Our Gardens are Bursting

At North Shore Montessori School, we wholeheartedly believe in connecting children with nature. Together, we’ve not only planted seeds of hope, but also fertile seeds of fruits and vegetables for backyard birds, school chickens, and our own lunch tables. 

This past school year (2022-2023), we embarked on an ambitious plan to create a peace garden. And this summer it’s flourishing!

Our students have always benefited from a large outdoor play area with plenty of natural elements. Within this landscape of lawn, native plants and woods, our students have participated in botany lessons, made thoughtful observations and sketches in their nature journals, and gained a deeper appreciation for the world around them.

Dr. Maria Montessori believed that being immersed in nature supports a child’s physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. “There must be provision for the child to have contact with nature,” Dr. Montessori wrote, “to understand and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature.”

Two years ago, NSMS built four raised garden beds as an early introduction to vegetable and flower gardening. We also created a Monarch habitat, and subsequently registered it with the non-profit Monarch Watch as a certified Monarch Waystation. As a registered waystation, our school has promised to provide milkweed and nectar sources for monarchs to produce successive generations and sustain their migration.

With the raised beds and butterfly habitat deemed successful, we had a deep desire to do more!

This past spring, we were presented with a tremendous opportunity to expand our garden’s footprint. Together, preschoolers, kindergartners and elementary students worked alongside teachers and volunteers to create the NSMS Peace Garden. 

The children planted broccoli, cabbage, celery, kale, squash, tomatoes, zucchini, and many other vegetables. Sunflower is just one of many flower varieties planted by the young gardeners. Previously planted fruit trees – apple and pear – round out the garden’s offerings.

We celebrated our first harvest in mid-July! Children enrolled in our summer program, from early June through the end of July, helped care for our vegetable gardens, pollinator gardens, fruit trees, and monarch habitat. 

It was exciting to watch the children harvest our first crop, kale, and feed it to our chickens in the coop. No doubt, there will be more harvests as summer progresses – and then a bountiful harvest just as the new school year begins!