Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden

Growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing

The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program offers dynamic hands on practical learning for our Year 3 and 4 students at Osborne Primary School.  In the kitchen and garden, each class is broken up into four small groups with the support of volunteers and under the supervision of the Kitchen and Garden Specialist and classroom teacher.

Students spend time in the school’s organic sustainable gardens once a fortnight. The Gardens have been designed and built by the students, and are maintained by them with the assistance of the Garden Specialist. The students participate in every aspect of gardening from compost making, soil preparation, seed collection, propagation, and maintence. Students also look into creating habitats within the garden for beneficial insects and reptiles, construction of climbing frames for plants, plant protection, worm farm maintenance and working with tools within the garden.

Students also spend one and a half hours once a fortnight in the SAKG Kitchen, preparing and sharing the seasonally designed menu created from the produce grown within the garden. The accumulation of all this hard work is the sharing and eating together at the end of each lesson. Students are introduced fully to the kitchen and are taught how to develop correct skills and techniques in the preparation and cooking of food. In their second year of the program students are shown how to use more difficult equipment and techniques that enhance their skills and cooking abilities.

More than just gardening and cooking the SAKG program is also about giving students the opportunities to develop life skills such as how to work together as a team, how to communicate effectively and how to work in alternative settings, problem solving and creative thinking.

Volunteering

The SAKG Program at Osborne Primary School greatly appreciates the dedication and enthusiasm of our wonderful volunteers from our school and wider community.  If you are interested in participating in the SAKG Program, and have a working with children’s check, please don’t hesitate to contact the school office or your child’s grade teacher.