We started out our morning at Shepherd's Garden across from Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Spring. Ms. Sheila gave us a tour of the garden, discussed what grows in each bed, showed the kids the birdbath (ask your kids why it's important to have a birdbath in a garden!), showed the kids the fireants, and explained how to harvest different vegetables. The garden is a community charity garden and produce is given to local food pantries.
Many of our kids have not been in a sizable garden before and have not experienced how produce looks growing on the plant. It was a GREAT way for them to make connections between the material we've been learning in class and what they saw at the garden.
At first some of the kids were afraid to touch the plants and pick the produce. Diego wasn't--he was one of our most eager gardeners! Here he is harvesting squash.
Look at this zucchini squash! Ask your kids what is wrong with it.
Ms. Sheila showing the children how cucumbers grow on the vine. A lot of the children were surprised to find that cucumbers have little sharp spines on them when they are growing, which are of course cleaned off before they're sold at the store. We taught them how to use their hands to wipe away the sharp spines.
Ms. Sheila showing the kids where the sweet potatoes are growing under ground. She was the greatest tour guide and a wonderful teacher--she had visuals for the things the children couldn't see--like the sweet potatoes under the ground. Which we know is a root crop!
After a little while everyone warmed up to the idea of picking produce and had a lot of fun searching for ripe cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and squash.
Darwin was also one of our most interested jr. gardeners!
Eder, too!
Ms. Sheila talked to the children about the compost and mulch made and used at the garden and how these things help the plants.
We saw the herb garden and touched and smelled the herbs. Ask your child why there is wire over the herb garden!
Harvesting tomatoes. Ask your kids what color tomatoes get picked and what color are left on the plant and WHY!
Do you see the cd's hanging on the plants? Ask your child why those are there!
Even our volunteers had lots of fun participating in the harvest.
Taking a break. It was about 99% humidity and muggy and hot. The kids were troopers! We made sure to drink a lot of water.
The older kids sorted the tomatoes into two sets--those that were ripe now and those that still needed a bit more time.
Washing out pots to be used next season.
We had a wonderful time learning about gardens, vegetables, and fruit (tomatoes!), nature and plants at the garden and we're so thankful to Ms. Sheila and Meg for helping us! Us teachers are excited to think of all the new vocabulary the children learned, to know that many of the processes we've read and talked about in class were seen in person today....and we had fun harvesting, too. :)
After the garden we went to a nearby wildflower field. We wanted the children to see the wildflowers we've read about actually growing in the ground. For many of our children they think of cut flowers when we talk about flowers--so we wanted them to experience how they look growing in the ground--and see the various parts--roots, stem, leaves, flower, etc.
Ms. Sheila emailed me tonight with the harvest totals. She says,
Let the kids know that they harvested 250# (pounds) of tomatoes, 47# of cucumbers, 23# of zucchini, and 9# of peppers. Quite a haul.
The children worked cooperatively in multi-age groups (older child with younger child) to decorate a jar.
Then we set off to search for wildflowers. We talked about how to pick the flowers (with a long stem) and identified some we've read about in class. The children were so excited to run and explore in the field, and anytime we came upon a patch of flowers they went crazy!
Darwin is showing the roots on a plant he picked.
Each team filled their jar with wildflowers.
Then we headed off to the Administration Building to drop off the bouquets to some special people there.
The kids were so proud of their bouquets! They were happy to share their hard work and the administrators were so sweet and welcoming to us!
From there we headed to the library to drop off our completed books and check out new ones. The moms had their parenting session at the library today. Ms. Vilma had given them projects to complete ahead of time involving using the library's various services to benefit their children's literacy, so the moms were very busy completing their work at the library. We had time for a quick hug from them, then we had books to find! The rain held off until we were loading the bus, then it poured, so we did end up a bit wet.
It was a busy but great day!
Moms, ask your child to look through the photos of our day with you. Ask questions as you view the pictures and have them tell you what is happening in the pictures and what they learned at each place. This is a great way to reinforce and extend the learning begun on our trips today!
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