Chinatown Living Library & Think Park
Newsletter

Fuyu Persimmon Tree Drawing by Ada, 1st Grade

 

A LIVING LIBRARY Students Plant Fruit Trees

What do fruit trees, honeybees, seeds and shovels all have in common? They are all a part of the learning happening during A Living Library (A.L.L.) at Commodore Stockton Child Development Center and Gordon Lau Elementary School. You may have noticed plants and trees in the playground. The students are learning new things like how to grow vegetables, flowers, herbs and trees. During the fall, students helped to plant 13 new fruit trees that will be part of the environment for years to come. They even harvested the first persimmon!

A Living Library is linked to school subjects like science and art, and teaches through hands-on experience. Students are learning to answer questions like: How do certain fruits and vegetables grow and taste? Where is my food grown? What is good nutrition? How can we use food scraps to build compost for the soil? What sort of things can I observe about Nature? How do I document what we are learning about? How do plants make seeds? What insects are good for the garden?

It is our hope that students will come away with many more questions about plants, trees, gardens, food, our environment, their community, and other parts of the “living library” which is all around us.

A.L.L. welcomes parents and community members to get involved. A Living Library classes take place every Tuesday and Friday in the playground yards. Please send your child to school with shoes that can get dirty on these days.