A Living Library – Archive Site

Jun '14

Students Learn And Enjoy Their Chinatown Living Library & Think Park In The Spring !

Please enjoy the beautiful Living Library Gardens in the Chinatown Branch Living Library & Think Park in the heart of San Francisco's Chinatown at Gordon Lau Elementary School and Commodore Stockton Child Development Center. A Living Library works with almost 500 students - PreK-5th Grade - per month year round at this Branch.

Enjoy the beauty that the children help create and maintain while learning math, science, language arts, all the arts, history, health, nutrition, and youth leadership skills !!!

Companion Planting with vegetables and flowers in the Chinatown Branch Living Library & Think Park !

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A.L.L. Pedagogy, Chinatown Living Library & Think Park

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Jun '14

A.L.L. Green Futures Students Create Art from Nature

A.L.L. Student Stewards learn about the art of Andy Goldsworthy, who uses natural materials to create temporal works of art. Students then move throughout the OMI/Excelsior Living Library Gardens and find materials to make their works of art. See and enjoy their beautiful results !

The middle school students enjoyed this experience and created beautiful works of art, some found in unlikely places !

Posted by bonnieora in
A.L.L. Pedagogy, OMI/Excelsior Living Library & Think Park

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Jun '14

A.L.L. Students Cook Foods of the Americas: Tortillas, Pupusas, Guacamole and More !

A.L.L. Students learn about nutrition and health for the soil, the plants, and people. They also love and learn to cook delicious and nutritious food and learn new recipies ! Below is a beautiful cover made by a student for her A.L.L. Cookbook, and further below, are pictures of diverse multi-cultural lessons based on food, agriculture, and human culture. Please enjoy as much as the participating middle-school and elementary schoolaged students did at the OMI/Excelsior Living Library & Think Park over the past few months !

Making Tortillas:

Harvesting Fresh Vegetbles and edible flowers from the A.L.L. Gardens to fill the tortillas !

Making Pupusas:

Filling Pupusas with healthy ingredients from the nearby Gardens !

A 7th Grade Social Studies Class from James Denman Middle School is learning about the Americas. In their A.L.L. Class in the OMI/Excelsior Lower Garden, they learn about the contributions towards modern agriculture and foods that the native Aztec and Mayan Cultures made to modern life. Then the students made Guacamole, Salsa, and Mexican Hot Chocolate.

Hmm; very delicious !!! Everyone helped and enjoyed !!!

Hands-on learning is fun and delicious !!!! Talk, Think, & Do ! That is our motto in A Living Library !!!!

Posted by bonnieora in
A.L.L. Pedagogy, OMI/Excelsior Living Library & Think Park

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Jun '14

Pinewood School Students Help Develop Bernal Heights Living Library & Think Park Nature Walk

Students from the Pinewood School in San Mateo, joined Life Frames, Inc., Bonnie Ora Sherk and SF Recreation & Park Department in St. Mary's Park on April 30th, to plant California native plants in the Oak Allee in St. Mary's Park, as part of the Bernal Heights Living Library & Think Park Nature Walk. The Oak Allee is flourishing and the Nature Walk is growing !

The student volunteers planted about 200 California Natives including two varieties of Ceanothus (Yankee Point & Dark Star), Romnya coulteri (Matillja Poppy), Fremontedendron (California Flannel Bush). It will look increasingly colorful and gorgeous as the blooms come forth with blues, purples, yellows, and whites !!! We are painting a growing, changing landscape of color, multi-functionality, and beauty !!!

The Bernal Heights Living Library Nature Walk links schools, parks, public housing, streets, and other open spaces leading to the currently hidden Islais Creek at the south side of St. Mary's Park. The Nature Walk is creating a new, expressive, narrative landscape that is a prototype for what could be occurring throughout the whole Islais Creek Watershed, the largest in San Francisco, that interlinks eleven neighborhoods: Noe Valley, Mission, Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill, Bayview, Portola, Crocker-Amazon, Excelsior, OMI, Sunnyside, Glen Park.

More volunteer events are coming up ! If you would like to participate, or for more information about volunteer planting days, please contact us: info@alivinglibrary.org

Posted by bonnieora in
Bernal Heights Living Library Nature Walk

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Jun '14

A.L.L. Green Futures Interns Celebrate the Chinese Year of the Horse

On a rainy day in January, A.L.L. Green Futures Student Stewards celebrated the Chinese New Year 2014, Year of the Horse by creating an Art Horse Parade to bring to the younger students at San Miguel Child Development Center. Everyone had a great time !!!