“To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.” Alfred Austin
It is that time of year again when we are looking forward to the warmer weather and sunshine that arrives with the beginning of spring 
and summer. At this time, we begin to think about how to implement our annual garden project with the children. Although Mother Nature has been yielding endless snowstorms, ice storms and extreme cold, the show must go on and we must look ahead at starting our garden indoors while we wait for the snow to melt and the ground to thaw.
Every year at Acorn the preschool and kindergarten children work collaboratively to plant our school garden. This year is no exception! Although this is a project that is conducted on a yearly basis, it is constantly changing, evolving and growing because our children are constantly changing, evolving and growing themselves. This year Cathy (Sr. Preschool/Kindergarten Teacher) and I (Rosanna: Jr. Preschool Teacher) set out to develop a plan on how to approach this very important project with the children in both classes. Having observed the children’s interactions during combined work throughout the year and having noticed how both classes have benefited form working with one another, we came to the agreement that this project would be more valuable to the children if we worked collaboratively.
Cathy and I sat together and came up with initial provocations and inquiries that could lead us into our collaborative project while keeping in mind that the children could take this project and inquiries in a number of directions. Through dialogue and discussion with the children, indoor inquiries began to emerge with certain children individually as well as in small groups. The children began to theorize what was to come when it warmed up and we starting our planting outdoors. So far we have worked on creating small green houses 
for our seeds, we have explored and investigated soil and different types of seeds, we have built theories and discussed the various parts of a plant, what plants need in order to grow, and we have discussed the differences between a cactus and your average plant.
Please stay tuned to the Acorn blog, as we will be posting more about our planting inquiry as this project progresses.
Written By: Rosanna Tantalo, Preschool Teacher
