A Note for Parents from a Parent

Hello Allie's classmates and their parents!

 Welcome to the Kids Grow Green blog!

You might be wondering why your child is talking about growing tomatoes.
Well I hope this post clears things up a little.

First you may want to click here and read how this all came about.

Next you might want to know what Allie has asked your children to do.

Allie would like her classmates to help her with her project by growing tomato plants at home.

What Will Happen In Class?

Landscape garden centers has volunteered to provide each child with a growing tray with cover,  plastic inserts to grow individual plants, dirt, and seeds to grow 26 small tomato plants.

On Tuesday March 4th a Ellen Hamilton, master gardener, and "Tomato Queen", has been invited in to guide students in planting tomato seeds, and will give them growing tips.

If you decide that growing tomato plants works for your family, then your child is welcome to bring home their tray.
Parents will need to arrange pick up of the planted trays some time the week of March 4th. Bus transportation of plants is not recommended.

Once The Plants Are At a Home

Then on this blog we will post videos and growing tips as we go. You can just check in, or we can arrange email reminders for your child to check. We can also provide print outs for those who do not have internet access at home, and I am sure Allie will fill her friends in on what she does at home, at school as well.

What if our plants die?
It's all a part of the learning process. Sometimes the best gardeners loose their plants. We understand this.

The Sale

Then on May 3rd students have been invited by the Sioux Empire Farmer's Market to sell the plants they have grown to gardeners for their gardens. If you cannot be there on that date we can make arrangements to get your plants to the sale.

What happens to the money?

Allie's plan is to give back and help the environment.
The kids involved will brainstorm, help choose, and vote on three green causes to have their money go towards. All money raised will support local green efforts.
Kids Grow Green will be designed and shaped by the kids themselves!
They get to help make the decisions!

THIS IS NOT MANDATORY 

Because of the awesome leaning experience of this project, the school has agreed to host the kick off planting day, and to allow kids to attend a field trip. The Washington Pavilion and the filmakers of the film Watermelon Magic have agreed to have a free viewing of their film for Allie and her classmates. This is the only official class time reserved for the project because of spring curriculum constraints.

Other than that, taking home and growing the plants, and selling the plants is all optional, but we hope that you will join us in the growing fun. The learning experiences the kids will gain from this project are growing and unlimited.

If you have questions or concerns, feel free to send an email to us at
kidsgrowgreensf@live.com

If you do decide to give it a go....

We want to let you know, some other additional outside of class time opportunities have also been given to Allie because of her project, and she would like to invite and include those who are able to help, the opportunity to participate in the other learning experiences as well.

These include..

Being on the KSFY morning show

Having a booth to promote their sale at Ag Day at the Washington Pavilion

Making and presenting a three minute film about the Kids Grow Green project at a fundraiser dinner at Landscape Garden Centers
Being in a photo shoot for the Hood Magazine April Cover Story coming up March 1st.

And this list continues to grow.

These again are not mandatory, just opportunities that have come out of the project. If you wish to have your child participate and it works with your schedule, great, if not that is totally ok.

If you only want to try to grow plants for the sale, that is totally fine too.

We hope you will join us in the fun!

This is great! What else can we do to help?

You will not believe the ideas that the kids had today in the few minutes we had. We had suggestions from kids to build a stand. We had others giving us hints of places to call for donations. We have many excited to help design a Kid's Grow Green logo for them to decide on and vote for. We are ready to let kids run with their ideas. Kids Grow Green is their project! We would love for who have interest to be able to write blog posts, or even post their own videos about the project on this blog. It is all up to your child, where their interest is, and how they want to participate. We just want to offer them the opportunity.

So if your child has an idea to share for the project, and you want to offer to help make it happen feel free to email
 This is their project too because Allie cannot do it without them, and they all have awesome ideas!

kidsgrowgreensf@live.com