BUONGIORNO A TUTTI!

Translation: Good morning, everyone! Sydney here. My best friend is studying abroad in Italy and I've been working on my Italian just in case she forgot English.

note: speaking in a different language doesn't work well with little kids...they tend to get confused :/.

Anyway, I know ya'll are on the edge of your seats asking yourself "WHAT HAPPENED ON MONDAY?!" Well, here I am, twenty four hours later, letting you know that the garden is still alive and so are the volunteers!

Monday morning as I drove in a delirious haze to the garden at 7:30am, the sun was an orange ball in the sky. What made this orange ball so amazing was the fact that I wasn't blinded by its light, a rare event for Flordia's powerful sun. As I drove further East, it continued to rise and grow larger brightening my morning. Though daylight savings time has made me even more absentminded (hints why this blog is a day late), moments like this make waking up early worth my while.

Alright, so, once at the garden and the coffee was initiated into my blood stream, the kids' energy was anything but tolerable. This week is all about METAMORPHOSIS. I would just like to say, "YESSSSSSSSS!" This is one of my favorite lesson plans!

Reason #1: caterpillars
Reason #2: butterflies
Reason #3: ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS.

Prime spot in the garden for caterpillars- the flower bed.

Last Friday we found SIX monarch caterpillars and this Monday there were none. PERFECT example for this week's lesson. Where did they all go? By the time we were done explaining the process, with help of the visual aids (shout out to the IS volunteers), the second and third graders were experts on the metamorphic process of these strange creatures! The rock, paper, scissors game was a hit...the kids enjoyed getting to a phase 2 egg, phase 3 egg, and so on and so forth. Between the two classes, phase 10 was the highest phase that they got too!

Because the kids were well behaved and our pride glorified, they got a special treat to play a game they both know and love, bees and pollinators! Here is a photo essay to portray the action-packed game...

The Pollinators at the Ready...

The bees are on the ball when Christina signals to GO!

ACTION!

CHAMPIONS!!
(no sweat, eh?)

The garden is well underway for the harvest fest- collard greens, kale, squash, and cucumber are FLOURISHING and it it so exciting to see the crops' exponential growth day to day!

PS: Friday the Google Maps car drove by! If you're looking up directions to Lakewood Elementary, be sure to check out the street view to see if Jamie, Max, and I are famous gardeners! Thanks Google!

ARRIVEDERCI A TUTTI!
(goodbye to everyone)
sydney.