Josias, Hold the Book
Every morning Josias, a Haitian boy, is hard at work in the family's garden under the hot Haitian sun. His friend Chrislove asks, "When will you join us and hold the book?" With his garden failing, Josias has no time to learn how to read and write. There may not be enough food for his family. Soon, Josias realizes a book might hold the solution to his problem.
Katie's Cabbage
Katie's Cabbage is the inspirational true story of how Katie Stagliano, a third grader from Summerville, South Carolina, grew a forty-pound cabbage in her backyard and donated it to help feed 275 people at a local soup kitchen. In her own words, Katie shares the story of the little cabbage seedling and the big ideas of generosity and service that motivated her to turn this experience into Katie's Krops, a national youth movement aimed at ending hunger one vegetable garden at a time. Katie's Cabbage reminds us of how small things can grow and thrive when nurtured with tender loving and care and how one person, with the support of family, friends and community, can help make a powerful difference in the lives of so many.
Las calabacitas de Zora (Spanish Edition)
The first zucchini of a summer garden is always exciting, but what happens when the plants just keep growing...and growing...and growing? Zora soon finds herself with more zucchini than her family can bake, saute, or barbecue. Fortunately, the ever-resourceful girl comes up with the perfect plan—a garden swap!
Las espinacas de Sylvia (Spanish Edition)
A picky eater discovers the joy of growing food and the pleasure of tasting something new. Sylvia Spivens always says no to spinach. But one day Sylvia's teacher giver her a packet of spinach seeds to plant for the school garden. Overcoming her initial reluctance and giving the seeds a little love and patience, Sylvia discovers the joy of growing food and the pleasure of tasting something new.
Logan's Greenhouse
Logan is organizing a pet playdate at his greenhouse for all of his friends, and his treats won't be the same without his carrots. He's searched and searched, but his greenhouse is filled with plenty of plants and Logan needs our help to identify them. What do we know about carrots? They're long, orange, and have bushy leaves at the top—and, wait a moment, is that a carrot? No, that's a turnip. Where, oh, where could those carrots be? Can you help Logan find them in time for his playdate?
Look Inside Food
Look Inside Food is an all-inclusive book highlighting the production of our food from the farm to our table. This interactive flap book includes extensive information and illustrations about the origin of our foods including grains, fruit and vegetables, and food from animals such as milk, meat, and eggs. Even sugar and chocolate begins its production on a farm.
Memory Garden
A lively afternoon together in Nana's garden is full of laughter, discovery, and connection. In lyrical text that blends past and present, Memory Garden takes us to the places we leave behind but never forget.
Migrant
Anna is the child of Mennonites from Mexico, who have come north to harvest fruits and vegetables. Sometimes she feels like a bird, flying north in the spring and south in the fall, sometimes like a jackrabbit in an abandoned burrow, since her family occupies an abandoned farmhouse near the fields, sometimes like a kitten, as she shares a bed with her sisters...But above all Anna wonders what it would be like to be a tree rooted deeply in the earth, watching the seasons come and go, instead of being like a "feather in the wind."
Miss MacDonald has a Farm
"Miss MacDonald has a farm, She loves things that grow!" E-I-E-I-GROW! With a "weed-weed" here and a "pick-pick" there, young readers can follow Miss MacDonald as she tends to her vegetable farm. It's a rollicking, rhyming read-aloud that ends in a community feast and celebrates themes of healthy eating, local produce, gardens, seasons, and female farmers.
Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!
Tippy, tippy, tippy, Pat! That's the sound three hungry bunnies make when the sun goes down and the moon comes up and Mr. McGreely's garden smells yum, yum, yummy. While he's dreaming of his mouth-watering carrots, the bunnies are diving over fences and swimming trenches to get the veggies first! Hammer, hammer, hammer, Saw! That's the sound Mr. McGreely makes when the sun comes up and the moon goes down and he sees what those twitch-whiskers have done....Nibbled leaves! Empty stalks! Mr. McGreely will build something bigger and better, sure to keep even pesky puff-tails away.
Oliver's Fruit Salad
Oliver is off to stay with Grandpa, who grows his own vegetables. But Oliver doesn't eat vegetables—only chips. How will Grandpa persuade him into a week of healthy eating?
Oliver's Vegetables
On a visit to his grandparents' house, Oliver wants to eat only French fries. Grandpa tells him that he may look in the garden for potatoes, but that he must eat what he finds, whatever it may be. On the first evening, Oliver pulls up carrots and discovers that he likes them. On successive days he discovers spinach, rhubarb, cabbage, beets, and peas. A fun book about eating from the garden.
On the Farm, at the Market
Take a behind-the-scenes tour of three different farms where food is locally grown, harvested, and sold at the market. This book illustrates the journey of vegetables, cheese, and mushrooms as they travel from the farm to your fork.
Our Food Grows
With vibrant illustrations and simple explanations, Our Food Grows shows how fruits, vegetables, and grains make their way from the farm to our plates. Perfect for curious kids and budding gardeners, this engaging introduction to where our food comes from reveals the magic of growing your own garden. An
Educator's Guide for preK-1st grade is available.
Our School Garden!
New city. New school. Michael is feeling all alone—until he discovers the school garden! There's so many ways to learn, and so much to do. Taste a leaf? Mmm, nice and tangy hot. Dig for bugs? "Roly-poly!" he yells. But the garden is much more than activities outdoors: making school garden stone soup, writing Found Poems and solving garden riddles, getting involved in community projects such as Harvest Day, food bank donations, and spring plant sales. Each season creates a new way to learn, explore, and make new friends.
Plants Feed Me
Plants Feed Me is an early elementary, non-fiction picture book about the plant foods we eat. This book describes which parts of plants are edible in simple accessible language using botanically realistic illustrations. Basic botanical science concepts of seed, sprout, flower, fruit, and plant structure are introduced with words and pictures.
Radio Man
Diego and his family are migrant farmers who move from state to state picking fruits and vegetables. Each day brings a new experience—a different place, a different crop, and different people to meet. But no matter where Diego goes, his radio goes with him—it helps him to learn about the places he's going and to keep in touch with the people he meets along the way.
Rah, Rah, Radishes!: A Vegetable Chant
Know any kids that don't like veggies? Here's a book that's sure to change their hungry minds. Rah, Rah, Radishes! celebrates fresh vegetables, nature's bright colors, and the joy of healthy eating.
Rooftop Garden
Set to a foot-tappin' original tune, this rhythmic, rhyming story shows a group of city friends work diligently together to grow herbs and vegetables in a rooftop garden, concluding with a summer harvest and feast that celebrates the gardeners' commitment.
Spring is for Strawberries
When a farm family brings their spring crops to a city farmers market, the farmer's daughter befriends the daughter of a neighborhood family doing their weekly shopping. Over the course of a year, the girls explore the bounty of each season. Sweet spring strawberries and crisp, fresh greens make way for corn on the cob, peppers, and a rainbow of tomatoes. Fall brings pumpkin patches and the crunch of apples. The friends part at the final winter market, already looking forward to the sweet red strawberries that will unite them again next spring.
Stinky and Stringy: Stem & Bulb Vegetables (Plants We Eat)
This book provides a fun-filled exploration of the history and field-to-table processes of onions, garlic, leeks, celery, asparagus, and rhubarb. Examine the discovery and migration of these vegetables as well as their roles in cooking, technology, and world cultures.
The Carrot Seed
When a little boy plants a carrot seed, everyone tells him it won't grow. But when you are very young, there are some things that you just know, and the little boy knows that one day a carrot will come up. So he waters his seed and pulls the weeds and he waits... This beautiful simple classic teaches the patience and technique of planting a seed and helping it grow. This story was first published in 1945 and never out of print.
The Fruits We Eat
This book teaches accurate science about fruits and the production of fruits. It is a book of facts, examples, and illustrations. Facts taught include: How fruits are included in a healthy diet, different ways fruits are eaten, types of plants that grow fruit (tree, bush, vine, etc.), parts of a fruit, colors of fruit, and sweet fruits vs. tart fruits. The illustrations are very detailed and include many diagrams.
The Giant Carrot
A TALL tale about the power of teamwork. When sweet Little Isabelle's family plants a carrot seed one day, tall Papa Joe, wide Mama Bess, and strong Brother Abel all do their part. But when Little Isabelle wants to help too, Brother Abel just laughs. "What can you do," he asks. "I'll sing and dance to the carrot to make it grow," she says. "And come summer, we'll have little cups of sweet carrot puddin." Sure enough, that carrot takes a fancy to Little Isabelle's singing and dancing and grows to an amazing height, proving that great things can be accomplished when everyone works together. Based on an old Russian folktale, and complete with a scrumptious recipe for carrot puddin', this wonderfully humorous story shows the strength of teamwork and the power of a touch of imagination.
The Summer My Father Was Ten
That was the summer the boy lost a baseball under a tomato plant in Mr. Bellavista's garden. And someone tossed a tomato back instead of a baseball. A lively battle took place, which seemes like great fun at the time, but in the end Mr. Bellavista's garden had been destroyed. In a touching story of one boy's efforts to make amends, we see the rebuilding of a garden and the forming of a relationship across generations.
The Ugly Vegetables
A Chinese-American girl wishes for a garden of bright flowers instead of one full of bumpy, ugly vegetables. The neighbors' gardens look so much prettier and so much more inviting to the young gardener than the garden of "black-purple-green vines, fuzzy wrinkled leaves, prickly stems, and a few little yellow flowers" that she and her mother grow. Nevertheless, mother assures her that "these are better than flowers." Come harvest time, everyone agrees as those ugly Chinese vegetables become the tastiest, most aromatic soup they have ever known. As the neighborhood comes together to share flowers and ugly vegetable soup, the young gardener learns that regardless of appearances, everything has its own beauty and purpose.
The Vegetable Alphabet Book
A wonderful blend of facts and humor make learning about vegetable gardening fun and easy for children. The wonderful, accurate illustrations guide children through a variety of vegetables and terms from A to Z relating to vegetable gardening.
Try It! How Frieda Caplan Changed the Way We Eat
Meet fearless Frieda Caplan—the produce pioneer who changed the way Americans eat by introducing exciting new fruits and vegetables, from baby carrots to blood oranges to kiwis. In 1956, Frieda Caplan started working at the Seventh Street Produce Market in Los Angeles. Instead of competing with the men in the business with their apples, potatoes, and tomatoes, Frieda thought, why not try something new? Starting with mushrooms, Frieda began introducing fresh and unusual foods to her customers—snap peas, seedless watermelon, mangos, and more! This groundbreaking woman brought a whole world of delicious foods to the United States, forever changing the way we eat. Frieda Caplan was always willing to try something new—are you?
Uncle John's City Garden
Visiting the city from her home in the suburbs, an African American girl sees how a few packets of seeds, some helping hands, and hard work transform an empty lot in a housing project into a magical place where vegetables grow and family gathers. It's the magic of nature in the heart of the city! Bernette Ford's autobiographical story is a loving glimpse at a girl, her siblings, and her uncle, and their shared passion for farming. L'il Sissy's fascination with measurement, comparison, and estimation introduces children to STEM concepts. And the progress of Uncle John's garden introduces readers to the life cycle of plants.
Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt
Up in the garden, the world is full of green—leaves and sprouts, growing vegetables, ripening fruit. But down in the dirt there is a busy world of earthworms digging, snakes hunting, skunks burrowing, and all the other animals that make a garden their home. Discover the wonders that lie hidden between stalks, under the shade of leaves...and down in the dirt.
Up, Down, and Around
From seeds dropping into soil to corn bursting from its stalks, from children chasing butterflies to ants burrowing underground, everything in this vibrant picture book pulses with life—in all directions! Sprightly illustrations set the mood for a rhythmic text that follows nature's course to a feast of backyard bounty.
Vegetable Garden
In this colorful picture book even very young students can follow along with a family as they plant, tend, and harvest a vegetable garden. The sun shines brightly, summer rain falls, and vegetables grow and ripen. For Pre-K through 1st grade this book makes a nice introduction to gardening and related activities or lessons.
What's in the Garden?
Good food doesn't begin on a store shelf with a box. It comes from a garden bursting with life, color, smells, sunshine, moisture, birds, and bees! Healthy food becomes much more interesting when children know where it comes from. So what's in a garden? Children will find a variety of fruits and vegetables and a tasty, kid-friendly recipe for each one to start a lifetime of good eating. A "Food for Thought" section explains facts about each fruit and vegetable, and a "How Does Your Garden Grow?" section explains facts about gardening and the parts of plants.
When Vegetables Go Bad
This work of fiction is a great tool to introduce nutrition to younger audiences and encourage them to eat vegetables. This title might mislead you to think the vegetables in the book are spoiling but the story is really about vegetables behaving badly because Ivy refused to eat them. Instead of eating her vegetables, Ivy stuffed them into her pocket. At night when she is sleeping, the vegetables form a taunting chorus in Ivy's sleep and invade her dreams with nasty songs. No matter how Ivy tries to run from this nightmare, the vegetables chase her down and continue their harassment. Once she admits she likes vegetables, the nightmare stops.
Who Grew My Soup?
Who Grew My Soup? tells the story of young Phineas Quinn and his questions about the vegetable soup his mom serves for lunch.
Zora's Zucchini
The first zucchini of a summer garden is always exciting, but what happens when the plants just keep growing...and growing...and growing? Zora soon finds herself with more zucchini than her family can bake, saute, or barbecue. Fortunately, the ever-resourceful girl comes up with the perfect plan—a garden swap!
Booklet/Reader
Jr. Sprout – Funky Foods
Blue tomatoes, red bananas, and green oranges – is this possible? Yes, it is with the help and knowledge of farmers and scientists. Changes in color or taste made to fruits and vegetables can create healthier foods. This activity booklet provides colorful images and information regarding healthy fruits and vegetables through standards of science, math and English.
Jr. Sprout – Gardening
From seed to plate, this booklet provides an activity to examine the natural resources needed to grow vegetables and flowers, their life cycle, along with plant parts and their functions. The booklet covers science, math, and English standards in the form of engaging questions, counting and measurement activities, and drawings.
Jr. Sprout – Healthy Eating
This creative activity booklet engages students to create their own food faces while using healthy fruits and vegetables grown in a vegetable garden. It also discusses challenges that people encounter while selecting "bad foods" that contain oils, sugars, and fats versus "good foods."
Learn More: Farmers Market
Learn more about food grown in all 50 states in this digital magazine. Each page includes top agricultural states, crop life cycles, fun facts, special days, and more. Start a conversation about where food comes from.
Movie/Video
Food Doesn't Grow in the Supermarket!
This DVD, narrated by children, follows "The City Guy," an adult who thinks he knows where food comes from (the grocery store), as he visits three different farms to learn where food really comes from and what it takes to produce it. Interesting even for those who have experience in farming and food production! This video is available on DVD or
YouTube.
Order this DVD online from agclassroomstore.com.
From the Field to the Farmers Market
Travel with nine-year-old Mason as he shows what it's like to be a part of a farm family and bring produce to the Farmers Market! Mason and his family are part of the Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA), and they have been selling at the farmers market for over 20 years. See how their produce is grown and sold at the farmers market.
George the Farmer
Join George the Farmer from Australia in his YouTube video series to discover the paddock to plate or paddock to product journey of some of your favorite products, including apples, wool, dairy, chickpeas, potatoes, chickens, and wheat.
Who Grew My Soup Song
The song "Who Grew My Soup?" was co-written by Story Laurie and a group of students from Delhi Elementary School in Delhi, NY. Inspired by the picture book of the same title, the song celebrates the school garden and Farm-to-School efforts underway at Delhi Elementary and an ever-growing number of schools across the nation.
Will the Last Farmer in America Please Turn Out the Light?
Immigration policy affects how we eat... what we eat... and how much it costs. Discover the necessity farmers have for skilled labor in order to plant, grow, and harvest the food on our tables. When did immigrant farm labor begin and what challenges would occur if this work force was lost?
Poster/Infographic
Dig In! Posters
These dynamic posters visually express the world of possibilities found in growing and eating fruits and vegetables. Display them in your classroom, the school cafeteria, and throughout the school to motivate students to choose more fruits and vegetables at meals and as snacks. Horizontal posters are 24" x 36". Vertical posters are 36" x 24". Posters are available in
PDF or upon request from
USDA Team Nutrition.
Nutrition Posters
How would you rather eat calcium, fiber, iron, protein, vitamin C, and zinc? This set of posters provides examples of foods that fit into each category and includes nutrition information about each.
Parts of a Strawberry Plant Poster
The fruits and vegetables we eat come from parts of a plant. Flowering plants have six main parts. Use this 28" x 24" laminated poster of a strawberry plant to label and discuss the functions of the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit and seeds.
Order this poster online from agclassroomstore.com.
Plant Part Chart
The fruits and vegetables we eat come from parts of a plant. Identify examples of roots, stems, leaves, flower, fruit, and seeds from every letter of the alphabet using this colorful 25" x 30" poster.
Order this poster online from agclassroomstore.com.
Vegetables Flowchart
This six-page informational sheet describes the process of how vegetables are grown and harvested, how they get from the farm to the store, and nutrition facts. Words and graphics are used to portray this information for asparagus, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, celery, lettuce, onions, potatoes, and radishes.
Print your own or order a set of 30" x 8" printed charts from
agclassroomstore.com.
Teacher Reference
Edible Gardening: Growing Your Own Vegetables, Fruits, and More
This gardening guide provides fun and creative ideas for growing vegetables, fruits, and more. It lists of everything you need and easy, step-by-step instructions accompany each project. Grow a pepper plant in an upside-down planter or plant a spaghetti garden. Teachers will be inspired to create edible class gardens with their students.
Encyclopedia of Gardening Techniques
The definitive guide to the best gardening techniques from pruning and propagation and planting to harvesting by the American Horticultural Society. This step-by-step guide contains a vast amount of expert information clearly demonstrating the tried-and-tested techniques honed by the world's leading garden authority. The book covers every aspect of gardening from pruning to sowing, watering to feeding, and propagating to planting. Covering all plants including trees, flowers, shrubs, climbers, lawns, vegetables, fruit and herb, it shows how to create water features and patios, and add lighting. It also includes organic techniques, recycling, and how to treat pests and diseases.
Grow it Again
This resource will help you find creative solutions to growing affordable plants in the classroom. You may find it hard to believe, but the makings of a fantastic growing experience are probably in your kitchen right now. Don't put those carrot tops in the compost or throw out the seeds in that apple core—try growing them instead. Turn a peanut into an unusual flower or a beet top into a leafy plant. The step-by-step illustrated instructions in this book make it easy!
Nutrition Research Articles
See a collection of articles reporting the results of various research projects carried out by the United States Department of Agriculture. These articles can help secondary students make connections with topics such as food, nutrition, and overall health.
Yum! Fruit and Vegetable Wraps
Food scientists have a career in developing foods that are appealing to the eye and taste bud as well as being nutritious. Use this research article about fruit and vegetable wraps to highlight what a career in food science would entail.
Website
Producepedia
Fruits, vegetables, and nuts are all considered produce. Producepedia is a website devoted to teaching about these important food crops. Find fun facts about various produce, learn about how and where it is grown, when it is in season, and watch videos from top chefs about how to cook and prepare the produce for eating.
