The Secret Garden

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Tucked behind the VPAC and Frazer Hall lies a hidden garden where wonder and imagination bloom for our PreK-4 students. This space serves as an outdoor learning environment where children learn responsibility and experience science first-hand.

Last Friday, parents and students descended on the garden, wheeling wagons of fresh herbs, flowering plants and loads of soil and pea gravel to bring life back into the garden.  Working side by side, families came together, weeding, planting and designing the new space. After the morning’s work was complete, everyone enjoyed refreshments and a time of fellowship to meet the newest members of the Episcopal community.

Now that the garden is complete, students will spend an hour of their academic block outside tending to their garden. A generous $500 grant awarded by Studentreasures Publishing allowed new equipment to be purchased this year.  Over the course of the year, students will learn to care for plants, observe life cycles, study light and color, and experience hands-on science in this beautiful space that they have created together with their families. With hard work and patience, the learners will experience lots of success, some failure, but most importantly pride, as they watch the fruits of their labor grow and blossom this year.

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Julie Mendes

Julie Mendes, a 2001 graduate of Episcopal, returned to teach Pre-K4 at her alma mater in 2012. She received both her undergraduate degree and MEd in elementary education at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. After teaching second grade in a Dual Language program in Texas public schools for three years, Julie moved abroad to teach first grade at a bilingual school in Gracias, Lempira Honduras. Julie enjoys teaching alongside some of her former teachers and seeing what life is like on the other side of the desk.
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