Chilly Wednesday

Yesterday (Wednesday), in the morning shift we were scheduled to have two classes come out. With the first, a fifth grade class, we divided into groups, and took turns watering and weeding the grass that keeps popping up amongst the mulch. A few rolly polly bugs were discovered, and the kids excitedly watched as they rolled up, scared, into a ball.

After saying goodbye to this class, we went to prepare for the next, which was to be a third grade class. Several of us went to get materials to do drawing observations and hypotheses (the activity for second graders), but after waiting for a while, we realized they weren't going to come out. Instead, we completed watering and reflected on the day.
In the afternoon, Mrs. Robinson's 1st grade class gave the garden a visit, and, besides the perpetually necessary tasks of weeding and watering, they got to check out some worms from our vermicompost! And of course they had fun with that, with the slight exception of maybe a squirmish girl or two who shreeked when seeing them wiggle. There was also a delivery made of cafeteria food scraps to our other compost pile, and adding these scraps was made into an activity. Each group got to add a broccoli stem or corn husk or banana peel, further soaking in the idea that these materials will decompose, and, as one student once saw it, "melt" into the soil they would become.

In addition, tomatoe cages were put around our beautiful donated tomato plants, as support for their growth. The entire garden, since the gain of plants full grown and in bloom, seems to have had a mini explosion of color and life. The Cosmos flowers add so much color and vitality to the look of the garden, as well as encouragement for the bees to do their magical business.