Do you remember the first time you went to work at a job? My students are severely disabled and require years of consistent opportunities to develop work skills. Our class garden helps provide them with practice in watering, planting, harvesting and sorting.
My students range in age from 14-22 years of age.
They are moderate/severely disabled and require consistent practice and opportunity to learn work/socialization routines that can possibly lead them to earn a chance of working on their own or in a supported environment.
Work and routines help students avoid inappropriate behaviors that may lead to the need to medicate them. Socialization happens only if there are opportunities.
My Project
Students will use tools in the garden to plant food for winter (lettuce, carrots, cabbage, etc.). They will harvest the produce and use it in our class cooking program. Students will have daily activities to water and weed the garden. Students learn how to complete a routine independently and then to maintain a care routine for the plants.
The first unit will be "Preparing the Garden", which will have students practicing weeding and soil preparation skills. Next will be "Planting", which will have students working on placing plants into the ground. The materials are needed to help prepare the soil and to seed the plants for our winter harvest.
Your donation to our project can make a difference in the curriculum and the lives of these students, who cannot sit in a class and read a book, due to the severity of their disabilities.
Our garden program is worthwhile, because while the students are in this class, they are given the opportunity to develop skills they may not be able to develop any place else. Without, developing work skills, the students are destined to be cared for, the rest of their lives, and dependent on others.
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