The most common questions that arise about Farm to Preschool are “What is it?” quickly followed by “How do we even start?” Luckily there are a ton of great resources available, and we’ve some boots-on-the-ground experience to share with you from our Farm to Preschool Project in SW Colorado.

In short, what is Farm to Preschool? 

• The best food, as local as possible, and time in the garden for our youngest children’s health and their future.
• Extending the benefits of K-12 Farm to School programs to our youngest children.
• A movement to make Farm to Preschool an integral part of the overall Farm to School movement.
• Caring enough—as a whole community—for our children to do this right and do it now!

With facts like “up to 80% of children’s nutrition is obtained in the preschool setting” and “Farm to School programs result in children consuming 1 to 1.3 more servings of fruits and vegetables per day,” it is obvious WHY Farm to Preschool is important. Even here in Colorado, often considered the “leanest state in the nation,” there is an obesity crisis for both adults and children. Farm to Preschool projects can help by establishing good eating habits and relationships with food at the most formative age.

Our Getting Started with Farm to Preschool infographic (also below) is a great visual aid when grappling with the question of how to start a program in your area, whether you are a teacher, parent, or community member. To see how we started Farm to Preschool in SW Colorado, see our Special Report, “The Promise of Farm to Preschool in Southwest Colorado,” and find more project information as well as resources and project materials our website.

We invite you to join us in our efforts to spread Farm to Preschool as widely, and quickly, as possible. Our kids deserve it.

Farm to Preschool in Southwest Colorado is really gaining steam. Our HCFS Special Report, “The Promise of Farm to Preschool in Southwest Colorado,” explores the reasoning behind and importance of Farm to Preschool and describes our activities and findings so far in SW Colorado.

We started our Southwest Colorado Farm to Preschool project in 2014 by meeting with several childcare centers and home-based childcare providers in La Plata County. Many centers and providers were already pioneering what are considered Farm to Preschool activities – serving local food, garden activities, edible education – but hadn’t known they were considered such. Through many meetings and ongoing discussions, we’ve developed resources and project materials that are applicable beyond La Plata County, including:

• Parent Snack Sheet (also available in Spanish) that addresses the issue of educating parents on providing healthy food.
• Preschool Gardens – Ideas for Small Spaces and Small Gardeners
• Our short list of the best Edible Education Curriculum
• The Basics of Farm to Preschool resources
• More resources

We encourage you to use and adapt our resources for use in your own community. We owe it to our children to spread successful Farm to Preschool as fast and as far as possible.

One of the most important aspects of Farm to School, whether at the K-12 or preschool level, is experiential education and gardening (read more about that here). Oftentimes both schools and preschool childcare centers are limited on resources and space, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get kids into a garden. Visiting a nearby community or school garden can fill that need, or some very simple small-space gardening methods can give kids the satisfaction of seeing a garden from start to finish.

This summer, I helped my preschool-aged daughter grow her very own pot of carrots. We started them sometime in June and they were occasionally subjected to drought when she didn’t remember to water them. We harvested a few carrots when they needed to be thinned during the summer, but waited to harvest the rest until just a few weeks ago. From a second-hand 15″ plastic pot filled with compost, potting soil, and sand, we harvested a whopping 6lbs of carrots. If you’re familiar with serving sizes of preschoolers, that harvest could feed 30 preschoolers!

This just goes to show you, gardening at home and at school doesn’t need to be fancy to be wonderfully productive!

Whether you are a parent, teacher, or concerned community member, the Farm to School and Farm to Preschool movements can’t exist without your help.  Contact us to see how you can make a difference, get news via our Farm to Preschool newsletter, and follow us on our outreach campaign: Getting Serious Now on Facebook.