Module 3: We Love Our Food
We Love
Our Food
UNDERSTAND
Objective: to understand how humans produce (make) food in different ways and that we can grow our own fruits and vegetables in a garden; to discover components of healthy soil
Vocabulary: soil
Reading: Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth
Movement Activity: Good Growing Soil
Earth Friends Lesson
Module 3: Lesson 2
Begin Lesson
move: 7 minutes
Farm Fish Factory
This will be a repeat activity at the beginning of each lesson in Module 3 to help children build an understanding of the different places food comes from.
Ask each child to choose a food they want to give us.
What food do you you have for us today?
Once a child has chosen a food, you can continue, I wonder if you will need to grow a plant, raise an animal, catch a creature, or make it in a factory to get your food. Will you be a plant farmer? An animal farmer? A fisherman? Or work in a factory?
As the children choose how to get their food*, you have the option to continuing exploring the foods or you can create 4 groups: animal farmers, plant farmers, humans who fish, and humans who make food in a factory. Once every child has a group, talk about where the foods from different groups come from.
We will get strawberries, potatoes, and grapes from our plant farmers. Our animal farmers will raise chickens, pigs, and goats for us to eat. This factory makes cake pops, Doritos, and candy. I will fish for shrimp.
*Depending on the age of the children, you can prompt them with a food. "Who wants to raise cows? Grow apples? Make us lollipops? Catch fish?"Are you going to grow it, raise it, catch it, or make it in a factory?
Curious Question
I wonder what we need to grow food.
Allow the children to suggest what is needed to grow food. Any answer counts, from watering cans to people.
Prompts: What do we need for our garden?
Main Lesson
We can find everything we need to grow our own food. Plants need 4 things.
SUN: Plants eat sunshine, because the sun gives them energy to grow.
AIR: Plants breathe too. Humans and animals breathe oxygen form the air, but plants breathe in carbon dioxide from the air.
WATER: Plants get water mostly from rain. We can also help water plants, and rain barrels help us capture rain water to hydrate plants. Plants get thirsty too!
SOIL: Soil comes from the land, and is a mix of living and non-living materials. Plants use their roots to bring them nutrients from the soil.
Are you ready to learn what healthy soil feels like?
sit & learn: 6 minutes
Good Growing Soil
This activity will give every child a chance to feel soil. You can provide spoons for those who might not be comfortable touching the soil with their hands or fingers.
Materials Needed: 3 plates or bowls (not paper); 3 different soil samples*
Fill #1 with soil with a heavy concentration of sand (feels grainy and doesn’t stick together)
Fill #2 with soil with a balanced ratio of sand and clay (feels just right and looks like chocolate cake)**
Fill #3 with soil with a heavy concentration of clay (feels sticky or slippery and can be molded like play dough)
Preparation: Put the 3 soil samples in separate plates or in bowls. If samples are dry, add a few tablespoons of water to each so the soil is only wet enough that it can be molded and held by the children.
*Where can I get clay samples? You can reach out to a local garden or conservation club and explain your experiment, and they will point you in the right direction to help you get samples or find local soil with clay. Or you could have an adventure on your own to find some clay soil in nature.
I'm going to pass around 3 different samples of soil. Some of us call this dirt. Can everyone take turns to feel the soil in bowl #1? You can use your hands and pick it up, squish it, or move it with your fingers.
Repeat with samples #2 and #3 until all children have had the opportunity with each sample.
We have touched and looked at 3 different soil samples. Can anyone tell me what feels different? What feels the same? What soil sample do you think would be good to grow our plants in?
Let everyone choose which soil they want to grow plants in. For older children, you can take a vote on the best planting soil. It does not matter that they chose #2, as the objective is to identify different soil textures and qualities and understand that plants need soil to grow.
**The perfect mixture is sand, silt, and clay = loam, but sand and clay (or sand and silt) feel the most different from each other, so this combination provides good samples for young children to choose between.
Closing Sentiment
We can grow our own food at school or at home. We have air, sunshine, water, and soil. We have all our Earth Friends who can help take care of our garden.
move & discover: 8 minutes
place
based
You can draw attention to foods that are native to your area. What do the locals fish, farm, raise? Do you have any food factories in town?
End Lesson
Teachers in the Classroom
Teacher Activity
Seed Starting
Materials Needed: seeds, trays, watering misters, toilet paper tubes, scissors, a sunny spot
Using toilet paper tubes shows the children what we can reuse and not throw away or recycle. And when the seed starters are made from cardboard, you can plant them directly into the soil!
You can do a collection from families. “We are collecting brown cardboard toilet paper rolls to start our seeds. Please send in any you collect from home. Thank you!” (White rolls are treated and will not contribute to healthy soil.)
Preparation:
Here’s how to create your toilet paper seed starters.
On seed planting day, have each child choose what food they want to grow from seed.
Either as a classroom, small group, or 1:1 activity, help the children plant their seeds. It is a good idea to let each child plant two seed starters so that they can see their plants growing and will have a good chance even if one does not germinate before it's time to plant. Plant 1-2 seeds per roll.
Your classroom can do one or all:
vegetables
fruits
pollinator friendly flowers
herbs
Make sure to plant The Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash), which we will need for our garden and for a fun time in Module 4!
BONUS: As the seeds begin to grow, have the children take measurements to see what seedlings are growing. Older children can record results and interpret data using the following methods:
tally marks to show number of seedlings growing
tomato: III
sunflower: IIII
bar graphs to show seedling growth in inches or centimeters
Throughout the Week
Discuss: the different kinds of seeds everyone is planting for the garden.
Explore: Go outside and feel the soil in the garden beds, near the sand box, anywhere ... Does it feel too sandy? Too slippery? What is it like to dig? Or is the ground frozen?
Create: Have the children draw pictures of what they want the garden to look like when all of their plants are growing or picture of what their seeds are doing in the soil. Use paper + crayons.
Reading: Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth
Vocabulary: farm, soil
Good Choices
I can ask adults where my food comes from.
I can work together with my Earth Friends and grow food in our garden.
I can help keep the land, water, and air clean so we can have healthy food.
It helps to cut out pictures of vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs from old seed packets to show the children a few weeks before. They will take time to decide.
Vocabulary:
farm: Humans grow plants for food or raise animals for food on a piece of land called a farm.
soil: The top layer of the land on Earth where plants grow is called soil. Healthy soil grows healthy plants.
Families at Home
Discover: We did a soil test at school to learn that the fruits and vegetables need soil to grow in that is not too sandy and not too slippery (clay). You need a little of both. You can get a handful of soil from your yard or garden or a park near you and do a test too. Wet the handful of soil until it's the consistency of mud. Then, squish it between your fingers or rub it in your palm to see what your soil is like.
Learn: about the food you eat for dinner together. Let your child choose what to cook and ask them where each part of the meal comes from. Did someone grow it? Did someone raise it? Did someone catch it in the water? Did someone make it in a factory? You can try another 3 ingredient meal, like stir fry: rice, vegetable, protein.
Explore: where you can find seeds. This week we planted the seeds for our garden. We planted vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Ask your child what they planted. What foods does your family eat that have seeds? Do you see seeds outside in nature?
Experiment: Did you know that plants breathe too? Conduct this experiment to see how they do it.