Perfect for little hands and curious minds: pleasurable food education for early learners

Early childhood services can now take up a more extensive support package within the Kitchen Garden Program for Early Childhood: Program membership.

The Kitchen Garden Program for Early Childhood is a hands-on program that promotes a whole-service approach to teaching children about fresh, seasonal, delicious food. 

Around 120 early childhood services across the country are already experiencing the joy and benefits of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program with a Classroom membership. From March 2022 they are invited to take up a more expansive tier of membership designed for deeper program engagement, best practice and longer-term sustainability: the Program membership. We want to extend an invitation to all early childhood services across the country to join and benefit from the play-based learning the Program offers.

According to Foundation Projects Manager Natasha Grogan: “It enables services to work towards a best-practice Kitchen Garden Program while still nurturing the unique settings, shapes and sizes of early childhood services Australia wide.” 

There is plenty of support and encouragement available to every service's kitchen garden team as they embed the program and work to ensure that long-term benefits are nurtured. Even with staff moving on, the program remains consistent and strong. A major focus is on the program's sustainability within the service, reflected in the two-year duration of membership. Support and individualised guidance, an adaptable program framework, and countless educational resources mean children can continue to learn and grow along with their garden. In every aspect, the focus is on making the program work for educators, as well as children. It's designed to guide educators every step of the way, and to bring joy to outdoors and cooking experiences for children.

“I believe that there is nothing more successful in influencing behaviour than having repeated exposure to something that you find enjoyable. Even better if this something is also enjoyed by those you love and respect. If an interest and enjoyment of fresh food is modelled on a regular basis at home or in a school or early learning centre most children and young adults will give the food a try. This is the power of the Kitchen Garden Program, now available as an expanded Early Childhood package. As well as the flavours and smells of lovely food, students are learning all about the natural world and how things grow. They are also practising sustainability, making decisions and learning about diversity. What can be more important for a healthy and happy life?” – Stephanie Alexander AO

Other Program membership offerings include access to professional development webinars and an extensive educational resource package including the newly released, second edition printed set of Early Childhood Program workbooks, which step through everything educators need to know about setting up, maintaining and embedding the Program in any early childhood setting.

A huge benefit of a Program membership is new online support tool, Trellis. This easy and intuitive self-assessment tool helps services plan and coordinate their kitchen garden program, prioritise focus points and activities, and provides clear guidance and materials to move towards best practice. It’s also easy to integrate Trellis into existing quality improvement plans, where it can help inform revisions, or even provide the structure to create an entirely new plan.

Emilia Boussioutas, early years educator at Vista Valley, Victoria, recommends Trellis as a great way of consolidating your program: "Trellis certainly provides a clear understanding of where we are at. It is simple to follow and use.”

Josephene Duffy, Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation CEO, says: 

“We are delighted to be expanding our offering to more fully support members. High-quality childcare, and connecting children and families with nourishing food, has never been more important. A Kitchen Garden Program membership will provide individual services with a deeper level of support and guidance, meaning they can take ownership of their own best-practice kitchen garden program, ensure the longevity of the program, and see its full impact.”

To celebrate the launch of the new membership tier, we asked children currently engaged in the Kitchen Garden Program for Early Childhood to ask Stephanie Alexander herself some hard-hitting questions – see what was important to them in the video above! 

And to find out more about the Program membership, visit the membership page or speak with our friendly Support Team on: 1300 072 543.