Skytown Garden

  • Location
    Richmond
  • Status
    Complete
  • Age Level
    Any Age
    4 and Under

The Problem

The objective of renovation and restoring Skytown is to start the Skytown Garden to grow food, sensory planter boxes and attract native flora, therapeutic gardens that include areas to provide a sensory and gross movement area, protect the wood around our yard to avoid future replacement of our fencing, and to expand our play area and create diversity in the play the children engage in and to continue providing and outstanding experience to the Skytown community while still keeping in mind the health and the safety of everyone at the school.

Our Plan

We are planning on fundraising and applyling for grants in order to achieve the combination of our open yard environment, gardens and therapeutic area will help the school incorporate new methodologies that promote new experiences to encourage, progressively, meaningful learning and the development of skills of our students in an interdisciplinary way, in an environment where their self-esteem and social integration is enhanced. The emerging methodologies and experiences will diversify learning, activities and their effect, motivate capacity and stimulate new areas of enrichment and growth, create new areas of interest and growth, and encourage biophilia. All of the children will benefit from creating a space for all neurotypical and neurodiverse children at Skytown.

Themes Addressed

  • term icon
    Community
  • term icon
    Community Enhancement
  • term icon
    Mindfulness
  • term icon
    Pollinators

The Benefit

  • term icon
    People

Here is how the project went:

Building a cobb walled garden proved to be more complex than anticipated. Thankfully, due to the resourcefulness of one community member, we were able to pull in some expert guidance. With their assistance, our community volunteers were able to build a lasting structure that holds a grassy patch, edible plants and resilient vegetation for the kids to explore.

Through this project I/we learned:

When attempting something new, that no one has experience with, more attention should be put into planning and anticipating issues. Building the cobb retaining wall required multiple stages, over several days. And we needed to protect the under construction stage from not only curious preschoolers but from the elements until the structure fully set.

What I/we might change:

We would anticipate the timeline required for the duration of the project and plan its stages while school is not in session and the weather forecast does not include rain.

My/our favorite part of this project was:

Working along side community members allowed time for real connection. Lovely conversations were had all the while we were creating something tangible for our children's space.

Some tips, tricks or fun facts about the project:

Many hands create light work. When ever we can pull in community, the work involved feels more like playtime!

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