Fall Harvest 2013

Mrs. Beauchemin/Mrs. Stephens/Mrs. Wager's Classes picking and eating cauliflower, broccoli, and lettuce for their fall harvest feast!

Week Three: Apple Tasting

In the Garden:

Mrs. Finnerty's Garden

Last Friday, we had 13 classes plant in the garden boxes. What a wonderful way to expose children to the joys of growing your own food and to give the teachers a way to complement their science lessons with a hands-on experience. So, now the after school Garden Club is going to maintain the classroom gardens. This week, the Garden Club planted some remaining seedlings in the classroom boxes and watered now newly planted seeds.



Garden Lesson: 
This week, the students learned about different types of apples. As adults, most of us have learned that we like one type of apple more than others, so that's what we buy and that's what our kids eat, but there are numerous varieties of apples. During Garden Club, the kids tasted five different types of apples: McIntosh, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious. They rated each apple from 1 to 5 on color, texture, taste, and smell. Granny Smith received the highest rating during our taste test.

Thank you to Ms. Eva for volunteering in the garden!!

Week Two: Harvesting

This week we had homemade pumpkin bars and jicama for snack.

In the Garden: The kids harvested our fall produce, including tomatoes, basil, bell peppers, and carrots. We added new soil and organic fertilizer to get ready to plant our winter crops.

If you would like to volunteer in the garden, please let me know. Kids always love having their parents join us. Thanks to Kathleen and Eva for lending a hand!!

Garden Club: Session One

Welcome to Session One at El Morro's Garden Club!

The El Morro Garden Club meets most Mondays from 2:30-3:30 p.m. Students choose how they spend their time in the garden. Options include: working in the garden (planting, weeding, harvesting), completing a garden-themed, hands-on activity that enhances their understanding of math, science, reading, writing, or creative arts, or engaging in supervised "free play" utilizing a bin of supplies such as books, journals, magnifying glasses, and art supplies.

Week One

Lesson: Plant Parts Picnic

This week the kids learned and ate parts of the plant: seed (sunflower seeds), root (carrot), stem (celery), leaf (spinach), flower, fruit (apple). They drew and labeled the parts of the plant.

In the Garden: The kids picked the wild mint from the garden and helped prune trees. We have some big pumpkins growing! We also found a lizard.

Week Two: Making Flowers

Activity: In honor of Custodian Appreciation Day, we made each of the custodians a bouquet of tissue paper flowers. The kids really had fun with this and the custodians do so much to help out in the garden! We also played a hula hoop game to learn about teamwork and communication.

In the Garden:  We decided to tidy up the garden. The boys took the trash and recycling to the dumpsters. 

Snacks: Thank you to Ms. Julie and Ms. Alison for bringing snacks!

Week One: Spring Has Sprung

Welcome to Session Three of El Morro's Garden Club! It's so nice to see some students returning to the garden, as well as some new faces.

Week One: Welcome Spring

Activity: For this week's activity, we did tree rubbings. The students took color crayons and white paper and found several tree to rub. They had fun seeing the various designs.

In the Garden: Now that we finally have rabbit-proof fences installed we planted a variety of spring seedlings...cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, etc. We can't wait to watch them grow.

Eating a Rainbow

Week Five:  Nutrition

Lesson: This week in the garden we had a guest speaker, Megan Hartshorne, a nutrition consultant for LBUSD. Megan taught the kids about the variety of produce that is available in the winter, including citrus, root vegetables, and squash. The kids got to try different colored carrots, roasted butternut squash, blood oranges, grapefruit and navel oranges. Next time you're shopping, why not pick up some purple carrots, a pomelo instead of a grapefruit, or make "spaghetti" from squash? It's fun for kids to try different varieties of common foods.

To learn more, check out Agriculture in the Classroom.


Thanks to Alison for bringing organic oatmeal cookies for snack!

Garden: We fed out worms again today. They got rotten cauliflower, carrots, brussels sprouts, and mushrooms. Thanks to Chanel for bring an avocado peel to throw in as well.

Volunteer: We are looking for parents, grandparents, residents to help us build rabbit-proof fencing for the garden. It is critical to stop them from eating everything we plant! Please let me know if you can lend a hand. The workday will take place on a Saturday morning this spring. Date TBD.