The Just B Yoga kids garden program got underway this Saturday.
City Sprouts runs at the same time as Empower Yoga, encouraging parents to do yoga while kids learn about gardening and fresh produce and yoga.
Emily White, a Just B Yoga instructor, is teaching City Sprouts. She also has some help from our garden coordinators Emily Reardon and Julie Cotton.
The debut class was attended by Aidan and Luke and there was some nice help provided by Camile (7 mos) and Molly.
This garden is officially theirs. They planned the layout of the garden including where the walking paths would be and where each vegetable will be planted. They sketched it out using sidewalk chalk.
Then they prepped the garden turning the soil and removing the straw that was laid out last winter.
Then they planted some early seedlings we have and watered.
It’s so awesome to see kids being involved with the earth, being outside, disconnected from a gaming device. They were also leaders and not just followers, taking charge of designing and planning.
Emily White has lots of activities planned for the classes including games and yoga exercises and team-building and just plain fun. They’ll also be learning about where our food comes from and how to grow it and hopefully they’ll love EATING fresh vegetables and herbs.
City Sprouts is the next phase of our garden. It’s a natural extension of our yoga practice into our day-to-day world. Last year we created a community-cultivated garden. You volunteer to help, you get to harvest. That yielded us kale beyond belief, a tomato plant orgy and hot peppers for the B-Sting sauce!
This year we actually have a program around the garden that will not only help us grow our garden (hopefully better than last year) but integrate our children into our studio activities. Kids have come and practiced alongside their parents. They’ve come and done homework. They’ve come and played on their GameBoy. Now they can come for an activity built for them.
The seeds planted by our yoga grow us beyond our mats and bending our bodies. They grow awareness, compassion, relationships, community and connection.
