The purpose of this book talk is to help teachers, parents and Master Gardeners help teach children about gardening. It includes concepts such as preparing the soil for the garden, planting the seeds in the garden, maintaining and harvesting the garden. The Target Group for this project is children who are interested in learning to garden. The focus is on young children to help them become interested in plants and growing them. A Master Gardener group would be a suitable group for doing this because every week they have had a table at the local farmer's market. It would use the books in the order they are presented on the book talk page. The group could use these books as a starting point, then they could help with the project at the Farmer's Market. There would be a different project for each week and it would be rotated every month. We would discuss a book once a month and possibly do the project all month long. A Junior Master Gardener or an attending child volunteer would lead the group book discussion and make the projects. The purpose of the book talk is to introduce eight excellent books to children and parents. The book Your First Garden Book is excellent because there are three projects that are fun and easy to do. Sharon Lovejoy's projects are interesting, clever and actually seem doable. Linnea in Monet's Garden makes the wonderful world of art and plants merge and her personality oozes out of the book. Linnea is a delight. Gardening Crafts for Kids is all encompassing and is geared toward the ideas the Master Gardener's promote. (See Book Talk for more discussion.)

This method would work well because the books and stories are interesting, down to earth and have the potential for starting great discussions. These discussions could bring in many of the issues that the gardener will face.

How it would work: Master Gardeners could go to the web site I created to get information that they could use with the target audience, children who might be interested in gardening. Children would come with their parents to the Farmer's Market on Tuesday afternoons after school during the months of May, June, July, August and September. I would have the program start at 4 and be done at 5 p.m. We could advertise a book group that would meet the third Tuesday of every month. The children could get the books from their local library or I would suggest that they buy them at Edward's Bookstore in downtown Springfield. We most likely could meet public community room at the Goodwill Store, which is right behind the parking lot where the Farmer's Market is held. We would meet to discuss the book and do a project that applies to the book. On other days we could simply offer the project for children to do as they pass by with their parents. The project would change weekly or monthly depending on the response we get from the target audience. A Book Talk of eight books for the leader to use will start the program. Later the children can their own books. A theme for each month could also be chosen. Planting for May, flowers for June, [insects for July, harvest for August, harvest and pumpkins for September. I will choose an activity and present a workshop after the read aloud discussion that applies to the book. The gardener or Master Gardeners could go to the web site for ideas for the project.

Students and parents will be given an evaluation sheet to record if they are getting anything out of the project. A questionaire given out after the discussion. There would be four questions on it. They are: 1) Was the book relevant? 2) Are you getting any value out of the project? 3) Did you learn anything about gardening? and 4) How can you make your garden better? The facilitator would collect these and read them and follow-up on any necessary feedback. There is an email address on the home web page and viewers are encouraged to send feedback to this account. Any comments or criticism about the book talks and pathfinder are welcome.