December 2022
Official Planting of our Native Plant Section!
With the assistance of Ms. Klein’s 5th and Mr. Mo’s Kindergarten classes, the Learning Garden’s Native Plant section has officially been planted! Many plants have held a central position for Native cultures throughout history. With this Native Plant Section, we are honoring the fact that the city of Seattle and its greenspaces are on stolen Coast Salish land, specifically the ancestral land of the Duwamish. These plants were chosen to pay tribute to the Duwamish people and will eventually feature placards displaying both the English and Lushootseed name, along with their uses.
This planting proposal provides a blueprint of the specific plants in our Native plant section and their exact locations:
For more information on the Duwamish tribe and how YOU can stand in solidarity with them, please visit their website at:
https://www.duwamishtribe.org/
For those interested in learning more about some of the plants in this garden, The Duwamish Tribe has created an informational video (below) featuring 20 plants of the Pacific Northwest. These plants and their plaques can be seen at the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center located at 4705 W Marginal Way SW, Seattle WA
October 2022
2nd Annual Spud-Master Challenge Winners
I am thrilled that our 2nd annual Spud-Master challenge was a success! Way to go Neva for taking home the crown this year!
August 2022
Shout out to our new Kindergarten-ers!
I had the joy of getting to participate in Running Start with the new class of Gatewood Kindergarteners. They jumped headfirst into the Learning Garden and really showed an appreciation of this special place. From herb tastings, creating take-home seed pouches of marigolds and sunflowers to blending herbs for personalized sachets, I can see we have a new crew of plant enthusiasts!
I wanted to give a special shout-out to these new Kindergarteners for showing the Gator Way by watering the garden, treating the plants with care and bringing in that GREEN TEAM spirit by picking up ALL of the garbage scattered in the garden and around the lower grounds/playfield. Thank you Mr. Chambers for spearheading this important effort to ensure the school was clean for the start of the school year!
April 2022
The Food Pantry gets a fresh coat for Earth Day!
In honor of Earth Day 2022 and to celebrate the hard work the Green Team has been doing to reduce waste and make our school more sustainable, Ms. Klein’s 4/5 class took on the challenge of painting the new food pantry!
The theme for the painting project is “Everyday is Earth Day”. It includes a variety of environmental and community driven images that I encourage everyone to go out and see!
Feel free to contribute nonperishable food and/or unused toiletries to the pantry in order to help those in our community that need a little extra support in these difficult times.
Thank you again Ms. Klein’s class for always showing the Gator Way and being community leaders at Gatewood!
April 2022
Introducing the New Learning Garden Resources Library!
I want to give a big shout out to Mr. Gaynor’s 4th grade class who took on the challenge of converting an old newspaper stand into a beautiful Learning Garden Resources Library! Through teamwork, collaboration and a lot of creativity, Mr. Gaynor’s students have made a lasting contribution to the Gatewood Learning Garden!
This Learning Garden Resources Library contains garden and nature related books and resources, activities and other garden related goodies for students, families, and the local community to enjoy! Feel free to contribute extra seeds, relevant books and other items that can be of use outdoors and in the garden 😊
January 2022
Announcing a Little Free Food Pantry right outside of Gatewood!
Gatewood Alumni and current high school senior Emmett Weber decided he wanted to give back to the Gatewood Community for his Eagle Scout Project. In these difficult times with food insecurity on the rise, Emmett decided a food pantry would make a positive impact for our school and greater community! With lots of planning, collaboration, hard work and dedication, Emmett achieved his goal of building a beautiful food pantry outside of Gatewood Elementary School! Emmett left the pantry painted a simple white to offer students the opportunity to personalize it in the springtime!
This pantry is located on Frontenac Street on the road verge near the Gatewood Learning Garden. Please give what you can and take what you need! If you ever see the pantry in need of a refill, please contact Emma at ervielbig@gmail.com
To learn more about this amazing movement and to see how you can take part, please visit: https://www.thelittlefreepantries.org/
Thank you again Emmett for helping feed and empower the Gatewood Community!
December 2021
All School Food Drive!
Our original goal of 500 food items was blown out of the park! The all school count was 3,330 food items donated for Gatewood families and community members in need! Way to go Gators for being Safe, Kind and Responsible!
If you are a Gatewood family in need of food support, please email our school counselor Ms. Holly at hjcandage@seattleschools.org or call her at (206) 252-9408
November 2021
November 2021 Lord of Gourds!
October 2021
October 2021 School Spud Master!
December 2020
Announcing the Gatewood Little Free Library!
*UPDATE: The library has been installed and is already filled with some great reading! The next time you’re at Gatewood, go check it out!
I am pleased to announce that Gatewood Elementary School is going to have its very first Little Free Library! This LFL was donated by a Gatewood family after being purchased at last year’s school auction! The donor wanted to ensure that students and the local community would have greater access to books and other reading materials during these trying times! I know that this addition will not only help spread the joy of reading to our local community, it will also free up shelf space for those interested in donating their gently used books!
This library has been lovingly decorated with copper art created by last year’s 5th grade class (2019-2020) . These 5th graders spent their time during Spring quarantine making art for current and future generations of Gatewood Gators to enjoy!
A big shout out to Nik Vrsek who built the library, Magdalena Cooney who worked with the students on the art, and to Alison Kennedy who assembled all the art for the library.
November 2020
Happy Native American Heritage Month!
In honor of Native American Heritage month, I am proud to share a video made by our very own 4th Grade Gatewood Gator, Dominick. In this video, he shares about his Indigenous Heritage as well as his favorite plant!
November 2020
A Bulb for Every Gatewood Gator!
With inspiration from the book “Miss Rumphius” by Barbara Cooney, our Gatewood Gators were tasked with thinking of a way that they could spread beauty to the world. Like the character Miss Rumphius, our students were able to use their budding green thumb to grow outdoor Narcissus (daffodil) Bulbs (K-2) and indoor Paperwhite Bulbs (3-5) to bring some beauty to their lives!
I was pleased to see the amazing video presentations of Ms. Klein’s 4th grade class where students proposed ideas on making the world more beautiful that included the creation of little free libraries, feeding the homeless, and spreading art to the community among other things. These 4th graders did a great job reminding us that despite the struggles that we face, small actions can create big impacts at the community level!
For those interested in listening to the Miss Rumphius read-aloud followed by Paper White Bulb planting instructions, you can watch below:
For those interested in learning how to record and plant Narcissus (Daffodil) Bulbs outside, you can watch the video below:
Happy gardening and thank you Gatewood Gators for working to make the community more beautiful!
October 2020
Introducing the Start to our Native Plant Section!
I am pleased to announce that we have begun laying the groundwork for a Native Plant Section for our Garden! This is an amazing educational opportunity for our students to learn more about plants native to the Pacific Northwest region while acknowledging and honoring the fact that we are on the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish people.
We will be celebrating the knowledge and wisdom of the Duwamish Tribe and other local Indigenous communities by providing informational placards on how these plants were traditionally and are currently being used by the Indigenous Peoples of the region. We also hope to provide the names of these plants in the Puget Sound Salish language of Lushootseed (dxʷləšúcid), spoken by the Duwamish and other native communities throughout Southern British Columbia and Northern Washington.
During the garden volunteer work party in October, we used an agriculture technique called sheet mulching to prepare the space. This involved laying cardboard throughout the area (to kill the existing patches of grass and weeds) and then adding a top layer of mulch. This eco-friendly technique is a great way to create fertile soil for planting in an area that is otherwise difficult to grow in!
To learn more about sheet mulching and other composting tips, I recommend exploring an article published by Oregon State University. You can copy and paste the link below into your browser:
We are allowing ample opportunity for nature to do its work decomposing the cardboard and preparing the ground for planting. By the Fall of 2021 the area will be ready for our Native Plants! If you are interested in learning more about how you can get involved in this project, please send us a message!
Gatewood Learning Garden 