Last Day of Session One: All about Oranges

Today was the last day of Garden Club Session One for this school year. The kids were full of energy and eager to get their hands dirty.

In the Garden:
We harvested radishes that we grew from seeds planted just a few weeks ago.

Activity:
We made orange pomanders...a fun holiday decoration to make your home smell sweet and spicy. We attempted to make fruit-stamped gift bags, but unfortunately all we have is acrylic paint (sorry!). If anyone is interested in donating Tempura paint, let me know.

Next session we will be making aprons to attempt to keep the kids a bit cleaner while working in the garden!

Enjoy the holiday break,
The Garden Gals

Welcome Mrs. LeVan and Mrs. Hogrebe's Classes

We are lucky enough to have two more classes join our school garden. Mrs. LeVan's class planted purple cabbage and Mrs. Hogrebe's class planted Chinese cabbage -- after pulling oodles of wild mint from the garden boxes! They will be monitoring the progress of their plants as they grow larger. Mrs. Hogrebe is going to have her class sketch the growth of the plants.

Worm Hotel

In the Garden:
We welcomed worms into our garden. We now have a worm composting bin to make our our organic fertilizer for our garden. The kids loved seeing the worms wriggling!

Activity:
The students planted radish and calendula seeds in adorable tin flower pots that they were able to take home. Be sure to give them sunshine and water and watch them grow. The kids also finished writing in their garden journals so they could keep them.

Mrs. Jamison's Lettuce

Recently, Mrs. Jamison's Third Grade class visited the garden and started working on their plot. They will be sharing a garden box with Mrs. Grass's class. The students planted Bibb lettuce and look forward to watching it grow!

Mrs. Grasso's Peppers

We had a very exciting day in the garden...our first classroom planted in one of the beds! Mrs. Grasso's third grade class planted a mix of red, green and orange bell peppers so that they can get hands-on experience with their plant-related science studies. It was wonderful to have some students that had not had the chance to be in the garden before. The class will monitor and tend to their garden about once a month.

Limeade Taste Test

Garden Projects:
Limeade: Today in the garden we picked fresh limes from our lime tree and made limeade using agave sweetener. We then picked herbs from the garden to infuse our limeade. Children got to choose from rosemary, mint, or lavendar-flavored limeade. Mint was the most popular. Try it at home!

Bean TeePee:
The kids helped build a bean teepee from bamboo poles that we tied together. We planted pole beans around the bottom that will crawl up the bamboo and make a green hideout for kids. We used rocks for the "floor" of the teepee and a tree stump to sit on.

Garden-Themed Activity:
Kids had the option to use bug stencils to draw and color pictures of their own creation. Lots of creative art pieces!

Thank you Rebecca Meekma (Maggie & Izzy's mom) for providing snack!

Herb Bouquets

We had a fun-filled day in the garden today. Here's what we were up to:

A Visitor to Our Garden!

Garden Activity:
The students helped plant sweet peas along the chain link fence in order to "beautify" the garden a bit.

We cleaned up our "Digging" section of the garden and looked for buried fossils. Unfortunately, we didn't find any (I'll have to hid some before class next week...Shhhh!).

Activity Theme: All about Herbs
We picked herbs from our Herb Garden Bed and bundled them with a bow for the kids to take home with a label of which herbs were included. Most kids took home: Sage, Tarragon, Lavendar, Rosemary, and Thyme. The bouquets smelled so good.

We also did a color hunt. The kids worked together in groups of three to find items in the garden that matched earth-toned paint swatches they were given. They had fun trying to find the perfect match.

Thank you Jan Schrieber (aka Quinn's mom) for snacks!