Home > Kitchen Garden Program > Curriculum Links
To grow, harvest and prepare the food they eat is giving our children a lifelong learning experience not only in acquiring knowledge – they are – but they are also developing values they will carry into other areas of their life. (Classroom Teacher)
How does the Kitchen Garden Program fit into the school curriculum?
The Kitchen Garden Program is embedded in the curriculum for the final three or four years of primary schooling, and is a compulsory part of the school’s curriculum.
The Kitchen and Garden specialists work closely with a Program Coordinator from the teaching staff to plan garden activities and menus which are integrated into the curriculum. These plans are all influenced by the garden’s seasonal growing cycle which children are able to experience over a four-year period.
The kitchen and the garden provide a real-life context for learning in which the theory and practice of growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing are interwoven. This differs from many programs where learning is based around simulated exercises.
Crucial to the Program’s success is engaging specialists dedicated to the Program. In both the kitchen and the garden, children work in small groups under the supervision of the specialist staff and the classroom teacher, giving them a unique opportunity to learn in an interactive way from staff members who are experts in their field.
The Kitchen Garden Program touches on all key learning areas for primary children and there is enormous potential for any school to develop further curriculum links within the Program.
The Program enhances core subject areas and essentail learning, such as:
Personal & Social Development through the development of social-emotional learning skills such as cooperation, communication and negotiation. Students build self-esteem, confidence and a sense of achievement through kitchen and garden activities.
Communication, which is essential to the small-group nature of the Program. Reading and understanding technical instructions, expanding vocabulary and exploring language are weekly occurrences in kitchen and garden classes. Listening, speaking, writing, working in teams, working cooperatively and problem solving are all aspects of the work in the garden and the kitchen.
Health / Wellness & Physical Education by involving every student in physical activity in the garden for at least 45 minutes a week.
Science, Environment & Sustainability through issues such as climate and climate change, water management, plant cycles and plant diversity, soil health and the avoidance of chemicals.
Mathematics skills such as measurement, calculation, estimation and comparison, which have real-life application in the kitchen garden context.
Creative Arts skills, which are demonstrated in the way the students combine ingredients into the beautiful food they produce. There are also many opportunities to incorporate art, poetry, creative writing, illustration and film-making.
Questions of design and technology become evident in the decisions made in the garden each week. Students acquire many strategies for thinking, related to investigation, enquiring, processing information, problem solving, using reason, evaluation and reflection.
Society and Environment: Thoughtful discussion takes place about the geographic origins of dishes and plants. Relationships between the garden and the kitchen are discussed, involving concepts such as seasonality, ripeness and cultural connections.
More than ever, our future is dependent on building mutually responsible and sustainable patterns of living. The Kitchen Garden Program supports students to develop the capacities to manage themselves, to build good relationships with others, and to make sense of the world in which they live and participate.
Most importantly, the pleasure gained from growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing will be a life-long pleasure, and will affect how our children live as individuals, and as members of local and global communities.
So many times have our staff heard parents comment that this Program ‘is the best and most meaningful school program, ever!'
(School Principal)
