"Today with the 4th graders Alisha Molloy and I planted many bulbs in both beds and had the kids take out tomato, squash, eggplant vines that are done for the year. The kids enjoyed both tasks and were challenged with digging holes deep enough for bulbs and working together to accomplish what we asked. They watered the bulbs when finished. Most of both beds in the garden were used but the one with the white stick has some more room.
We removed the wire tomato cages and placed them inside the garden near the scarecrow. Outside the garden near the wood chip pile we left vines from the vegetables. There is also a barrel of green tomatoes and a few radishes and single eggplants that may or may not be good. This barrel is inside the garden. We let the 4th graders take home 1-2 vegetables in bags.They were excited about this!"
Kirsten Stilgenbauer wrote
"I was with Crowe's class every time they were out there, and they all sent me thank you notes - soooo cute!!!"
"This week seems to have gone really well! Mr. Bellar said they have come out to water for a little bit at their designated time, but have also come out several times for various reasons, such as completing a worksheet about living vs. non-living things. Mrs Jones had her class write a journal and this kept the children very focused on their garden activity."
"Hey there, I was in the garden this morning with Jones' class....it looks like we had some visitors last night in the garden. The deer did kind of clear out the lettuce that was growing and some tomatoes, etc. The good news is the kids absolutely LOVED looking for deer foot prints!
Krista also had them bring out their journals to work on for half of the time. She told them to pretend they were detectives like Jack and Annie! We should definitely encourage the teachers to do that moving forward, the kids really got into it and were walking around doing "research" for their journals."
Vanessa Scocchera wrote
"We had a special time with the 3rd graders. Mrs Gates together with Mrs. Teismann organized a soil science investigation. Despite the cold weather we were able to collect samples of soil from the garden and around the garden. We also collected some material from the wood chip mountain next to the garden and observed as the top layer was different from the material at the core bottom of the pile. The latter was darker, with more small particles and had that nice humus smell you can find while walking in the woods. The kids were then able to answer all kinds of question about their soil samples (color, texture, smell, composition) and look at samples with a loupes and magnifying glasses. They were all saying - Woooow!!- fascinated by their ability to see very little things. Then before heading to the class we stopped at the wood chip mountain again to feel the difference of temperature from the top of the wood chip pile from its core caused by all the transformation happening during composting, and we got another - Woow it is much warmer !!- ".
Those are just a few examples of our rewarding educational outings in the garden with students and teachers.
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