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Across the state nearly 35,000 kids celebrated the first annual Iowa Kids Garden Day, hosted by 100+ locations! At Next Step Adventure, we have been organizing and coordinating this work for almost two years, and it was gratifying to see it all come together.
My favorite story was when I visited a celebration at Irving Elementary in Waterloo. A boy planted a row of bean seeds and was asked to water them using a small pail of water. The boy was quite hesitant exclaiming, “I have no experience with this! I’ve never watered anything in real life, just in games on my phone!” A minute later, he successfully poured water over the seeds.
Iowa Kids Garden Day celebrates children and educators growing and eating delicious food. This annual statewide celebration is coordinated by the Iowa Farm to School & Early Care Coalition. Join us next year on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 by visiting https://www.iowafarmtoschoolearlycare.org/iowa-kids-garden-day
Spring is in the air, and with it comes the irresistible urge to get outside and explore! What better way to combine fresh air, learning, and fun than with a garden scavenger hunt?
Just download and print the Garden Scavenger Hunt PDF. Clipboards and pencils are helpful. Kids can mark off items as they find them, and add their own ideas to the back.
Whether you use the scavenger hunt with your own family, or a large group of kids through Iowa Kids Garden Day, happy hunting!
While you are garden planning, don’t forget to check out other gardening curriculum from Next Step Adventure: K-5 Garden Planning, Planting, & Celebrating; K-5 Farm to School Lesson Plans, and K-5 Teachers Going Green lessons. Garden yoga is always fun, too. All are aligned with the Iowa Academic Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.
We’ve been working on this for months, and we finally get to share it with everyone – Iowa Kids Garden Day registration is open here!
Wednesday, May 21st, 2025 (or anytime in May!)
Save the date for Wednesday, May 21, 2025, and celebrate Iowa Kids Garden Day! School and ECEs are encouraged to host an event, joining with others across the state to celebrate children and educators growing and eating delicious food.
Date: Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Location: Schools, early care centers, and community organizations across Iowa
Activity: Planting or caring for a garden
Questions? Email [email protected]
At our core, we believe in the power of growing together—whether that’s through planting seeds, cultivating relationships, or creating lasting change within our communities. That’s why we are so excited about our work with the Iowa Farm to School & Early Care Coalition, a collaborative effort that has been laying the groundwork for a healthier, more sustainable future for Iowa’s children.
The Iowa Farm to School & Early Care Coalition brings together schools, early care programs, farmers, government agencies, and community partners to foster connections between local food systems and young learners. The work we do helps to strengthen these partnerships, encouraging kids to explore where their food comes from, build healthy eating habits, and understand the importance of sustainable agriculture.
For many months, we have been working behind the scenes to coordinate a new statewide event in partnership with the coalition. On Wednesday, May 21, we will celebrate the first annual Iowa Kids Garden Day—an exciting event that will bring Iowa’s children, educators, and farmers together to celebrate the joy of gardening, fresh food, and learning.
Sites are asked to register to put their site on the map. Registration will open on March 5th, 2025 for schools, early care sites, and community organizations. At each site, coordinators will organize a variety of gardening activities for children and educators.
Iowa Kids Garden Day Every is an annual celebration occurring on the third Wednesday of May. Join us in bringing recognition to the people and programs providing these innovative, hands-on learning opportunities. Learn more about hosting a site in your community!
Last month Ashley M and I enjoyed a lunch meeting at the Trellis Cafe at the Des Moines Botanical Garden with Stephanie Harrington, Natural Resources Program Coordinator with ISU Extension, Polk County. Stephanie trains ISU Master Gardeners to work with school gardens. She does lots of other stuff as well.
She’s been looking for the Teachers Going Green curriculum for a couple years. And she’s had requests from teachers. The lessons haven’t been available for several years, but NOW THEY ARE!
And they are even better than they were before. Ashley updated them to a format similar to the lessons Sara developed for Waukee Schools a couple years ago. Those lessons empower teachers to use their extensive school gardens to teach the science curriculum.
Kids can learn science concepts experientially, while they’re getting outdoors, and learning about healthy food.
Since we developed the first Teachers Going Green lessons in 2009, the Iowa Core was changed to become the Iowa Academic Standards. Ashley combed through the standards and existing lessons to make sure they align.
She also reviewed and evaluated the lessons we’re now making available to you, for quality and clarity. We’re proud to say they come up to the standards you’ve come to expect from Next Step Adventure.
Teachers Going Green lessons for Kindergarten through 5th Grade are available for you to download HERE, free of charge. They are organized by the subject their Academic Standards align with–
We’re excited to offer this new resource to you for your classrooms and other programs. Please take the opportunity to share it with your colleagues and friends. And let us know how you’re using it, and how it works.
Kids and dirt go together, well like dirt on kids. These two kiddos are collecting roly polies in our raised bed garden. June has worked these beds since before she was one, but now she’s six, and her interest in gardening is overshadowed by dance, first grade, and playing pretend. Still, yesterday, she picked a Jimmy Nardello pepper and ate it all up. When kids grow their own food, they’ll eat it!
This is our very October garden with compost cage, volunteer pumpkin and squash. We still have potatoes and carrots to harvest. But our garden is only my personal part of Next Step’s contribution to the Farm to School movement. And the movement has really picked up steam in Iowa over the last several years. Next Step developed Teachers Going Green beginning in 2009 to help teachers connect gardening with the Iowa Academic Standards.
Since then we’ve worked with local schools in Des Moines, Waukee and Iowa City to name a few. Our focus is on the education–We developed School Garden 101, also for Keep Iowa Beautiful. We plan to make the Teachers Going Green lessons available on our website in the near future, with some updates to reflect changes to the Education Standards.
Sara Lockie and the rest of the team train teachers and other youth professionals to work with kids in the garden. One important thing to remember is that it’s not about the plants. It’s about the kids.
But we’ve branched out from developing activities and lessons to coordinating Iowa State University’s Farm to School & Early Child Care coalition statewide. These efforts will expand the Farm to School movement far beyond the reach of Next Step Adventure alone. This year they’ve set goals to develop resources and better access to already existing curriculum.
So join us in celebrating Farm to School month by listening to this podcast from the National Center for Appropriate Technology, imagining how YOU can help connect with local food, and have fun doing it.
We are back in school, but we can still grow delicious food.
Waukee Science Lessons – This district-approved science curriculum features Farm to School lessons for every K-5 classroom. Grade level book lists are also included!
Gardening with Kids Lessons – These standards-aligned K-5 lessons walk groups through planning, planting, maintaining, harvesting, and celebrating gardens. Lessons for every season, indoors and out. Great for new groups or wonderful ideas for experienced groups!
Mindfulness & Movement Cards – Short breathing and calming activities are perfect for transitions. Art and outdoor activities build teams and connection. Perfect for all classrooms!
Don’t miss the first annual Iowa Kids Garden Day celebration this May! Registration opens in March but put your name on the mailing list by emailing [email protected]
We also recommend the Choose Iowa resources, Pick a Better Snack activities, and Food Corp lessons. Check out these great resources!
Scientists need data. People can collect data. With a little piece of technology in our pockets, we can easily and efficiently transport that data to scientists around the world. Tada – we can all be citizen scientists!
“Getting ready for my first garden coaching gig since the pandemic.” That’s how I started this post back in March!
Then this happened…
… and this.
My daughter and her partner got married the end of June in a “fast track” wedding.
My older granddaughter started first grade today, and I’m all ready to start taking care of my 5-month-old granddaughter this Wednesday.
I’ve been really busy in my own garden, turning the front lawn into a Wild and Crazy Garden.
And now that we’re heading into another school year, I’m bringing on some new talent and some new energy. I’m recommitting to Next Step Adventure. Where will it lead? Well, that’s the adventure. Hope you’ll join us.
The 2024 Community Food Systems + Farm to School & Early Care Conference was held in June and included educational Farm tours the day before the conference.
The Johnson County Historical Poor Farm visit combined the history of the Historical Poor Farm with how the land is used today:
Camp Creek Farm in Kalona, IA showed us:
Camp Creek Farm is creating connections not only through farming and local food hub distribution but sharing greenhouse and storage space with other local farmers.
While the farm visits reminded me of the hard work it takes to grow the food we eat everyday, the conference opened my eyes to the barriers that prevent fresh, local food from being available to schools and early care sites everyday. Timing of when crops are ready in the fields and when children are in the classroom. Funding and sourcing enough food for an entire school or district. Budgets and time for the people needed to prepare the food. And kids’ tastes, what will they actually eat from year to year? I learned about established and well run programs in place or starting up that help fund fresh local food. The conference brought together educators, food service workers, chefs and local farmers to further understand the systems already in place, uncover challenges and create connections to keep pushing forward to get fresh, local food into school and early care sites that kids will eat. The kindness, connections, collaboration and education that I experienced at the conference has me energized to continue the adventure!
