Vegetables and Herbs

This was our last day of the first session of garden club. I encourage you to sign your kids up for the next session so that they can see what they planted, grow into full size plants!

Week Seven: Vegetable and Herbs

Lesson: Make Your Pick

We talked about the importance of eating locally grown food and planned what we'd like to plant in our vegetable garden in the fall and spring. 

Gardening: We picked and ate apples from our tree in the garden. We planted cabbage and watered our herb garden.

Thank you miss Julie for bringing pumpkin muffins!!

Potato Block Prints

Week Six: Fruits and Nuts

Lesson: Botanical Wood Prints

Today we made block print made from potatoes. The kids then made their prints into paper cones that could be used as party hats or gift bags.

 

Gardening: We pant lettuce in the garden.

Making Maps in the Garden

Week Five: Landscape and Horticulture

Lesson: Site Map

Today the students got to be Landscape Architects. They drew a site map of the garden to include everything they saw in the garden: garden boxes, trees, fence, water spigot, seating, scarecrow, garden signs, etc. They loved making the maps! They were then able to make changes to their map to add elements that the garden does not currently have...like a butterfly house and a fairy garden. 

Thank you Miss Gena for bringing tea that we picked from the rose hips in the garden. And Miss Julie for bringing Witches Hats cookies!

Gardening: Trim rose bush. Collect rosehips to make tea. Pull weeds. Our beets are doing well.

 

Just for fun: We painted rocks to add some art to our garden.

All About Insects

Week Four: Insects and Diseases

Lesson: Insect Symmetry

We talked about how things are either symmetrical or asymmetrical and used duct tape to divide our bodies in half lengthwise (symmetrical) and then top and bottom (asymmetrical). 

Then we did an art project where the kids drew half of a butterfly on a folded piece of paper and cut it out. They painted one side and folded it together and made a symmetrical design.

Gardening: We planted cauliflower and broccoli and added more herbs to our garden: Thai basil, dill and rosemary.

Mr. Gena brought in a HUGE tomato hornworm for the kids to see! It was quite something.

Week Three: Ecology, Environmental Horticulture

We started the class with a healthy garden snack...fresh bell peppers and carrot sticks.

Lesson: Nature Class Web

This week we learned about how everything is connected and we made a large Web out of yarn.

Gardening: In the garden, we planted carrots, radishes, and turnips.

Making Mud Pies

We are off to a good start of the First Session of the 2012-13 Garden Club!

Week Two: Soils and Water

Garden Lesson: 

Today the students learned about soil. We discussed the three types of soil: 

• Sand
• Silt
• Clay

Then we gathered soil samples from in and around the garden and mixed each type of soil with a bit of water to make mud pies! This allowed the children to get a hands-on experience of how the various types of soil retain water or not. We talked about why it is important for plants to have the right type of soil in order to flourish. Too much sand doesn't hold water. Too much clay holds too much water. Most of all, they loved getting muddy! (Just a reminder, please send your child to school on Monday with clothes that they can get dirty.)

Garden Activity:

Since we renovated the garden over the summer, our boxes are empty. Today we replanted an herb garden with thyme, basil, cilantro, purple basil, and tarragon. It looks and smells wonderful.

Hooray for Wood Chips!

Thanks to a very generous donation from Tierra Verde Industries, we received nearly eight truckloads of wood chips for the El Morro garden. And thanks to the Strike Team Dads, the LARGE pile of wood chips was recently moved from the field into the garden! The chips were spread throughout the garden in-between the boxes. Now the garden looks better than ever and the wood chips will help to control the crab grass.

New Garden Boxes

On Saturday, Aug. 25, the community came together to make upgrades to the El Morro Elementary School garden. Volunteers, including Mayor Jane Egly, assembled six new redwood garden boxes, thanks to a generous grant from the Laguna Beach Garden Club. We attached weed barrier to the bottom of the boxes to hopefully keep out the wild mint. Four truckloads of new soil was donated by Tierra Verde Industries in Irvine. We are off to a fresh start in the garden for the new school year!

A Harvest Feast!

We had quite the feast in the El Morro school garden yesterday with about 120 students, six teachers and two volunteers. The students picked an abundance of cabbages, bok choy, mint, lettuces, rosemary, and broccoli to make a humongous salad. We topped it off with lemon juice picked from our lemon tree. It was a bit of chaos mixed with a whole lot of fun. The children picked the produce they grew, washed it, and then ate it!!! We had a long table set up so the kids could have a community-style feast. We look forward to doing it again. Thanks to all the teachers who allowed their students to utilize the school garden:

• Mrs. Grasso
• Mrs. Jamison
• Mrs. LeVan
• Ms. Adams
• Mrs. Hogerbe
• Mrs. Finnerty
• Mrs. Wagner

Garden Harvest Feast!

Join us to celebrate our spring harvest in the school garden! 

Monday, March 12 at 1:30 p.m.

The students will be harvesting what they planted a few months ago and making it into a tasty salad to be enjoyed by all. During the feast, we will examine which plants grew better than others and why, as well as encourage  students to try foods that they've grown that are possibly new to them.


Our Classroom Gardeners include students from the following classes:

• Mrs. Grasso
• Mrs. Jamison
• Mrs. Wagner
• Mrs. Finnerty
• Ms. Adams
• Mrs. Hogrebe
• Mrs. LeVan

Feel free to forward this to room moms if you'd like parents to also attend. Just make sure everyone signs in at the office first.

Penny the Hen Visits the Garden

This week, we had visitors in the garden...two hens! Our Master Gardener volunteer Fran brought the hens and answered students questions. She told the story of The Little Red Hen and we talked about cooperation and helping others. The kids loved watching as the hens pecked and scratched in the soil.


Activity: We used freshly picked flowers to dye a table cloth by pounding them (carefully) against the cloth.

In the Garden, we planted lots of sugar snap peas for spring!

Can You Guess?

A little rain didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves at Garden Club! Although we sat indoors, the students learned about the parts of the plant by trying to guess what was in unmarked bags. They had fun reaching in and feeling what was in the bag (without peeking, well, sort of!). They had to write their guesses down and then we revealed what was in each bag. If they guessed right, they took home what was in the bag...tomatoes, strawberries, orange, sunflower, sunflower seeds, onion, lettuce.

Welcome Mrs. Wagner's Class

Mrs. Wagner's class visited the garden recently and the students planted radishes, carrots, marigolds and a variety of lettuce to enjoy for our upcoming spring harvest feast! 

Mrs. Grasso's Garden

Mrs. Grasso's class returned to the garden to plant some additional produce (thanks to the bunnies getting to the seedlings before they had a chance to grow!). The students planted radishes, carrots, marigolds and a variety of lettuce. Hopefully our makeshift fencing will keep the rabbits out so that we can enjoy the veggies for our upcoming garden feast!

Valentine's Day in the Garden

The kids had a great time celebrating Valentine's Day in the school garden. We dipped strawberries in chocolate and learned about why fruits and vegetables keep our heart healthy. We also attempted to make bookmarks using fresh picked flowers.

In the garden, we planted bulbs to bloom in the spring!

Garden Gratitude

Using Our Senses!

Activity: This week in the garden, the students made gratitude flags that we will string up in the garden. It was a way of them to stop and think about what they are grateful in their lives while adding some colorful to the garden.

Being Grateful

In the Garden: We work on sprucing up our "Sensory Garden" and discussed what it has and what it needs:

• Sight: Colorful flowers
• Sound: Wind chimes, bird feeder, plants to attract butterflies
• Touch: Smooth and prickly plants
• Taste: A variety of herbs, edible flowers
• Smell: Lavendar and herbs

We also used our senses for a blind taste test. The kids were each given a vegetable that they had to identify without looking at it. They got to touch, smell, and taste it. This was fun for the kids and some of them learned that they liked things they didn't know they liked (mushrooms, tomatoes, kiwi).

Recycling in the Garden

On Monday, Jan. 30, we learned about how to use reduce, reuse, and recycling. We had a guest speaker, Michelle Clark, from Waste Management, discuss recycling with the kids. She gave the kids eco-themed silly bands and water wise seeds to plant.

In the Garden: We picked the wild mint, which tends to take over the garden...continual weeding task.

Session Two Kick-Off

Our first class of this second session started off with rain! Great for the plants, not so good for the students. We were not able to spend time in the garden, but we had fun getting to know each other. I sent home the "Garden Rules" that we discussed. We also read "My Garden" by Kevin Henkes -- a story in which a young girl uses her imagination to invent a creative garden. The students shared their ideas of what they would have in their own imaginary garden. If they draw a picture of their garden and bring it to the next garden club, they will earn a seal buck.

Mrs. Finnerty's Beans

Mrs. Finnerty and her class enjoyed time in they garden planting bush beans. They look forward to watching them grow.

Ms. Adams' Cabbage

Ms. Adams' class took time out to plant some cabbage in our garden. The children enjoyed digging and planting.

Colonial Days in the Garden

During our annual Colonial Days celebration at El Morro, the kids enjoyed learning about the native American "Three Sisters" garden that teaches about companion planting with corn, beans and squash. The students cut out the story into the shape of corn to take home to share with their families. They also took home Three Sisters seed in burlap to plant at home. We look forward to doing it again next year and hopefully inspired your children to plant some veggies!