Welcome!

SOUTH POINTE ELEMENTARY

a Children’s Garden  a

Welcome Back to Another Great Year in the Garden!

The children’s garden, located in the courtyard, is our well loved organic edible garden. It is surrounded by a butterfly garden and serves our school as an outdoor classroom.  It is one more way SPE is such a special place!

Every student at SPE has the opportunity to come out and plant in the garden with their classroom.  Classrooms watch their gardens grow and then enjoy the fruits of their labor. Last year, over 350 SPE students planted classroom gardens. After harvest, students were able to sample delicious recipes and foods made with the produce from their own classroom garden bed.  

It is a wonderful chance for hands-on active learning about nutrition, sustainability, science and good stewardship.

Throughout the year we support:

a Family Garden Days

a The Annual Green Market

a Planting and Harvest with SPE Classrooms

a Garden Lesson Plans tied to IB and Common Core

a Community Partnerships in Miami Beach

If you are interested in learning more about growing, planting or spending time in the garden, please consider joining us or donating to the garden.  

Everyone welcome.

No experience required and we have plenty of gloves! 

Email any questions to spegarden@gmail.com  

 a WE GROW THE GARDEN TOGETHER a

The Butterflies Need Your Help!

Happy new year to our happy garden-loving readers!

We apologize for our brief hiatus, but we were busy hawking Peace Lilies for the holidays and making our big plans for the South Pointe Elementary Butterfly Garden!

That's right- we have been teaming up with some green-thumbed SPE parents to design and develop a fabulous butterfly garden that will be filled with beautiful, low-maintenance, Florida native plants- that will also act as a buffer around our organic edible garden- which by the way, is doing quite amazingly! We encourage you to have a gander at the next drop-off, or pick-up. It's really quite a bounty that we are so so proud of.

As you all know, "it takes a village", so on that note- we want to thank everyone who have made our garden what it is today. All the time, love (and weeding!) is what truly makes our garden grow. Following suit, we would like to put an open call to anyone interested in helping us get the new butterfly garden installed.

Here is our open call:

Come all gardeners - tall and short, large and small, green-thumbed and all thumbs!  We're installing the butterfly garden this Wednesday January 11th, and we need your help!  Join us to raise arbors and plant butterfly-attracting plants around the Organic Edible Garden.  

All children are welcome with their parents or caregivers.  See you at the garden!

See Catherine Prescott upon arrival and get digging!  Questions? Email us! Subject: Butterfly
southpointepta@gmail.com

September's Here. Time to Grow!

As we bid farewell to a long, hot summer in Miami Beach and send our little ones back into a new school year - we also welcome one of our favorite times of the year - planting season!

Since 2009, South Pointe Elementary School has been fortunate to build, grow and sustain its very own Organic Edible Garden and Smoothie Garden.

The school garden's main goal is to educate and benefit our children. The commercialization of food in today's world has taken away a basic "farm to table" understanding amongst many  Americans. School gardens are a fantastic way for up and coming generations to witness where and how food grows.  School gardens also have a positive effect on children's vegetable intake.  Put simply, if they plant it they will try it.  And we can’t ask for more than that.

In the coming weeks, the children will plant a cornucopia of vegetables and herbs, and through this experience, they will understand and appreciate the value of harvesting something that started as a seed or a seedling.  We truly hope visions of broccoli and string beans will dance through your child's head...

In the meantime, we encourage you to read more about the benefits of school gardens here and also read up on this great article posted on CNN recently.

There are many ways we fund the garden: from grants to our annual Green Market.  This year we are taking part in the 2011-12 Fairchild Challenge. Last year we gained top honors (placing in the top 16 schools) and won $250 to use towards our garden.  We will also apply for a Foodcorps School Garden Grant, through Whole Foods- who has been a supporter and friend to our garden program. Wish us luck!

Thank you for your continued support.  Hope to see you in the garden this year- there's a lot growing on!