Greensboro Montessori School Permaculture Gardens

The Gardening Program at Greensboro Montessori School nurtures each child’s appreciation and understanding of the natural world and builds ecologically responsible citizens by involving them in the seasonal cycles of planting, harvesting, and sharing the food grown in an organic, Permaculture garden.

Read the entire mission statement:
GMS Permaculture Mission Statement

Ten Activities for Home Gardeners
by Dr. Charlie Headington

Enjoyable, sustainable, permaculture is not just for the classroom. It is fun and anyone can do it! With a little work, and these simple tips, you too can can have a beautiful, fully organic garden to enjoy.

Read more here.

Teaching Permaculture in a School Garden
by Dr. Charlie Headington

At Greensboro Montessori School over 200 kids garden each week. That's a lot of kids and a lot of gardening!

A Montessori school is a good place to garden. Maria Montessori believed each child needed intimacy with the natural world. Otherwise, she reasoned, how would the senses or the soul or the mind grow? But wonder in itself was not enough; it had to be nurtured by competent understanding of how natural systems work. That's a proper setting for Permaculture, wouldn't you agree?

Read the entire article:
Teaching Permaculture

Teaching about the Soil in the GMS Garden
by Walter Moore

The key to a bountiful garden, from tender greens to ruby red strawberries, starts from the ground up. The soil is the essential element of the overall landscape, along with water and sunshine. At Greensboro Montessori School (GMS), we teach the students the fundamentals of the soil and those creatures that call it home (where would we be without the earthworm?).

Read the entire article:
Walter Moore On Soil

The Garden Dances Through The Children
By Megan McGee Ingram

Teaching permaculture through dance is easy. The experience of teaching evolved throughout the year as I came to know the students and the garden. At times, we would reflect on our experiences in a “sharing circle,” where the students would pantomime, recreating, reflecting, and remembering the motions that they went through as they tended to the garden, including weeding, watering and tasting dances.

Read the entire article:
Garden Dancing

Montessori Market

Each summer GMS holds it's annual Montessori Market Summer Camp . The Montessori camp students sell produce collected from the school gardens as well as jams, pesto, breads, flowers and more, made from the garden offerings. They also sell art and crafts that they make in camp.

Each year the students use the profits from the Market to purchase school supplies for children who don't have the resources to get the supplies they need. After going to the store to purchase the supplies, the students deliver the supplies to the children at a year long school program. Meeting the children there is an extra treat for our students.