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Our Native Plant Gardens inspire many opportunities for learning and exploring.
Children are involved in planting, watering, and consuming a variety of vegetables,
including tomatoes, radishes, and carrots. The garden also offers the chance to watch
nature up close. Every year the children raise 'painted lady' butterflies.
We watch as they transform from caterpillars into butterflies, and then are
released into the school's garden. ECPC also maintains our own worm compost
bins which are lots of fun!
The History Of Our Gardens
The project of turning the backyard of our preschool into a native plant garden began in 2004,
thanks to grant funds by the Contra Costa Clean Water Program and the East Bay Municipal Utility District.
With the funding to make the dream a reality, parents tore out asphalt, shoveled 11 yards of soil,
and purchased, planted and weeded around more than twenty species of California native plants.
In 2005 and 2006 ECPC was awarded additional grants from the Watershed Project, CCCWP and EBM.
The 2006 grant was used to create a "living roof garden" which has provided a lovely "green"
shade structure in our front yard.
El Cerrito Preschool Cooperative has been certified as a
"Schoolyard Wildlife Habitat Garden" by the National Wildlife Federation.
We join 1,800 other schools that are dedicated to creating habitats for local and migratory wildlife.
For more information on The National Wildlife Federation or Schoolyard Wildlife Habitat certification
please visit www.nwf.org/backyard/
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