First Garden Club of the Year!

Planning For First Garden Club

After the enlightening training sessions, the teens were ready to get to work planning the first Garden Club. With the planning process being so new, this took two, several-hour sessions.

First, everyone reviewed the foundation components of Garden Club- this is the stuff that was decided before they were hired, like how many students we would accept (22), how long it would be and how often it would be (1.5 hours, weekly), the grades we’d accept (2nd-6th), and other basics. Garden Club isn’t a new program, so we didn’t need the teens to reinvent the wheel.

Next, we discussed as a group the “essentials.” What are the most important things the kids need to know or do the first Garden Club? The teens agreed that making name-tags and reviewing rules were key on the first day.

This is where the bulk of the planning and discussion took place- sure, everyone agreed that students should somehow learn about the rules we have in the garden, but there was a lot of speculation on what was the best way to do that: should we just review them verbally and then practice doing garden work while praising/pointing out certain behaviors? Should we split into groups and make a “rule felt board” where each group creates a scene demonstrating/showing each rule?

Eventually, the teens landed on skits, starting with the idea of doing “rule skits” for the elementary students, where the teens act out some scenario in the garden, and the kids have to guess what the rules is. The teens were great sports as adult Lead Educator and Lead Gardner, Katie and Charlie, challenged them by asking questions almost every step of the way: what if students get bored, how would you respond? What if they don’t understand the skits? What if they don’t pay attention? What if the kids start to get restless?

By asking these types of questions, the teens were encouraged to think critically about all the possible reactions of the students and how they might manage them. All of our teens have some experience babysitting, watching after younger family members, or working with small summer camp groups that came through the garden over the summer. But working closely with 1-3 kids in an informal setting and managing a group of 15-20 are quite different.

After much discussion, the teen group decided to split into groups with the Garden Club kids and have each group create and then perform a “rule,” and the rest of the watching group would have to guess the rule.

During the entire planning process, the team recorded their thoughts & ideas on paper or on a google doc. When they finalized a plan, they worked together to write up a Garden Club plan, complete with snack, the timing of activities, transitions, supplies they’d need and what would happen at the end of Garden Club.

Green Teen Reflection

The first Garden Club proved to be a challenge. The group was a mixture of older, more confident, and generally disruptive students, and some younger, more reserved students. Everyone was a bit squirrely: there were sixth grade boys that fed off each other with such aggression that some had to be separated from the group for a cool-down period. The plan for Garden Club students to perform “skits” for the rest of the group quickly fell apart when it came time to present them, as students felt shy and ultimately didn’t perform.

Though the first session was less than a smashing success, it offered a great learning opportunity. The teens remarked that the kids were most restless during transition times between activities; for example, not all students finished decorating name tags at once, and disruptions/behavioral issues directly corresponded to that downtime.

The teens decided that, to improve the next garden club, they’d plan more carefully. Who would be helping parents sign out and receive any necessary hand-outs? Who would be making sure the kids were rounded up and facilitate playing a game at the end of Garden Club, while waiting for pick-up?

Though the team felt a little unprepared during their first Garden Club, they used that feeling as a learning opportunity and thought carefully about how they could adjust their plan for future clubs. They agreed that team-building activities might have been more important than focusing on rules for the entirety of the time.