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Celebrating Elmwood ELM Success: ROA Classes Starting Soon!
At Elmwood Correctional Facility, we are teaching a course on Ecological Land Management for 15 inmates, and have transformed an overgrown, unused piece of land into a native garden, designed and installed by our incarcerated students. It has been a joy to watch how enthusiastic they are about native plants, how much they’ve learned, and…
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Gearing Up for Our New Pop-Up Kitchen
The County of Santa Clara’s Food Systems Resiliency Grant Program awarded CNGF funds to support an 18-month project, aimed at addressing local food insecurity, food waste, food sovereignty, nature preservation, human health and well-being, social justice, and ultimately the climate crisis in Santa Clara County. With these funds, we will establish a central kitchen for cooking and…
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Project for Awesome
Every year, Vlogbrothers John Green and Hank Green host a competition called Project for Awesome, where nonprofits from all around the world can submit a video, and the submissions with the most community votes split the money fundraised. This year, they raised an incredible $3,069,686.33, to be split among the top voted for charities. Not…
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Monarchs and Milkweed
Students from the Pre-K classes came by the Family Resource Center ELSEE garden and sat on a tarp on the ground to listen to today’s lesson. Today’s focus was on the milkweed and monarch butterfly. The monarch travels from Canada to Michoacan, Mexico during the time of November- March.
We listened to traditional music from Morelia,…
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Playing with Poppy Seeds
This week at the Family Resource Center we learned about the California Poppy. Parents and children tried a salad made from garden greens and a poppy seed salad dressing. We also had tea made from two herbs harvested right from the garden – mint and lemon verbena. Lemon verbena has been a favorite herb of…
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Gifts of the Elderberry Tree!
The Elderberry Tree we focused on today sits just outside the Educare space, behind a fence. But this didn’t stop the children from spying the tiny Elderberry flowers with their little eyes!
Teacher Allegra shared that the word “Elder” refers to a relative that is older and, perhaps, wiser than we are. The Elderberry earns this…
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Herbs! FRC
We shared our lesson with herbs at the FRC again this Thursday. The children’s eyes widened with wonder when they saw all of the different herbs as well as the purple, yellow, and pink natural play dough. The sage, lavender, rosemary, and marigold were specially featured in the story, The Rainbow Children.
For our gratitude of…
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Elderflower Amaranth, First 5
Today, we had some very happy families join us at the FRC. The elderflower tree already had some lovely blooms. We featured two delicious elderflower cordials to share with the families. The mothers really enjoyed learning how to make their own elder flower cordial and how it supports the immune system and overall health. The…
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Educare, Evergreen and Deciduous Trees
We had a wonderful time teaching this week’s tree lesson in the gentle rain. The children couldn’t get enough of the freshly sliced oranges and apples. Learning about how oranges come from orange blossoms excited them. So much so that they nestled their baby orange blossom in a tiny leaf.
One child brought the teachers a…
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Herbs! First 5
We began by introducing ourselves and our children. Then Jasmine passed out rosemary, Mexican marigold, sage, and lavender to each child and parent. These herbs were grown in our teaching gardens, our teacher’s home, and the Rosicrucian Egyptian Park in San Jose. They were cut with love and intention to share and teach our community…
