Hope Center, Inc.

At its inception, the outdoor classroom added extreme beauty to our playground area. It featured a place to draw, sing and dance on a stage and most importantly a place to plant. These plants included beautiful flowers and seeds for vegetable gardens. There were at least 5 life-size planters so that the children could achieve the planting tasks.

All of the children in the entire center were allowed to participate in this process. First of all, the teachers were asked to do a unit of study on plants and how they grow. Each child was given some soil, small shovels, seeds of tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbages and flowers. Each class embarked on a task of planting.

After the planting, the children tended to their gardens. They were taught how to take away the weeds, water the plants, and they sang songs and talked to the plants. These large planters had been strategically placed so that they received a great deal of sunshine. This outdoor space has proven to be an invaluable resource to our center. We have enjoyed it tremendously and we look forward to its continuous use.