Nourishing the seeds of early learning
Located in Millicent, South Australia, Gladys Smith Early Learning Centre joined the Kitchen Garden Program in 2018, starting small and working hard to empower their dedicated educators and students to grow their Program into the flourishing kitchen garden it is today.
We interviewed Sandi Spink, Deputy Director at Gladys Smith Early Learning Centre, who took us on a journey through the centre’s experience with growing, harvesting, preparing, and sharing their own fresh produce.
Read on to learn how this early learning centre started small and dreamt big with their kitchen garden!
Q: Why and how did you join the Kitchen Garden Program?
“We joined the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program because we knew it offered fantastic resources, training and support to build our knowledge, confidence and skills in gardening and cooking, and inspire our educators to create an engaging curriculum for healthy eating.
We have always been strong advocates for children being engaged in cooking and garden activities and felt that being part of a learning community like the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program would help us grow that further. Growing our own food not only provides opportunities for our children to try new foods, but also educates them to think deeply about caring for our environment and world through sustainable practices, building empathy for all living creatures and taking care of their own health and wellbeing.”
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Q: What did you start with?
"Our Program started with a couple of our educators attending one of the Kitchen Garden Program training sessions in Adelaide. They came back inspired to start up the Program and extend our cooking and garden curriculum.
We had always grown some vegetables in our garden, but we tended to have the garden divided into spaces for individual rooms to maintain. Often, one or two enthusiastic gardeners on our staff tended to a couple of garden boxes and some pots of herbs.
We started simply in the garden, using what we had around the centre to add to our gardening space. We repurposed items which would have been thrown out to landfill and made them into planters and pots for herbs and vegetables. For example, we transformed foam boxes from supermarket deliveries into herb boxes and broken compost bins into large round planters.
Cooking has been embedded in our curriculum for as long as we can remember as it covers so many learning outcomes, including science, literacy, numeracy, technology and relationship building.
Staff learnt age appropriate cooking skills at the Kitchen Garden Program training session and brought these back to the centre. We held a mini cooking workshop during a staff meeting, using some of the recipes that we had made, or that were in the early childhood workbooks, to share what we had learnt and been inspired to create. We wanted to boost staff’s confidence in following recipes and trying new foods, and build their enjoyment of cooking, so they would do the same with the children and families at our centre.
Educators who were not confident in cooking took on the challenge to learn new techniques alongside the children, using intentional teaching moments to co-learn. We feel the educator is a co-learner alongside the children and having a Kitchen Garden Program has enabled joyful learning for both children and educators.”
Q: What types of sessions do you run?
“All age groups in our service are involved in cooking and gardening experiences. We have four rooms, for different age groups from babies up to older children, and throughout the week each room engages in several cooking and gardening experiences.
The experiences that we plan and implement with the children in the garden include preparing the gardening beds, pest removal and prevention, seed exploration and planting, revisiting plants as they grow to observe changes, and harvesting. We have a worm farm and we use the worm juice as a fertiliser, and we have a compost bin that we fill with our garden and kitchen scraps.
We discuss and focus on caring for our natural world by reducing consumption and waste. Children have opportunities to join the conversation, with their voices being heard and respected to contribute to decisions and ideas.
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In the kitchen, we have progressed from basic cooking to using new techniques, including dehydrating fruits and vegetables. We’ve made jams, soups, breads, and pastas, and been able to stock the pantry and freezers with our produce and cooking.
One new thing we’ve implemented is that every morning the Helper of the Day in the Emu Room (3–6 years) asks a peer to come to the kitchen with them and help the cook prepare lunch. Wearing their Kitchen Garden Program aprons, they get involved in tasks such as peeling potatoes and carrots for the mashed vegetables. Strong, trusting relationships have been built with the children as they have worked alongside the cooks at our service, and we have noticed an increase in meaningful and purposeful conversations during both intentional and spontaneous interactions.”
Q: How do you currently fund your program?
“Our parent committee has funded our program since we joined in 2018. They see the Program as a valuable tool to provide a foundation for healthy eating for the future of all children attending our service.”
Q: What are some of the benefits of your kitchen garden program?
“One of the benefits of our kitchen garden program includes us, as educators, building our confidence and knowledge in cooking and gardening to share our learning with the children, families, and fellow educators.
Alongside the educators, the children have gained the confidence to try new tastes, and build on safety skills, problem solving, critical thinking, and hypothesising. We’ve encouraged a sense of wonder, all while working together towards a common goal and thinking more deeply about the world.
We have explored different methods of food preparation and preserving, such as dehydrating fruits, vegetables, and herbs, and making jams, soups and sauces and pastas. Through all this exploration, we have engaged in rich conversations with the children, increasing their acquisition of language, science, numeracy, and literacy concepts.
The time we spend with the children builds strong trusting relationships which supports their confidence to try new challenges both in the outdoor environment and in exploring new tastes and textures.”
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Q: What have some of your challenges been?
“Pest control is a big challenge, and we have tried numerous methods that are natural and safe for both the children and the environment. This created a great opportunity for conversation, sharing ideas and discussions around ‘what if’, ‘why’ and ‘what next’ questions. With the purchase of a small greenhouse, we found we could grow our seedlings bigger before planting them out and this helped them be less susceptible to pests. We experimented with several plant coverings before finding one that provided protection from birds, snails and, where necessary, small hands that enjoyed exploring the root systems of seedlings.
Budgets always impact programs, so during meetings we have brainstormed budget-friendly ways to source kitchen and garden equipment. We’ve been able to use our local, family and community connections for donations and equipment, even borrowing kitchen and garden tools from the homes of educators and families.
Young children are inquisitive by nature, and it has been challenging at times to encourage the children to not constantly examine the root system of the seedlings or the feel of the unripe fruit on the trees and bushes. In response, we reflected on our interactions and supervision in the garden and used this challenge to the benefit of the children’s learning.”
Q: Do you have any tips for those just starting out?
“Take it in steps and build up your program gradually, so you don’t get overwhelmed. You don’t want it to become a chore instead of a fun and engaging time with the children.
Put the Program into your Quality Improvement Plan. This will help you identify how to embed both training and implementation of the program concepts into your best-practice and service curriculum. It will also help strengthen your service’s assessment and rating.”
Q: Do you have any tips for the longevity of a program?
“Use the strengths of staff who have an interest and passion in running the Kitchen Garden Program. This will build confidence in educators and children and inspire them to be involved and grow their own learning.”
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Q: Can you share a special story from your Kitchen Garden Program?
"There are so many stories!
We have noticed that the children’s imaginative play has grown from just making cakes, cupcakes, and ice-cream, to more complex meal ideas such as stir fries, a variety of pasta and rice dishes, pizza with healthy toppings and many different meat and vegetable dishes. They use their imagination and natural resources such as herbs, leaves, sticks and flowers to add to their cooking in the mud kitchen.
Children with challenging behaviours have shown a deep interest in both gardening and cooking and are active and engaged learners during these types of experiences. It is always an amazing moment and makes our day when children who have found it challenging to try new foods and who have always said, ‘I don’t like that’, get brave enough to put a bit of a new food on their tongue and then say, ‘I like it, it’s yummy.’
We grow extra seedlings as parent/caregiver Christmas gifts to encourage families to begin their own gardening and kitchen journey. It’s really exciting to be updated by the children and families on how well their seedlings are growing and how they then use the produce to make meals at home.
Excess produce not being used in kitchen or cooking experiences is placed on a produce table in the centre for families to take home. Listening to the conversations at this table between child and parent always produces those ‘Aaaah yes, we need to keep this going’ moments.”
Members can see more photos from Gladys Smith Early Learning Centre on the Shared Table.
This story is part of a series, published in celebration of Kitchen Garden Month, with the aim of spotlighting Kitchen Garden Program member schools that started small and dreamt BIG!
- Engage with our Kitchen Garden Month resources by visiting our Kitchen Garden Month page.
- Find out more about Kitchen Garden Program memberships by visiting the membership page.
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