Launch day of Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program for Early Childhood

The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation is extremely excited to announce the launch of its new Kitchen Garden Program for Early Childhood. This program is the first of its kind for pre-school aged children in Australia.

The team recently celebrated the official launch of the program with the community at Clarendon Children's Centre Co-operative in South Melbourne. The littlest guests made newspaper planting pots and foliage prints with the kitchen garden team. Platters labelled with hand-drawn signs were full of delicious food prepared by the children, using ingredients they had grown and harvested. Mini okonomiyaki was enjoyed alongside rice paper rolls, while other fingers reached for cups of dahl or roast pumpkin, chickpea & sage sausage rolls.

Stephanie Alexander AO, Founder of the Kitchen Garden Foundation showed great hope for the children, “I have seen how they care for plants and patiently wait for them to grow. These young children take great pride in showing visitors their garden spaces.”

The onsite pop-up market raised funds for the centre with home-made gingerbread, curry sauce and worm wee for sale with labels detailing “from our garden to yours.” A celebration would not have been complete without dancing, so Paul Jamieson helped both the little and big feet move on into the afternoon.

The Foundation’s work in the early childhood sector is uncovering a community of early childhood managers, centre cooks and educators interested in exploring how to teach very young children through cooking and gardening experiences. “We are not changing habits here, we are creating them,” said Julie Lemmon, Clarendon Children's Centre Cook and Healthy Eating Leader. We share this sentiment and can’t wait to inspire and support early childhood educators to help young children form positive food habits for life. 

The Kitchen Garden Program for Early Childhood offers educators a comprehensive package of professional development, educational resources and support. Members will find our brand new workbooks, especially developed for the early years sector, on the Shared Table.

We would like to say a huge thank you to those we have collaborated closely on the project with: Arena Child and Family Centre; Assisi Kindergarten; Californian Gully Kindergarten; Clarendon Children’s Centre; Coburg Children’s Centre; Country Buddies Bendigo; Dawson Street Child Care Co-operative; Golden Square Kindergarten; Goodstart Early Learning Centre – Morwell; Jenny’s Early Learning Centre – Bendigo Hospital; Jenny’s Early Learning Centre – Epsom; Lightning Reef Early Learning Centre; Tess James, home-based educator, Nurture @ Home NZ; Tommaso Fiaschi Child Care Centre; and Upper Beaconsfield Kindergarten.

More information on the three-year pilot and the Foundation’s work in the sector can be found in this infographic summary.

The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program for Early Childhood was made possible with support from The Ian Potter Foundation’s Alec Prentice Sewell Gift.

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