ESLT celebrated youth in the garden this past week with a Sunflower Party for local third grade classes that participated in ESLT’s Sunflower Project, which is in its second year.

The program consists of educating youth about planting, the life cycle, and offering children the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the garden. ESLT worked with two classes from Elm Street Elementary School: Sara Steck and Victoria Hamilton’s third grade classes. Every child completed a sunflower packet with pages for writing, drawing, and graphing the measurement of their plants. The classes visited ESLT’s garden three times after planting their sunflower seeds to see the progress of their plants.

Sarah, our AmeriCorps member is shown here teaching the children about mulching the garden. Afterward, the kids were able to mulch the sunflower patch.

One of the stations involved water colors. The paintings depict what the children hope will grow this summer from the seedlings they planted in April.

This girl shows us how tall her sunflower plant stands. Even taller than she is!

Sarah