The school garden program at Loveland Primary  consists of individual gardens assigned to classrooms, common garden areas with perennials and annuals for class use, learning centers with benches, and a nature trail.

Training and Newsletters

Training is required of coordinators.  In training, not only are lesson plans reviewed, but we also share lesson feedback and class management tips.  In addition to training, newsletters are emailed to teachers, coordinators, and volunteers about the upcoming schedule and points of interest in the gardens.  The current newsletter and a history of past newsletters for the school year are found here.

Teaching in the Gardens

Just like the students, we learn by doing.  Over the years, we have learned some basics to simplify your experience in the garden. 

• Garden Etiquette covers policies and practices for you to understand and rules to discuss with your class.  Students learn your expectations for behavior in the garden quickly.  In fact, students in upper grades can tell you what the rules are.

• Tips for Organizing Your Class explains your responsibilities involving teacher communication and preparing for your class, and offers tips and suggestions for managing a class.

• All of the common garden areas are available for your class to use.  These areas have been planted specifically for collecting seeds, pressing flowers, and teaching about garden animals.  Check to be sure no one has set up in the garden area you plan to use.

• Take time to weed if your activity is near your class bed.  Each class is responsible for keeping its garden and surrounding paths free of weeds.  Weeding the garden teaches students to identify weeds apart from garden plants. Teach students the importance of weed removal to reduce competition with garden plants, to prevent growth of new weeds, and to improve garden appearance. Show students how to remove the whole weed by pulling the weed where the stem enters the soil and not by pulling the leaves.  Student fingertips should being touching the soil to pull a weed.

• Can young siblings come to class with parent volunteers?  Check with your teacher about the rules for bringing younger siblings.  Granny permits siblings if the parent and the older sibling in the class are not distracted by the presence of the younger children.  However, teachers may have a different rule that siblings may not participate in this class-time activity.  Be sure to check in advance.

Our Best-Dressed Coordinators and Volunteers

• Come prepared to get dirty.  Even if it isn't muddy, you may be working in the soil, with compost or wood chips, or moving supplies around.

• Dress in layers on cool days.  You warm up quickly as you get to work.

• Wear athletic style shoes.  Shoes and sandals with open toes or heels invite in wood chips from our paths.

• Keep purses in the car.  You won't have to worry about where you put it down.

• Coordinators wear a Granny's Garden School apron.  The apron serves as your identification badge for Granny's Garden School.  Aprons are located at the garden school office.  Please wear the apron when you come to work with a class.  Please take care of your apron and return it if you leave the program.

Where to Find Tools and Supplies

• Tools, wheelbarrows, wagons, and various containers are located in the corral.  The corral is located in the left corner at the back of the Front Courtyard.  There is a chain link fence and gate at the entrance. 

  • We stock student-sized spades in the large, covered garbage cans and trowels in the long, metal storage bin. 

  • Many containers are in the corral.  Buckets with handles are used to collect weeds and spread wood chip mulch and leaf compost. 

  • Please be sure that supplies in the corral are stored so water does not collect in them.  Wheelbarrows and wagons are stored in an upright position.  Buckets are stacked neatly in columns with the open end down.  Supplies in bins are stored with the lid closed.

Planting in the Gardens

• Seed packets and plant markers should be gathered from your teacher bucket in the barn in advance of planting day to be sure you have everything you need.  We prepackage seeds to be sure you have the correct amount for your class to plant.  Planting instructions and a planting map are included in the planting lesson plan.

• We plant only food crops in the class gardens.  Some plants like corn, squash, and potatoes take up a lot of space and are planted in areas outside the garden beds.  For example, potatoes are planted along the outside of the boards of the beds.  Planting instructions in lesson plans detail where plants with special needs are planted.

• Flower seeds and bulbs are planted in non-class garden beds.  When the schedule calls for these plantings, the lesson plan lists planting locations.

• Granny will take care of watering plants and seeds in the class garden beds and common garden areas.

Compost the Gardens and Mulch the Paths

• Granny’s Garden School receives truckloads of donated leaves from the fall leaf pick up in Loveland.  In roughly 12 to 18 months, the leaves decompose nicely into nutrient-rich compost that we add to the gardens.  In the fall, students clean their beds and add a thick layer of compost.

• We use donated wood chips to mulch the walking paths through garden areas.  The chips are large and densely packed to prevent weeds.  The paths are mulched in the fall and spring.  Classes help this effort by laying wood chips on the paths around their class garden beds. 

• The compost and mulch piles are located behind Loveland Elementary School at the end of the parking lot near the woods.

• Students should not climb on the piles for their safety and to prevent them from spreading too far. 

• If we are able to acquire the necessary equipment, we locate a piles in other garden locations when the activity calls for it.  Follow this link for more information about compost and mulch.

Planning a Walk on the Nature Trail

• Sign up on the sheet in the barn.  Only one class should be on the trail at a time to avoid bumping into another class.  The Trail Sign-Up sheet is located on the bulletin board hanging on the inside of the barn door.  On the form, you list the day and time you will take your class out.  We recommend a minimum of 45 minutes on the trail; 60 minutes is ideal.  Be sure to check the list to be sure another class has not already reserved the same time.  Please list the supplies you will use and return them after your class. 

• Walk on path.  Students must always walk on the path.  Staying on the path allows the naturalizing areas to continue to produce plants for everyone to enjoy without being damaged.  Plus, the path is the only place regularly cleared of poison ivy. 

• Follow the leader.  Students must always stay behind the leader of the trail walk and in front of the teacher who is positioned last in line.  This is the best way to keep track of the students and to keep their attention as items of interest are discussed.  Ideally, one or two parent volunteers can be stationed along the line of students. 

• Dress Appropriately.  With some advance notice, teachers can let parents know to dress their child appropriately for a trail walk.  Shoes and clothes can get muddy if the days have been rainy.  Students should wear shoes that cover their feet, that is, no sandals or clogs.

• Don’t touch the vines.  Vines along the ground or climbing up trees might seem harmless, but may, in fact, be poison ivy vines, which can grow quite large and resemble grape vines.  Poison ivy vines look hairy because of the many small roots that usually attach the vine to the tree.  Remember "hairy is scary" if you're allergic to poison ivy.  Grape vines usually hang away from the tree and do not have small roots.  On the ground, the rule “leaves of three, let it be” is a good one to discuss and follow.  If a vine or other plant shows three leaves coming out of a central point, do not touch it, since it may be poison ivy.

• Don’t take items or animals.  The purpose of the nature trail is to provide students with an opportunity to observe the cycles in nature and to show respect for nature.  To preserve the nature trail, anything observed on the trail must stay on the trail, including animals (big and small), fallen branches, wildflowers, nuts, and rocks.  We want to observe processes over time by leaving the trail’s resources in place, and we want all of our students to have the same opportunity to examine organisms on the trail.  If a decaying log is moved a bit to observe decomposition, it should be re-positioned as it was originally to cause the least disruption to the organisms that live there. 

Tell Granny How It Went
Our program has evolved by sharing information about what each of us is doing.  Let us know how the lesson went, how long it took to prepare for, teach, and clean up after the class.  Staff members provide this information on their timesheet.  Volunteer coordinators can complete an activity report that is located in the hanging files in the barn or email the Class Garden Program Manager.  Paper reports are left in the black mailbox in the barn.