Starting a Garden: Step by Step – Use this worksheet to think through and develop a comprehensive garden plan (English, Spanish).
Lifelab’sSpanish resource list including guides to starting your garden, garden curriculums, nutrition education curriculum, and songs and music.
Outdoor Adventures with Vroom – a garden-focused tips collection full of easy, brain-building activities that can be integrated into the day-to-day (English, Spanish).
Plant Care Cards by Oxbow Farms available in English and Spanish.
Local Procurement Resources
Local Procurement Guide for child care centers (English, Spanish) and family home programs (English, Spanish) by the National Farm to School Network.
Celebrating Seasonality Recipe Guide – Rooted and Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems’ guide featuring one breakfast, lunch, and snack recipe for each of the four seasons. All recipes are scaled for 8 and 25 servings, include serving sizes for different age groups, and note CACFP crediting information. Available in English and Spanish.
Farm to Early Childhood Programs: A step-by-Step Guide – Provides step-by-step instructions for purchasing from a variety of local food sources (English, Spanish).
Local Food for Little Eaters in Georgia – Learn how to purchase local food from farmers and distributors within the CACFP guidelines (English, Spanish).
How to Buy, Prepare and Serve Local Foods – A resource for early learning programs to help use more produce in meals, snacks and taste tests (English, Spanish).
Cooking with California Food – A cookbook and professional development guide for K-12 schools that can easily be adapted for early learning programs (English, Spanish).
Quick Bites: Culinary Training Videos from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Cooking Up Healthy Options with Plants (CHOP) Program. These training videos teach basic knife skills and culinary techniques (for Spanish versions, scroll down to “Quick Bites Course Material”).
Washington Grown Produce Seasonality Charts for Vegetables and Legumes (English, Spanish) and for Fruits and Herbs (English, Spanish).
Seasonal Request for Quotes – an example of how to structure a solicitation for local food purchasing from WSDA (English, Spanish)
Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Education Resources
Food Talk! Conversation Cards for Mealtimes – Washington State Department of Health’s conversation cards with questions meant to foster conversation between children while helping them to understand and appreciate healthy food and where it comes from (English, Spanish).
Washington State Taste Test Signs Hang these signs outside classroom doors to promote and celebrate your taste test activities. Available in English and Spanish.
Multicultural Collection of Farm to ECE Books The Food Trust’s multicultural book collection of books featuring underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, including many bilingual and Spanish books.
Growing Minds Recipes – Recipes with seasonal ingredients and some lesson plans (English, Spanish).
Nutrition Education Cards – 20 color cards of fruits and vegetables with nutrition and agricultural facts to help food services staff educate students about healthy choices (English, Spanish).
Farm to ECE Interest Areas for Young Children – A list of developmentally appropriate Farm to ECE activities for early learning programs (English, Spanish).
Apple Taste Test for Young Children – Describes how to do an apple taste test and alignment with early learning standards (English, Spanish).
Staring and Expanding Farm to ECE Programming
Getting Started with Farm to ECE – a worksheet to help you create a plan of action for your farm to ECE program (English, Spanish).
Farm to Early Care and Education Self-Assessment from the National Farm to School Network and ASPHN designed to help early learning providers assess their current farm to ECE practices and develop goals and action plans to help grow farm to ECE at their site (English, Spanish).
