Resources for Educators
Kids love strawberries! Visiting a strawberry farm, preparing strawberry foods, and simply eating fresh strawberries provide delicious educational opportunities for many kinds of lessons. Please feel free to use any of the information you find on our website that you and the children you work with may find useful, fun, and educational.
Strawberry Time Activity & Coloring Booklet
This 16-page original coloring/activity booklet published by the North Carolina Strawberry Association tells the story of how strawberries are produced by the Southeast plasticulture method in simple text. This is the method we use at Strawberries on 903. It also includes easy recipes and activity pages suited to a wide range of ages.
Download Strawberry Time Activity & Coloring Booklet (PDF)
Starting a School Strawberry Garden
Schoolyard strawberry gardens provide rich spaces for students and teachers to explore concepts relevant to their curricula in a hands-on, experiential way. A strawberry garden, modeled on the annual hill production system used by farmers in the southeastern United States, fits neatly into the traditional-year calendar for elementary schools, with students beginning school in late August and finishing the year in June. This coincides with the southeastern strawberry production system in which strawberry plants are set into the ground between late September through early October, and the fruit is harvested in late April–early May. This growing schedule enables students to observe the life cycle of the strawberry plant throughout the school year.
For more information, please download Teach From The Garden: Strawberries. This publication provided by the NC Cooperative Extension Agency will provide all the information you need to start a successful strawberry garden at school.
Field Trips
A visit to a strawberry farm makes a great field trip and is a memorable experience. Kids can see a working farm, interact with farm animals, learn how strawberry plants and vegetables grow, pick some strawberries, learn about the history of farming in our community, and more.
Helpful hints for teachers/group leaders:
- Contact us in advance to set a date. We sometimes get booked up, so call early.
- Find out what the farm offers in terms of tour content, other activities, picnic facilities, educational handouts, picking arrangements, etc. and what charges there will be. Farms will generally have some kind of bathroom and hand-washing facilities
- Show up at the time agreed. If you are late, your group might get crowded up with another group.
- Bring plenty of chaperones. Make sure the chaperones know what the rules are for picking/buying fruit and for bringing small children who are not part of the class.
- Please keep an eye on the children. Don’t let them trample the rows, climb on farm machinery, wander off towards farm ponds or the road, or enter off-limits farm buildings. Follow the rules presented by the farmer. The safety of your group is the farm’s primary concern. Please also respect farm property and the farm family’s home.
Please visit our Field Trips & Group Tours page for more information.