Curriculum Toolkit
Over the years, we have honed in on priority curricular units for every grade level, preschool through 12th grade, that build on each other and provide a meaningful food education for the students we work with.
This Toolkit is the compilation of these units, along with their related teaching standards, activities, and assessment tools. We are constantly adding to this site, so please check in again soon for updates.
We designed this curriculum framework to help our students grasp the following key concepts by the time they graduate from high school:
Feel confident in making healthy food choices
Appreciate the farming profession
Know that everyone can grow food
Understand the connection between healthy soil, healthy plants, and healthy people
Recognize the difference between the industrial and local food systems
3rd Grade: Local Agriculture and Culinary History
In third grade,
students begin to trace the history of our food, and its impact on our lives today.
During the fall we celebrate the harvest through exploring the diverse food traditions during the colonial era. Once we have identified the components of soil, we spend the winter experimenting with soil and studying the characters in the complex soil food web. We return to the stories and tales of our island's food history in the spring as we design our own colonial gardens and plant a three sisters bed.
Connections to IGS Learning Goals:
Appreciate the farming profession
Know that everyone can grow food
Understand the connection between healthy soil, healthy plants and healthy people
Essential Questions:
What is soil?
Where does soil come from?
How does soil form?
Where does food come from?
Where do seeds come from?
Why do we have farms?
What is waste?
How do humans and plants affect each other?
Lessons
Worm Bin Observation
Garden Observations
Weather in the Garden
- Weather Station
Colonial Grains: Harvest
Field Trips
Gleaning @ Morning Glory Farm, Whippoorwhill Farm, or other island farms
Lessons
Winter Soil Observation
Climate Change and Food Production
Herbs and Weeds
Food on a Whaling Ship
Garden Observations
Weather in the Garden
- Weather Station
Farm Journals
Grey's Raid
Field Trips
Climates and microclimates @ Thimble Farm Greenhouse
Lessons
Food on a Whaling Ship
Worms in the Garden
Spring Soil Observation
Garden Observations
Bud to Fruit
Weather in the Garden
- Weather Station
Colonial Grains: Harvest
Agriculture during the Revolutionary War
Farm Journals
Grey's Raid
Edgartown Embargo
First Peas to the Table
Field Trips
Compost/soil on a farm @ the Allen Farm Sheep and Wool or Farm Institute
Grey's Raid @ Native Earth Teaching Farm, Allen Farm, and MV Museum
3-ESS3-1
Evaluate the merit of a design solution that reduces the impact of a weather-related hazard
- Soil Observation
- Climate Change and Food Production
o3-LS1-1
Use simple graphical representations to show that species have unique and diverse life cycles. Describe that all organisms have birth, growth, reproduction and death in common but that there are a variety of ways in which these happen.
- Bud to Fruit
- Herbs Unit
- Worm Bin Observation
- Soil Food Web
- Colonial Gardens
3-LS3-1
Provide evidence, including through the analysis of data, that plants and animals have traits inherited from parents and that variation of these traits exist in a group of similar organisms.
- Seed Saving
- Colonial Grains: Oats
- Herbs Unit
3-LS3-2
Distinguish between inherited characteristics and those characteristics that result from a direct interaction with the environment. Give examples of characteristics of living organisms that are influenced by both inheritance and the environment.
- Herbs Unit
- Climate Change and Food Production
- Colonial Grains: Oats
3-LS4-3
Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular environment some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive.
3-5-ETS1-1
Define a simple design problem that reflects a need or a want. Include criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost that a potential solution must meet.
- Introduction to Gleaning
- Gleaning in the School Garden
- Gleaning Field Trip
- Colonial Garden
- Soil Experiment
3-5-ETS1-2
Generate several possible solutions to a design problem. Compare each solution based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the design problem.
- Colonial Garden
- Introduction to Gleaning
- Gleaning in the School Garden
- Gleaning Field Trip
3-5-ETS1-4
Gather information using various informational resources on possible solutions to a design problem. Present different representations of a design solution.
- Introduction to Gleaning
- Gleaning in the School Garden
- Gleaning Field Trip
- Colonial Garden
- Garden Weather Station
Develop understanding of fractions as numbers
- Soil in a Jar
- Popcorn Math
- Seed Saving
Solve problems involving measurement and estimation of intervals of time, liquid volumes, and masses of objects
Represent and interpret data
Geometric measurement: understand concepts of area and relate area to multiplication and to addition
Reason with shapes and their attributes
- Garden Observations
- Colonial Garden
Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text
- Grey’s Raid
- Edgartown Embargo
- Wampanoag Traditions
Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners on grade 3 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace
- Agriculture during the Revolutionary War
- Colonial Garden
- Climate Change and Food Production
- Wampanoag Traditions
Seeds
Bud to Fruit
First Peas to the Table
Soil
Worm Bin Observation
Winter Soil Observation
Worms in the Garden
Spring Soil Observation
Farms
Agriculture during the Revolutionary War
Farm Journals
Grey's Raid
Edgartown Embargo
Garden
Herbs and Weeds
Food on a Whaling Ship
Food on a Whaling Ship
Worms in the Garden
Garden Observations
Bud to Fruit
Weather in the Garden
- Weather Station
Colonial Grains: Harvest
Agriculture during the Revolutionary War
First Peas to the Table
Nutrition
Colonial Grains: Harvest
Food on a Whaling Ship
Food Systems
Climate Change and Food Production
Food on a Whaling Ship
Food on a Whaling Ship
3rd Grade Book List
Soil
- A Handful of Dirt, by Raymond Bial
- Dirt, by Steve Tomecek
Gleaning/Hunger
- The Good Garden: How One Family Went From Hunger to Having Enough, by Katie Smith Milway
- City Green, by DyAnne DiSalvo
- Seeds of Change: Planting a Path to Peace, by Jen Cullerton Johnson OR Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai, by Claire A. Nivola
Colonial America/Wampanoag History
- The Popcorn Book, by Tomie DePaola
- Corn is Maize, by Aliki
- The Sun’s Daughter, by Pat Sherman
- Native Plant Stories, by Joseph Bruchac
- The First Strawberries, by Joseph Bruchac
- Native American Gardening: Stories, Projects, and Recipes for Families , by Michael J. Caduto
- The Little Red Hen, by Paul Galdone (Grains)
- Too Many Pumpkins, by Linda White (3 Sisters)
- A Medieval Feast, by Aliki*
- Strega Nona’s Harvest, by Tomie dePaola
- Harvest Home, by Jane Yolen
- Harvest, by Kris Waldherr
American Revolution
- First Peas to the Table, by Susan Grigsby
Pollination/Bees
- The Reason for a Flower, by Ruth Heller
- The Honey Makers, by Gail Gibbons
- Honey in a Hive, by Anne Rockwell
- In the Trees, Honeybees, by Lori Mortenson
- The Life and Times of the Honeybee, by Charles Micucci
Food
- Good Enough to Eat, by Lizzy Rockwell
Herbs/Weeds
- Weeds Find a Way, by Cindy Jenson-Elliott
* Suggested by MA Curriculum Frameworks