Local daycare introduces Farm to Early Childhood Education curriculum
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Local daycare provider Becky Kouang, who co-owns Dandy Lion Early Childhood Learning Place with her husband Patrick, has been running her center for over 20 years, but an email she received from a Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) sponsor about three years ago caught her eye and got her interested in the potential of Farm to Early Childhood Education (ECE) initiatives.
"It was one of those that I almost thought was a junk email, so I'm glad I didn't just toss it to the side," she said.
At first, she received a small grant and used it to buy food from the local farmer's market, but she has since qualified for a bigger one and started to plant -- together with her students -- strawberries, herbs, apples, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, blackberries and raspberries. The money has also allowed Kouang to purchase a tiller, seeds and trees.
She's incorporated the lessons into her curriculum and even given kids the opportunity to eat the products they've helped to grow with their daily lunches.
"There's so many skills in one lesson. Not only are they learning about the life cycle of plants that they're gonna expand on later on, but they're learning to respect trees and respect our food, where it comes from," she said. "I served chicken legs the other day and a lot of kids didn't know that there were bones in chicken because they're just used to little chicken nuggets. But we're teaching how a seed sprouts and there's roots and we water them and we're gentle with them and then it bears fruit. At the same time, they're taking turns with putting the dirt on or taking turns watering, so they're learning all those social and emotional skills to contain themselves when it's their turn. And those are the basic skills that I think are really essential to go to kindergarten."
According to Kouang, it's "kind of a mix" between kids and parents who have familiarity with agriculture and/or gardening and those who don't, but she said the children have soaked up the lessons quickly. The initiative has garnered notice not only locally but around the state as Kouang was recently invited to present at a statewide Community Food Systems and Farm to School and Early Care Conference in Waukee on June 17.
Going forward, she hopes to serve as a mentor for other daycare providers who might be interested in implementing similar lessons at their facilities, and she'll continue to learn more about Farm to ECE initiatives through training and collaboration with other colleagues in the business.
"Whether we work with them or not, I've always been excited about gardening and teaching the kids. We love to be outside in nature. I think just going outside is just like a reset button for everybody's mental health," Kouang said.
Dandy Lion is located at 1101 S. 7th Ave. and serves a maximum of 16 children with Becky and Patrick Kouang serving as co-providers and a few assistants on staff.
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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or
rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.