver Kids (HFDK) grant, Sewall Child Development Center is able to host us about once a month, at several of their locations, throughout the growing season. Students ages range from birth to 6 years old and Sewall prides itself on providing inclusive, high-quality services to students of all abilities in an integrated classroom model. Similar to our elementary school programming lessons, our youngest students participate in a nutrition and a garden exploration lesson to complement their sensory and developmental growth through hands-on learning.
In 2024, three of our Sewall locations were part of my weekly garden maintenance rounds. I quickly learned that if I had scheduled meetings or other obligations, my usual Sewall loop would either need to happen as the sun rose or late in the afternoon because if I arrived while Sewall students were on campus, our littlest learners always needed to tell me something and, of course, wanted to help me water their garden. Seeing many of these students several times a week during my watering and harvest rounds was something I always looked forward to. I quickly gained little helpers who were adamant about helping water and care for their garden; many times I would be greeted with "HEY! I need to show you something." They would grab my hand to rush me over to a flower that had bloomed or a plant that had been pulled up by a fellow classmate.
Once we had smelled the flowers and looked at the bees, I would set up my hose and students would bring me anything that could possibly hold water so they could ultimately dump said water on or beside their intended plant. They would proudly carry around the produce I harvested for them and show their teachers.
The students were always excited to harvest and did not quite understand the concept of 'ready' and 'not ready', even though we had talked about this many times. So I grasped the teaching moment & had them all try the few red tomatoes and they expressed excitement about how good it tasted. Then I gave them each a piece of green tomato and they all either spit it out or stuck their tongues out and gave me a thumbs down. I asked them if we should wait until the tomatoes turn red next time before we pick them and they all agreed. "Yes! The green ones are babies and they taste bad."
Green tomatoes inevitably continued to be picked but it was fun to have that touch point with students. And while not ideal, tomatoes will still change colors once off the vine, if you have enough patience!
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