African gardens
Grow vegetables in the UK, African style, and introduce your children to the world of growing plants through the lives of children in African countries. These practical ideas bring Africa to life, count towards Eco-Schools status, and our fantastic gardening kits will help get you started.
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African garden tips and timings
Helps you know how, when and what to do
When planning your African garden, you may need to consider a few things like when to collect materials, what learning resources there are and how best to make use of pupils and parent help. This document helps to address some of these and will be added to over time as we get feedback from all you gardeners! You can also go to http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk for more in depth advice.
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Keyhole Gardens in action (+Welsh)
Shows a garden being used and one being made
One of these colourful Powerpoints is from a school in Lesotho who made a Keyhole Garden to provide food for their school dinners. This can also be seen on the Cabbages and Cowpats DVD (preview using YouTube link below). The other shows how Mpho helps his grandma with their garden and benefits from the healthy food. The slides could also be printed and used as display material. For more information for Welsh schools wanting to partner with a Lesothan school, visit the Dolen Cymru website.
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Bag Gardens on Cowforce
Animations and child-friendly information about Bag Gardens
A great way to introduce your kids to African Bag Gardens. On this area of our Cowforce website, we meet Mr Tomato Head, a gameshow host who loves plants! He takes the user through what Bag Gardens are all about in a comic strip, how you can make one in an animation and all about the competition through a clip from the Tomato Head show.
www.cowforce.com/african-gardens
www.sendacow.org.uk/africangardens -
Bag Gardens in action - stories
Three case studies of how Bag Gardens help families
These simple stories show how using Bag Gardens can really help families grow more food. They can be easily understood by children and printed out to use as part of an African Gardens display. The ‘Gardens background’ file helps set the scene to our work. Elias and Julia can also be seen on the Cabbages and Cowpats DVD using their Keyhole Garden.
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Bag Garden lesson ideas
Some ideas for further learning
Some suggestions of how you can add some extra learning to a Bag Garden project - making comparisons with life in the UK and helping children learn about the challenges that children in African countries face.
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Bag Garden Powerpoints
Explaining the what, how and why of Bag Gardens
These Powerpoints show what Bag Gardens are all about, how they are useful for African families and why they are a great idea for children in the UK to make. Pictures are included of children in the UK and Africa making gardens. They are a good way of introducing Bag Gardens to your pupils.
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African Gardens leaflet
All about Bag Gardens, the competition and ordering a kit
These leaflets explain all about the African Gardens competition and how you can purchase a Bag Garden Starter Kit for £12. The competition entries have to be by July 9th each year, but there’s nothing to stop people ordering kits and growing their own Bag Garden all year round. You can view the leaflet as a pdf and order some for for your school or event on the Order and sign up page.
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Keyhole garden animation
A fun introduction to special African style gardens
This fun, colourful animation from our kids site, Cowforce.com, explains why special gardens are needed in some places in Africa (like Lesotho) and how they can help a poor family. Really useful for an assembly and as an introduction to our African Gardens work in the UK. Turn your sound up to enhance the experience. We have supplied an exe file for PC that should open straight up (over 2MB) or a Quicktime file that is smaller for PC. Have fun.
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Wire toys
Make your own version of these African toys
This lesson is based on the toys that children in Africa often make out of wire and ‘scrap’. There are examples of these ingenious toys in the Powerpoint below and hints and tips for how to make your own. This makes a great Art lesson and can lead to some discussion about different cultures and recycling waste materials. Children should wear safety goggles for this one!
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How to make a Tip Tap handwasher - with video clip
Easy to make African tap for a school garden
A fun, practical challenge for pupils. They can get into groups and make their own version of this simple water conserving/hygiene device used in Africa. A great addition to your school garden and they work well next to Bag or Keyhole gardens. Links can easily be made to the DT curriculum (eg Moving toys). You can also enter the ‘Best Tip-Tap’ category in our African Gardens Competition by using the entry form contained in our kits. If you don’t have access to Vimeo.com at school, register for an account on their website at home and then you can download all our videos using the link on the bottom right of each video page.
How to make a Tip-Tap from Send a Cow on Vimeo.
