Free Harvest of the Month Resources for Educators

Bring ease to your Farm to School lesson plan with Vermont Harvest of the Month!

The Vermont Harvest of the Month website features free resources that can help educators, school nutrition teams, early childhood programs, and families connect young people with local food throughout the year.

Start with the monthly harvest

Each month features a Vermont-grown food, from beets and carrots in winter to berries, peppers, apples, and winter squash later in the year. The annual calendar provides an easy starting point for planning lessons, cafeteria promotions, taste tests, and family activities around foods that are seasonally available.

Winter offers just as many opportunities as summer. Storage crops such as carrots, beets, winter squash, and sweet potatoes can open conversations about seasonality, food storage, and the ways people have eaten locally through Vermont’s colder months.

Find materials you can use right away

Each featured harvest has its own page with materials for classrooms, cafeterias, food service programs, and homes. Depending on the month, you may find:

  • Downloadable educator and cafeteria flyers

  • Lesson ideas and hands-on activities

  • Slideshows and videos

  • Book recommendations organized by age or grade

  • Recipes for schools and families

  • Fun facts and background information

  • Materials available in English, Spanish, and French

  • Stories exploring the people, cultures, and systems connected to our food

For example, the September peppers page includes a slideshow, a children’s book recommendation, an activity for saving pepper seeds, recipes from several cultures, and resources exploring seed sovereignty and the history of peppers. The dairy page includes classroom lessons, reading recommendations, recipes, information about lactose intolerance, and a story about Vermont dairy workers.

You do not need to use everything. Choose one resource that fits what you are already doing. Read a featured book during story time, add a harvest fact to the morning announcements, serve a local item in the cafeteria, or let students compare two preparations of the same food.

Plan a taste test

Taste tests are a simple way to introduce students to local foods and give them a voice in what appears on school menus. Vermont Harvest of the Month offers a Taste Test Toolkit and supporting resources to help schools plan and carry out these activities.

Afterward, schools can complete a brief taste test survey. Feedback helps improve the program, document its reach, and identify recipes and activities that work well with students.

Bring the harvest into your space

The artwork is one of the most recognizable parts of Vermont Harvest of the Month. Each featured food is represented through artwork by a Vermont artist, helping local food stand out in classrooms, cafeterias, offices, and community spaces.

Printed posters and calendars are available through the Vermont Harvest of the Month store. The monthly pages also include free downloadable flyers, signs, menu inserts, and other promotional materials.

Make the resources your own

There is no single way to participate in Harvest of the Month. A classroom teacher might use a featured crop for a science or literacy lesson. A school nutrition team might pair a cafeteria taste test with a lunch-line sign. A family might try a recipe together or look for the featured food at a farmstand or grocery store.

The goal is to make local and seasonal food a familiar part of young people’s lives, one small experience at a time.

Vermont Harvest of the Month is intended to keep growing alongside the communities that use it. If you have an activity to recommend, a recipe that students enjoyed, or an idea for making the resources more useful, contact us at farmtoschool@foodconnects.org.

Explore Vermont Harvest of the Month resources

Harvest of the Month Taste Tests: Growing Local Foods and Inspiring Menu Innovation

Article by Susan Grabowski, School Nutrition Program Coordinator for the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union

During the 2025–2026 school year, Windham Southeast School District partnered with Food Connects to launch Harvest of the Month taste tests in our Brattleboro schools, supported by a Vision Grant. The goal of the project was to introduce students to Vermont-grown foods in a fun, low-pressure way while building excitement around local agriculture.

Each month featured a different local product, with students sampling the food and sharing their opinions. Food Connects connected our schools with local producers and provided resources to make the program successful.

One exciting outcome has been seeing taste tests spark ideas for our everyday menus.  May’s taste test featured local eggs. Staff prepared a cheese frittata using the combi-ovens, baking the eggs on sheet pans and cutting it into samples. That preparation method led the team at Brattleboro Union High School/Brattleboro Area Middle School to realize it could be adapted for breakfast sandwiches, swapping frozen egg patties for fresh egg squares made with local eggs. What began as a taste test became a permanent menu improvement.

This innovation shows how Harvest of the Month can do more than introduce students to new foods. It encourages creativity in our kitchens, provides opportunities to test new recipes and techniques, and turns food education into lasting menu improvements for students.

Looking Ahead: Harvest of the Month 2026–2027

For the 2026-2027 school year, we hope to give students a more active role in the taste tests. Our goal is to build stronger connections between the cafeteria and classroom by finding ways for students and teachers to be more involved. 

We'll begin in September with pepper varieties, followed by apples in October, and will partner with teachers on class projects connected to the featured foods and the data we collect.

Possibilities include: science classes exploring the biology of taste, classes helping to design and collect feedback surveys, and math classes using real taste-test data to calculate percentages, build graphs, and compare preferences across grades and schools.

This gives students an active role in the Harvest of the Month taste tests and give us valuable data to guide future taste tests and menu decisions.

Adelaide Petrov-Yoo & Susan Grabowski

Adelaide Petrov-Yoo & Susan Grabowski

Interested in getting your class involved? Reach out to adelaide@fooconnects.org. We'd love to partner with teachers to prepare ingredients, design questions, collect feedback, or analyze taste test data. 

New Bipartisan Bill Could Bring Fresh, Local Food Back to School Cafeterias

A new bipartisan bill in the U.S. House would help schools buy fresh produce, milk, and juice directly from local farms, giving students healthier meals while creating new markets for local producers. Known as the Local Foods for Healthy Schools Act, it would permanently reinstate and modernize a USDA program that once funded exactly this kind of local purchasing for school cafeterias and childcare facilities.

What makes the bill stand out is how it links student nutrition and local economic growth in one funding stream. Supporters say the approach is a win on every side: kids get fresher, more nutritious food, schools build reliable local supply chains, and farmers, especially in rural areas, gain steady new business.

This is the Farm to School in action: connecting schools with nearby farms so students eat better while local agricultural economies grow stronger. Rather than relying on one-time or temporary funding, this bill would give that model lasting support, helping rural districts in particular serve fresh food without straining tight budgets.

The bill has drawn broad support from farm bureaus, school nutrition groups, teachers' unions, and anti-hunger organizations alike, a sign that healthy kids and healthy local economies aren't competing goals, but the same goal seen from two sides. If you believe your local schools and farmers deserve this kind of support, reach out to your representative and urge them to back the Local Foods for Healthy Schools Act.

Our Call to Local Summer Camps!

We are putting out a call for local summer camps! Are you looking for guest presenters? Food Connects would love to partner with summer camps to provide educational activities for youth highlighting local food systems, nutrition, taste tests, and hands-on cooking activities. 

If you are interested in hiring a guest speaker, please contact us! We can work together to tailor topics and activities to suit your campers. 

Here’s a quick overview of the activities we offer: 

Taste Tests

  • Explore new foods

  • Tap into mindfulness of sensory experience 

  • Practice non-judgemental descriptions 

  • Learn to identify your preferences 

Cooking Activities

  • Age-appropriate cooking 

  • Simple recipes kids and parents can recreate at home 

  • Nutrition education

  • Learn what foods grow locally in the summer

Growing & Gardening

  • Hands on activities exploring what farmers do

  • See where our food comes from 

  • Learn the parts of a plant 

  • Connect with the earth

  • Build concepts of sustainable agriculture 

Careers in Local Food Systems 

  • Tour our local food hub

  • Discuss the role of farmers, business owners, chefs, truck drivers, logistical experts, and consumers

  • Sample local produce

  • Compare small-scale and large-scale food chains using real-life examples

Food Connects Partners with Green Mountain Farm to School on Vermont's Harvest of the Month Program

For the past several years, Food Connects has been proud to steward Vermont's Harvest of the Month program — distributing monthly calendars to schools across the state, keeping the website stocked with fresh recipes and educational resources, sending out a monthly newsletter and slideshow for educators, and most recently, leading a round of equity updates to the materials available on the site.

As we look ahead to the 2026-2027 school year, we're excited to share some news: Green Mountain Farm to School will be joining us as a partner on the program, bringing their expertise and deep community connections to the table.

Green Mountain Farm to School is a food hub and educational organization based in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, working at the intersection of farms, schools, and communities. Their team has relationships with educators, food producers, and food justice advocates throughout the region — and we're thrilled to have their insight and energy as part of Harvest of the Month going forward.

Together, Food Connects and Green Mountain Farm to School will share the work of keeping this program running and growing — making sure Vermonters across the state stay connected to this free, hands-on educational resource.

Have ideas for how we can make Harvest of the Month more accessible, relevant, or engaging for your community? We'd love to hear from you. Reach out anytime at farmtoschool@foodconnects.org.

New to Harvest of the Month?

Vermont's Harvest of the Month is a free educational program for teachers, families, and school nutrition professionals, highlighting local crops in season each month. The program offers lesson plans, recipes, fun facts, and videos — all designed to help Vermonters of all ages connect with the food grown right here in their state.

Explore it all at vermontharvestofthemonth.org.

Brattleboro Schools Add Local Sourdough Rolls to the Lunch Menu

Reporting and photos courtesy of Vermont FEED.

Brattleboro's school district recently had the highest number of students choosing to take a school lunch in a single day — and for the first time, the meal included whole wheat sourdough rolls from a local bakery. Of the 1,200 rolls delivered that day, all were eaten.

Local bread is rare in school cafeterias. Districts need large, consistent volumes that meet strict nutrition rules (school bread must be at least half whole wheat), and most small bakeries aren't set up to supply at that scale.

Wheat is difficult to grow locally in Vermont's short, wet growing season. In the last few years, though, Vermont's local wheat sector has been growing in response to increased demand.

The rolls came from Butter Mountain Bakery, a Vermont bakery leading the way in locally sourced bread. "Two years ago, selling to schools felt totally out of the question," the owner said. Usually, you'll find them selling bread on a much smaller scale, for example at farmers markets.

A grant program called On the Rise, run by NOFA-VT, helped fund the equipment upgrades — bigger ovens, more cold storage — needed to supply large customers like a school district.

Before adding the rolls permanently, the district collected feedback from students through its monthly "Harvest of the Month" taste tests. The response was overwhelmingly positive.

The rolls won't replace the district's full bread supply, but their plan is to serve the rolls once a month. This makes a big difference in Butter Mountain Bakery's overall sales and offers the students a monthly treat on their lunch menus.

Full story and photos: Vermont FEED

The Common Bean Editions 7-9

The Common Bean is back with more updates from Oak Grove School. In editions 7–9, Garden Coordinator Tobi Buchman shares how students stay connected to learning about Harvest of the Month crops even while the garden is in hibernation during the winter months. Although winter storms prevented some planned taste tests, Tobi has continued the programming with support from Farm to School Coach Adelaide Petrov-Yoo. These newsletters highlight Farm to School programming in action and the creative ways students stay engaged with local food throughout the school year.

Edition 7

Carrot Chemistry: BUHS Students Put Osmosis to the Test

On February 10, students at Brattleboro Union High School discovered that carrots have a lot to teach us about taste, plant biology, food storage, and osmosis.

Farm Club students began by exploring carrots through a taste test. After recording their hypotheses, they sampled carrots of different colors to determine whether color affected flavor. The group did not notice a significant difference, although some people describe purple carrots as sweeter than orange carrots and yellow carrots as less sweet.

Students also learned that some of the earliest cultivated carrots were purple, rather than the familiar orange varieties most common today.

In the Science of Food class, carrots became tools for studying osmosis, the movement of water across cell membranes. Students first considered a familiar question: Why does a carrot become limp after sitting in the refrigerator for too long?

The answer is dehydration. Carrots are roots that absorb water from their surroundings. When placed in water, their cells rehydrate and regain the firm, satisfying crunch of a fresh carrot.

Students then tested what happens when water is drawn out of a carrot. They placed a baby carrot and salt into a resealable plastic bag and shook it for five minutes. For comparison, they placed another carrot in a bag without salt to serve as a control.

Water soon began collecting inside the bag containing salt. Students correctly identified that the salt was drawing water out of the carrot. As the carrot lost moisture, it became flexible enough to bend by hand. The carrots in the control bag remained firm and snapped when bent.

The final lesson focused on the carrot’s impressive storage abilities. Students looked into the snow-covered school courtyard and saw plenty of white and gray, but nothing growing that was bright orange. Yet the class was using carrots grown on a Vermont farm.

Carrots harvested in the fall can remain fresh throughout the winter when stored under the right conditions. This makes them an important regional storage crop and a dependable ingredient for winter stews, slaws, and school meals.

With the help of local carrots, BUHS students discovered that food is full of fascinating science. Farm Club and Science of Food are proving that meaningful lessons can begin with everyday materials, including a carrot, a plastic bag, and a little salt.

- Farm to School Coach, Adelaide Petrov-Yoo

The Common Bean Editions 4-6

The Common Bean is back with more harvest updates! Read on for fun stories from Oak Grove School Garden Coordinator Tobi Buchman in editions 4–6. We’re happy to spotlight this newsletter as a great example of Farm to School programming in action, connecting students to food, gardening, and community.

Edition 4

Brattleboro Union High School Farm Club Officially Joins 4-H

Every other Tuesday, Brattleboro Union High School (BUHS) students meet during ACE block to participate in Farm Club, an in-school club dedicated to exploring students’ connection to the local food system. This is the second year of Farm Club’s existence, made possible through a four-year University of Vermont (UVM) Extension 4-H grant called Youth Innovators Empowering Agriculture across America (YEA), funded by the USDA.  There are four other projects in New England funded by this grant, all focusing on improving access to 4-H experiential learning opportunities.

 

In the spirit of the 4-H partnership with BUHS, Farm Club became an official Windham County 4-H club during their November meeting. 4-H programming includes a community of more than 100 public universities across the nation. 4-H and Land-grant University Extension services provide resources and experiences where young people learn by doing. Through 4-H, youth complete hands-on projects in areas such as health, science, agriculture, and civic engagement, in a positive environment where they receive guidance from mentors and are encouraged to take on proactive leadership roles. Youth experience 4-H through in-school and after-school programs, community clubs, independent study, special interest groups, and 4-H camps. BUHS’s Farm Club is one of the few in-school clubs in Vermont, making it a pilot for other schools’ participation.

 Students filled out the official 4-H charter, where they chose a name for the club, the “Green Paws,” and will enroll in the 4-H Z-Suite system, allowing students to access the many opportunities now available through the greater UVM 4-H network. Excitement brewed when club members learned that they could run for leadership roles as a 4-H club, such as president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary. Teen leadership is one avenue where students will gain life skills that will prepare them for journeys beyond school and 4-H.   

The “Green Paws” are led by Windham Windsor County 4-H Educator, Camille Kauffman, and school para-professional, Paula Kettle. Farm to School Coach Adelaide Petrov-Yoo of Food Connects is also a key partner in club activities, leading monthly Harvest of the Month Taste Tests. So far, the club has conducted bell pepper and apple variety taste tests. Partnering with Food Connects integrates the club into Brattleboro’s wider community food culture.

4-H is grounded in the research-backed principles of Positive Youth Development, including sparking curiosity and inspiration, deepening community engagement, fostering a sense of belonging, and building meaningful connections between youth, caring adults, and their communities. Farm Club provides an ideal setting for 4-H, and the Green Paws look forward to the many ways they can expand their horizons by joining the network of four-leaf clovers.

View this infographic for more ways that Farm Club has launched and grown in the past year.

Written by Camille Kauffman