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Q1: LATE WINTER 2024


Coming Soon


SPROUT Field Trips

April-June season starts April 8th

Registration Opens early March


Summer Institute for Garden-based Teaching

July 15th-19th

Application Opens in March

FONA UPCOMING EVENTS

Join us on Saturday, March 23rd at 11:00 AM for our 3rd annual Spring into School Gardening event where you can learn how to plant a spring edible garden and get free supplies to start growing outside with your students.


Educator Coaching Program school teams, please arrive at 10:00 AM for cohort support and community building.

Register Now to Attend Spring into School Gardening (3/23)

Join us Thursday, February 29th from 6:00 - 8:00 PM at the U.S. Botanic Garden Conservatory for the 17th annual D.C. Teachers' Night. Connect with D.C. area environmental organizations and find ways to get your students learning about the natural world and how to bring the environment into the classroom!

 

The event is free, however registration is required. Light refreshments will be served. Certificates of Participation available for PDUs.

Learn More & Register for D.C. Teachers' Night (2/29)

Connect with fellow urban growers on Saturday, March 9th during the 17th Annual Rooting DC from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.


FONA Programs staff will be tabling with a seed envelope activity and promoting our SPROUT field trip sign ups and Summer Institute applications.


Plus, don't miss an afternoon workshop at 2:30pm from our Garden Managers, Emilia & Xavier, about sustainable growing techniques.

Reserve Your Spot for Rooting DC (3/9)

GARDEN TIP

Spring Garden preparation

Wondering when to start preparing your garden for the Spring? Not sure exactly how to do so? Learn how to jumpstart your school garden for spring growing from Farmer Emilia.


Need more hands-on training? Join us for Spring into School Gardening March 23rd for direct seeding and transplanting of cool-weather crops.

Learn How to Prepare for Spring Growing

CURRICULAR CONNECTIONS

It's That Time of Year: Seed Starting with Students!


Do your PreK kids eat fruit for snack with seeds in them? Have you made seed greenhouses to test germination rates with 2nd graders? What about planting in your school garden for your 3rd graders to experience a full life cycle of a radish first hand?


Learn simple activities with everyday materials for seed starting, organized by grade level. Now is the time to plan your seed starting lessons so the seedlings can be transplanted to the garden in March-May!

Seed Starting Tips for PreK - 5th Grades

EDUCATOR COACHING PROGRAM MID-YEAR HIGHLIGHTS

We’re mid-way through the school year with the 23-24 Educator Coaching Program cohort! In December the ECP cohort came together for the winter edition of our quarterly cohort gathering.


Attendees across schools built community, tried some Haitian Freedom Soup (or Soup Joumou) from the children's book by Tami Charles, and learned best practices for cooking in the classroom with a Fry Bread cooking demo. An easy way for teachers to incorporate cooking in the classroom is with a literacy connection! We tied our cooking demonstration back to the book Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story. Each participant left with cooking supplies and all the ingredients to try making Fry Bread with their students.


Now that we’re back in action after a strangely warm January, our team has been meeting with school staff to check in on the goals they set as a team in September and make plans for a busy spring growing season!


One of our partners, Bridges Public Charter School, has been making strides in creating new sensory garden features in their PreK-2 playground. They have gained input from their staff and started designing what their space could look like. Check out the rest of the fall & winter highlights from their garden program below.


-Ashley

RESOURCES & UPCOMING EVENTS

Multicultural Collection of Farm to ECE Books


The Food Trust’s multicultural collection of farm to ECE books, including Go Go Gumbo, Sweet Potato Pie, Fruits: A Caribbean Counting Poem; and Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai And The Trees Of Kenya. Linked are YouTube read-alouds.

Children's Book - GINGER: Sowing and Growing


Written by Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance members Kathy Anderson and Karen Bowlding.

Black Food Literature Young Readers List


BEM is a new bookstore that is a literary home for scholarship about foodways of the African diaspora. Consider growing okra this season and reading Okra Stew: A Gullah Geechee Family Celebration by Natalie Daise.

School Garden Coaching Sessions

516 Kennedy St NW


Garden Maintenance 101

Apr 2nd, 4:00-5:00pm


Cooking with Youth and Community

May 14th, 4:00-5:00pm

Seed Starting Indoors (Virtual)*

Feb 28th, 12:00-1:30pm


Seed Starting in the Garden

Mar 21st, 10:30am-12:00pm

4900 Puerto Rico Ave NE


RSVP for Zoom link* / to register by emailing Avery across@capitalareafood

bank.org

Free Outdoor Learning Virtual Workshop

Feb 27th, 7:00-8:00pm

Enhancing Climate Education through Active Learning

We find great garden-based resources through other newsletters we subscribe to. Receive Love & Carrot's newsletter below.

SUBSCRIBE TO LOVE AND CARROT'S EMAILS

Come see us next time you're at the National Arboretum!

The Arboretum is open every day from 8 AM - 5 PM except December 25th.

Check Our Website for Full Details >

Washington Youth Garden is the youth outreach and education branch of Friends of the National Arboretum. By supporting FONA, you support WYG connecting thousands of students each year to food, the land, and each other.

BECOME A FONA MEMBER
GROW THE GARDEN CAMPAIGN
CONNECT WITH US:
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Friends of the National Arboretum
3501 New York Ave NE
Washington, DC 20002
202.544.8733
FONA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization with the mission to preserve and enhance a vibrant public space and support experiential programming that instills a love of plants, nature and the outdoors in all who visit, while promoting the overarching research and education mission of the U.S. National Arboretum.

Since its inception, FONA has helped support the Washington Youth Garden, Capitol Columns, Flowering Tree Walk, horticultural and research internships, restoration of Springhouse Run, and much more.
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