You can garden just about anywhere -- you don't need to live in a big country of have a big yard to be a gardener. If you live in a house, you can probably find an area in your yard. Ask an adult helper to be sure you can garden there. If you don't have a place to plant a garden in the ground, use a container that you can set on teh porth, deck, balcony, or patio. Or have a row of pots indoors on a sunny windowsill! You can grow things in planter boxes, windowsill boxes, pots, wooden barrels, bushel baskets, tubs, empty milk containers, or just about anything you can think of! Just make sure your container has a few holes in the bottom so extra water can run out.
This project book is designed for youth in 3rd and 4th grades. The project is divided into six major units. Each unit contains some general background information and two different activities. Each activity is designed so the young person has an opportunity to learn by doing. Afterwards the young person reflects on what happened, what they learned and how it can be generalized and applied to everyday life. This is called the experiential learning process, and it is what distinguishes 4-H from most schools and other formal education programs.
How can you guide and challenge members? You can:
- Guide the member to thinking through why something happened or didn't happen
- Listen
- Be a resource person for understanding the subject matter
- provide additional information to challenge the member
The book is broken down into six units. There are Let's Plan, Dig In, While You Wait, Watch Out, Now What, and Imagine That. These sections guide you through making a garden. There is also a section on where to find more help and a glossary.
Sample Activity
The first activity in the book is planning a garden. It guides you by having you look around your yard for a good place for the garden, by having you make a scale drawing of the space, by having you decide which vegetables to grow, and much more. After all of the questions are answered, there is a space in the book to draw the garden and answer specific questions about what goes in your garden. There is also a dig deeper category where it asks you to talk with someone who already has a garden.
Look at your local 4-H Office for this project book. You can also look at www.4-hmall.org/Curriculum.aspx.