Access to age-appropriate, culturally relevant resources is at the heart of a successful farm to school program. Lesson plans, a bedrock for implementing farm to school, build the capacity of administrators, educators, nutrition professionals, and other school-based staff to implement farm-to-school in their setting. Over the years, Growing Minds has developed hands-on, engaging farm to school activities and lessons that incorporate state and national curriculum to ensure that the objectives of these activities are aligned with the academic requirements of educators. Teachers are currently using these plans throughout Southern Appalachia and beyond.
Find lesson plans in the list below or take a look at our Local Food in Schools materials to find lesson plans, recipes, books, and other resources for each month of the school year.
Early Care and Education (ECE)
Exploring local food and farms with your young learners doesn’t have to be challenging! Our ECE lesson plans are an easy way to build connections between the outdoor environment and the classroom while introducing children to new fruits and vegetables.
- ECE Lesson Plans
- “I Tried Local…” Lesson Plans and Resources
- Curriculum alignment (NC Foundations for Early Learning and Development) for all ECE lesson plans.
- Reach for the Stars
Lower Primary
Curriculum alignment (Common Core State Standards & NC Essential Standards) for all K-2 lesson plans.
Recipe Lesson Plans – Kid tested and teacher approved recipes for each month of the school year. These lesson plans include full step-by-step instructions for cooking in the classroom and include literature connections and other activities to complete the lesson.
Garden Lesson Plans – School gardens provide students of all ages with opportunities for hands-on learning activities. Our garden lesson plans provide a framework for outdoor exploration regardless of the color of your thumb.
Food and Farm Lesson Plans – Our lesson plans provide students with opportunities to learn about seasonal foods and local farms while meeting Common Core and NC Essential Standards.
“I Tried Local…” Lesson Plans and Resources – gives ECE through 2nd grade educators tools to connect kids with how food is grown and the farmers in their communities who grow it.
Upper Primary
3-5 Grade Lesson Plans – Students explore the science of food with these inquiry-based lesson plans. Each lesson plan includes student worksheets and literature connections.
Middle and High School Resources
For middle and high school grades farm to school lends itself to looking at a broader view of agriculture. It often includes topics such as industrial vs. small scale food systems, public health, environmental impacts of agriculture, and food equity issues.
#GoOpenNC
We’re thrilled to announce that Growing Minds farm to school lesson plans are now available on #GoOpenNC, North Carolina’s open educational resources platform!
Teachers can explore a rich database of standards-aligned resources on the site—searchable by keyword, subject, grade level, and NC Standard Course of Study. With the addition of Growing Minds lessons, educators now have access to high-quality, farm to school content designed to engage students across multiple subjects. Each lesson includes curriculum connections and links to helpful external resources to bring real-world learning into your classroom.
Start exploring today and bring farm to school to life with #GoOpenNC and Growing Minds!
Growing Minds @ Community College
North Carolina is creating a model for integrating farm to ECE into community college curriculum. By incorporating farm to ECE into your curriculum, your students will enter their careers equipped with the knowledge and skills to impact children and families through local food and farm to ECE activities.
Additional Resources From Growing Minds
- Farm to Preschool Toolkit – contains all of our preschool lesson plans, This Week in the Garden Preschool weekly activity guides, and Farm to School Goes Home weekly newsletter for families
- “I Tried Local…” Toolkit – is designed for use in ECE through second grade classrooms. The curriculum is divided into 10 units based on foods grown in North Carolina: blueberries, broccoli, carrots, green beans, mushrooms, peppers, radishes, sugar snap peas, sweet corn, and watermelons.
- This Month in the Garden Monthly Newsletter Templates (TWIGS) – was developed to offer teachers ideas for integrating Farm to School into their classrooms.
- Growing Minds Day by Day – is a year-long series of seasonal educational resources designed for families and teachers. Weekly resource lists feature a theme related to food, gardening, or nature.
- Equity, Inclusion & Anti-Bias Resources – View our full equity statement, find farm to school literature that celebrate diverse voices, and access recommended external resources that can be used by both teachers and parents to teach children about race, diversity, and inclusion.