How It Works:
Our Garden Club is a weekly two-hour class every Wednesday from 4-6pm for children ages 5 – 11. This is a drop-off-style class, drop off between 3:45-4:10pm. Registration for a single class is an option, but we encourage cumulative full-season (or full-year) participation. For our 2024 program, Garden Club starts March 13th and ends November 13th, designed for three seasons: Spring (14 weeks) SPRING IS FULL, Summer (11 weeks), and Fall (11 weeks). Full Season Discounts available below.
Gardening engages every child’s innate wonder and care for natural systems, offers them opportunities to participate in hands-on learning, and teaches them where their food comes from. Children who participate in gardening programs receive dramatic, documented gains across a diverse range of critical growth areas including personal well-being, food security, nutritional awareness, environmental stewardship, and community connectedness.
Our Garden Club classes immerse children in natural spaces on our unique 33-acre farm to hone their focus on the living world around them. Through interaction, collaboration, and discovery our curriculum seeds an awareness of important concepts (the soil food web, biodiverse ecosystems, organic agriculture, etc.) while instilling a sense of awe and enjoyment.
Children will learn from standards-aligned activities in developmentally appropriate groups, with guidance from two instructors and up to two volunteers. Child-initiated sensory play and time to anchor new skills is provided to account for children’s needs and interests.
Direct, student-specific, parent-teacher communication will be maintained weekly to ensure families the ability to participate in learning with the student, working toward student specific goals/behavioral progress, or any class updates, reminders, or work missed from days absent. We plan to utilize the SeeSaw app for any direct parent-teacher communications.
This year we will be partnering with Camas Swale Farm, an organic vegetable farm, and County Line Flowers, a cut flower farm, for 2 total offsite field trips! There will be two field trip dates this year for Garden Club students, they will happen during regular class hours, and pickup and drop off will be the same timeframe, but at a neighbor farm located very close to PLG. These dates will be determined based on the most visually impactful times of the year at each of these farms.
On and Off-site, there will be many opportunities for self-expression and design practices through arts, crafting, and engineering using natural materials provided. We will include at least one hands-on garden activity, one STEAM-based lesson about gardening/plants/nature, and at least one worksheet, crafted item, bountiful harvest, or plant to bring home. Let’s grow together!
Spring Season: Starts 3/13 - Ends 6/12 (SPRING IS FULL!)
Summer Season: Starts 6/19 - Ends 8/28
Fall Season: Starts 9/4- Ends 11/13
LOW-INCOME SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE! Fill out our Scholarship Application (forms.gle/eThMYnfdNdYTojZo7) to see if you qualify for 50% discount on full season registration! We will contact you after form is submitted.
FOR REGISTRATION ISSUES CALL OR TEXT our staff at 541-579-8788. For questions regarding the Garden Club Program, email info@parkerlearninggardens.org. Please feel free to read our Youth Protection Policy .