NAEYC accredited Pinnacle Presbyterian Preschool in Scottsdale has established a garden plot on their playground.  A parent committee was formed to establish the planting bed and the children help weed the bed in the spring time.  The garden becomes a natural provocation, a long term project as child grow plants from seed, till and plant the garden and care for the plants.

Catherine Koons-Hubbard captures this kind of collaborative education in her article, Gardening with Children (Community Playthings – http://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/2014/gardening-with-children).  She writes,

“Gardening with children is like most sensory experiences with three and four year-olds. It’s messy, it’s chaotic, and the more children you add to the scenario, the more instruction goes out the window and you just hope something is getting through.

The amazing thing is that something always does. The children remember days, weeks, even months later that they picked a chive from the garden and ate it on the spot. They remember that they cooked something inside that they grew themselves outside.”