Our Dan Mills community has been hard at work this fall designing a Welcome Garden around the sign at the entrance to our school. Parents Mia Cover, Chris Hinson, and Martha Guess collaborated on a design for a garden that will be installed in phases this year. This month, we began preparing the soil and mulching around the sign, and students from our Growing Leaders after school garden club planted bulbs and created stepping stones that will be installed along with evergreen shrubs in the coming weeks. We will plant more flowers to add some color when the weather grows warm again in the spring.

A big thank you to all of the parents, community members, and students who came out to help in frigid temperatures this week! Your dedication to our school makes it a beautiful and welcoming place for all.

At the end of August, Dan Mills Lead Garden Teacher Laura Young was invited by First Lady Crissy Haslam to be a panelist with Plant the Seed (http://planttheseed.org) during a teacher training event (https://news.tn.gov/node/12874) at the Tennessee Residence Kitchen and Cutting Garden. The panel discussion on integrating school garden learning into the curriculum was one of several sessions offered during the event organized by UT Extension and the Tennessee Residence Master Gardeners. After touring the inspiring gardens with First Lady Haslam, teachers returned to their schools with new resources and lessons, some of which have already been introduced by Mrs. Young in her third grade class this month.

To view pictures from the event, visit our gallery!

The Dan Mills PTO Garden Team will be working closely with Mrs. Young this year to encourage garden-based learning for our students, and to support teachers who would like more opportunities to integrate the garden into their lesson plans. If you would like to volunteer in our school garden, let us know here. (http://www.danmillspto.org/volunteer/)