Next Step Adventure :: mindful, creative, fun approaches to help people and organizations reach the next level
Category: Lead & Coordinate
Imagine freeing up your schedule from the routine tasks. Think of the time you’ll have to plan, and even dream. To look at the big picture. All with a Next Step team member doing a stellar job of planning and recording as the work is done. And keeping you connected all the while.
If you get bogged down in routine, or need a more objective perspective on a project, we have something to offer.
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
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!
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.
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 teamtrain 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.
Eating AsparagusSprouts GardenCompost with WormsOctober gardenSeedlings started indoorsBean plants in a clear cup. Roots can be viewed through the cup. Community gardenGarden trainingTeachers + Dirt = FunRoly Poly DaycareWatering the seedsEarth Hero Daren Leading Name WaveWorld of Difference GirlsGuacamolePractical Farmers Team Building Day
“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:
Community plots through Global Food Project
GROW: Johnson County to supply local food banks with fresh produce
Maintaining the land by removing invasive species and restoring native landscapes that help clean the water as it works its way to streams
Education on farming and the historical usage of the Historical Poor Farm
Camp Creek Farm in Kalona, IA showed us:
The hard work of starting up a farm in fields that had been unused recently
Existing infrastructure for long term micro green production
Creating compost to use in the fields from yard waste and farm waste
The variety of produce that consumers expect from Consumer Supported Agriculture and farmer’s markets
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!
Johnson County Historical Poor FarmCamp Creek FarmCamp Creek FarmJohnson County Historical Poor Farm
What comes to mind when you hear the word “breath?” Do you have a memory of getting the wind knocked out of you when you did a belly flop in the pool? Or holding your breath when you were scared? Do you hear the words “I can’t breathe” that have become a mantra of the Black Lives Matter movement?
The conversation
Last night Shakti Yoga students gathered at Gateway Market for a conversation about breath. There were 11 of us around the table. I started off by asking everyone to write down what they think of when they hear the word “breath.” The answers were diverse, but most common was “life.”
Sandy Gustafson reported on what she’s learned during the months since we decided on the topic. Here are links to some of the resources she shared with us last night.
Andrew Huberman, a Stanford professor, offers a number of resources on how to breathe better, including this YouTube episode.
Keep your mouth shut
When Joseph Schneider told me I breathe through my mouth a lot, I was horrified! And in denial. But then I paid closer attention to my breathing while I practiced yoga. I had to admit that yes, I was breathing through my mouth. A lot. Then he loaned me this book, with a sticky note marking the chapter on mouth breathing.
I swear reading this chapter kept me awake for two nights, and sent me in search of medical tape to keep my mouth closed when I sleep. Keeping your mouth closed can help with snoring and sleep apnea! Who knew?
Something we take for granted, do from the moment we’re born to the moment we die, is way more complicated than I ever knew.
There’s always more
I tend to think of things like breath in broad strokes. Brette Scott offers a monthly “Energy Tuneup” at Shakti that focuses mostly on the breath. It’s really quite interesting and the sessions I’ve attended definitely shifted my energy.
This photo reminds me of the yoga pose Tadasana, or Mountain Pose. It can be rigid and stiff, or there can be a lot going on inside, including deep, controlled breathing.
Lisa Acheson shared a lightbulb moment when she learned she needed to soften her very focused breath. Working on it too hard had become detrimental to her body. Just like anything, finding the middle is a lifelong project. Breathing deep, softening, moderating, relaxing–all practices for life.
I came to a deeper understanding that the subject of breath is broad, but also particular, and integral to everyone’s life. Well, duh.
These conversations always remind me that there’s still so much to learn, and I can still improve my life and health even as I age. It’s not just good for our bodies but also our brains to learn and think about stuff in different ways.
Using my breath to come back to my body and link it up to my mind is an important part of my mindfulness practice.
We are often asked, “How do we bring Farm to School teaching into our classrooms?” There are barriers. Time is short. Teachers are stretched. There is no “free time” in the day to add something extra.
Fortunately, Farm to School is not an extra. There are countless ways to integrate it into the existing framework. We know student learning increases when activities are hands-on, engaging, and meaningful. Farm to School activities do this.
Working with Waukee Community School District, we developed science lessons that meet the curriculum goals of the Iowa Academic Standards through Farm to School activities. Each grade level folder contains lessons and supplemental materials including:
Hands-on science lessons
Instructions for growing food in the classroom
Lessons for academic learning in the garden
Book lists
Cross-curricular connections
Taste-testing guidelines
All lessons are aligned to Next Generation Science Standards, as well as the Waukee School District’s progress report statements. Material lists, learning goals, actions steps, reflection questions, hand-outs, and seasonal recommendations are included.
We invite you to access the materials, try them out in your classroom, and let us know what you think. What worked well for you? What suggestions do you have?
I heard grumbling on the short walk to the restored prairie.
“Why do we have to do this?”
“I don’t like to draw.”
“Plants are boring.”
I did not respond but wondered if the prairie and I could win them over.
The setting was the lovely Twin Ponds Nature Center near Ionia, Iowa. Twenty Girl Scouts 9-12 years old were camping for the weekend. I had been asked to lead an aftrenoon nature study of prairie plants and their changes through the seasons.
It was the after-lunch slump, 90 degrees, and humid. My hopes were not high. Yet I find tallgrass prairie fascinating, so I kept walking.
I encouraged the girls to sit in the shade on grass next to the towering plants. For the next 10 minutes, we talked prairie plants. They formed cups with their hands to mimic cup plant leaves. They used their hands to estimate the depth of big bluestem roots. (All guesses were all too short; big blue roots can be 10 feet deep!) They gathered around cup flowers and examined the pollen. They noticed a few cone flowers that had already lost their petals. Even though it was hot and after lunch, the prairie captivated the girls’ attention.
The conversation shifted to seasonal changes over time. The girls spread out to sketch various flowers and predictions of their winter changes. It was not breaktime for me, though.
“Miss Sara, look at this flower!”
“I found a cool bug!”
“Until I started drawing, I didn’t notice that the petals have two shades of yellow.”
“What do you think these berries are?”
“Noooo, I don’t want to be done!”
These girls were filled with wonder as they observed restored prairies. Despite the heat, they asked engaging questions as they made observations. To my surprise, the biggest grumblers at the start became the biggest defenders of the prairie.
Today a friend showed me her peach tree and told me to help myself. She plans to harvest all of the peaches this weekend and will have more than enough. Immediately, I started planning juicy peach slices for lunch followed by an afternoon of making pie. The peaches are currently ripening in a paper bag.
My own garden is bursting with delicious food. I so enjoy watching and waiting for the tiny seeds to turn into sprawling plants, full of tasty, nutrient-dense food for my family.
As a kid, I wasn’t a fan of tomatoes. I converted to a tomato connoisseur a few years ago after tasting garden-ripe tomatoes. It’s hard to believe I lived most of my life without realizing such tasty tomatoes existed. I continue to avoid bland grocery store tomatoes all winter and wait for my garden in the summer.
Home gardens are not the only way to access delicious fresh produce. A few weeks ago I attended the Iowa Food System Conference. Iowa has incredible soil, farmers, and communities, yet the vast majority of our food is imported. A better way is possible.
Date: Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Location: Schools, early care centers, and community organizations across Iowa
Activity: Planting or caring for a garden
