Fall is here and we are loving it!

One of the great things about fall is apples.  Apples are a common theme for Pre-K, especially in the fall. Although our theme wasn't 'Apples,' we were talking about 'Farm Life,' so linking foods from farm to us was a topic within our theme.
 
This week we also had the Scholastic Book Fair, so it was impossible to plan story times, as every kid wanted me to read their new books to the class, which is great!  One of the books was about a girl that goes to an orchard to pick apples.  The book talked about different types of apples and the kids really seemed interested in these.  As I told them that 'Granny Smith' apples are more sour or tart, a child asked, "What does sour mean?"   Finding it hard to describe, other than making a puckered up face, I promised the kids we would have an apple tasting.

The next day I picked out 4 types of apples from the store.  Recalling my days as a server in fine dining, I had to indulge my 'expertise' in this category, creating a 'tasting' sheet for each child.

We discussed how each one looked and smelled.  We talked about texture, and how each person may prefer different tastes and textures.  We explored words such as tart, sour, grainy, crisp, juicy, and sweet.  The kids were tortured as I wouldn't let them taste until we talked about this, lol.  :)  The same feeling I had back in my own wine tasting/education days!

After each child tasted, they got to color in the apple outline with the color of their favorite apple.

These charts are great to introduce kids to pre-reading skills as well as math skills.  Notice how this child finds his name and is pointing at the correct apple to color.  When finished we read together each sentence.  The repetitive words help the kids gain comfort and confidence in reading, become familiar with words, colors, and symbols.  This is also a great assessment tool, as I am able to track a child's ability to find their own name, identify colors, etc.

The next day a student brought apples from an orchard he had picked with his family.  What a great learning experience he got to have with them!  A fellow teacher had an apple peeler/corer that she had just used with her class.  This is key here:  ALWAYS be respectful and courteous with coworkers...at the minimum!  You never know when they may have something helpful or useful on hand!  :)

I typically crop out my student's faces but sometimes words don't compare to their facial expressions! ( In case you're curious, parents do sign a waiver upon enrolling in our program concerning pictures anyway.)

These kind of hand-on opportunities are irreplaceable to me.  They are working on fine and gross motor skills, experiencing technology (other than smart phone apps, computers, tv, etc), and feel a sense of accomplishment. I am not saying that I have an issue with kids and computers, I don't at all.  Even I was amazed at the simplicity and practicality of this kitchen 'tool.'

How cool is that?!  A spiral apple slice!

No electricity needed!  We were able to take the lesson outside, enjoy the fall weather, make a mess, and allow the other kids to play until their turn.  A lovely way to spend our Friday afternoon.  :)

I would like to say that we were able to bake an awesome apple pie with these apples, but given it was Friday afternoon and the fact that the kids were begging to try the peeled apple 'spirals,' this was were our lesson ended.

Other exciting things, we planted 'carnival carrot' seeds in this terrarium type thing.  It is really cool.  It is clear, on wheels, has a drain/plug, and has a lid for when the cold weather comes around.

My hopes are that we can see the carrots growing down into the soil.  They grow in variety of colors too, purple, white, yellow, red, and orange!  Many lessons and predictions can be done with this!  Interesting fact, originally all carrots were purple!  As our soil's chemical make-up has changed over time (no doubt due to civilization) whatever was in the soil that made carrots purple has depleted, causing them to be orange...sorry for the lack of scientific explanation.  This is another benefit of teaching Pre-K, lol. I can tell them in basic terms...the important lesson in this, IMO,  is that our presence on earth has an impact in many ways.

We have cleared and replanted fall veggies in the garden as well.  An AWESOME parent has volunteered to build a removable greenhouse type thing, referred to in the gardening world as a 'hoop house'!  This is a relatively easy and inexpensive project, simply requiring PVC pipe, clear plastic sheeting, clips, and stakes.  Our hope is that this will enable us to extend our growing season until our pre-k family Thanksgiving celebration.  We hope to harvest and prepare food from our garden, just as the Native Americans and Pilgrims did!

Introducing gardening to 4 and 5 year olds...

There is a benefit to the new school year starting towards the end of the summer gardening season.  Although I thought that the season would end sooner, concerned with Atlanta's frost date average being Oct. 15th, I have learned that fall veggies are hardier and require cooler temps to 'germinate,' or sprout from seed.  Therefore, many in our zone plant seeds indoors during the summer and transplant outside when the temps cool down, as we don't have a very long fall growing season.  The other option, which I have found to be more common, is to buy transplants and plant when the weather cools.  This is also a better option as some fall veggie seedlings/sprouts are less tolerant of transplanting.

ANYWAY...back to the BENEFIT, lol.  Because the summer veggies were winding down, and some gone due to those evil squash vine borers, the pre-k crowd was able to explore more freely.  I wasn't AS concerned about feet stepping on vines, kids playing in the dirt, or causing damage to young, vulnerable plants.

Green beans are a familiar veg to kids, because our green beans have been in all summer, they are well established, and for some reason producing better now than ever.  They provide many opportunities for little hands to pick with ease, can be eaten raw (less work for me!), and are about ready to be removed.

My hard workers, picking green beans.

 The corn had also been harvested during the second week of school, and the kids really enjoyed sneaking and hiding among the tall corn stalks.
Sadly, we did lose our one watermelon to an overly zealous harvester, picked way too early.  We used this as  a lesson by cutting it open.  The class was able to look inside and see that there was very little red inside, not what we want to see when eating a slice of watermelon.  We have also lost a couple tomatoes, as they were confused with green apples!  It's frustrating, but hard to get too upset, as they are soooo excited to show me what they picked from the garden!  I say this now, but if one comes running up to me with an almost ripe cantaloupe that I have been nursing along...well...it may not be so pretty...hehe.
Our last harvest of cucumbers provided us a 'cooking'  experience, as we made another batch of pickles.  Along pre-k standards, this provided kids with exposure to components of a recipe, measuring (math), taking turns/teamwork (social/emotional,) and vocabulary.

Harvesting the corn was also great fun for the kids, as they were free to shuck away!  More motor skill development, and an opportunity to feel new textures, and be a part of the preparation process.  This activity hadn't even occurred to me till we were picking the corn, for some reason.  It kept them independently occupied for a good period of time!  Always a plus in Pre-K!  :)

Fall planning is now underway.  The task feels a bit overwhelming at the moment.  Tearing out the old will be fun, but prepping the soil, and planting is another story.  At this age, the lure of swings and tricycles nearby can easily deter their attention, and smaller groups are necessary.  Due to economy and budgeting, each pre-k has 2 additional students.  It may not sound like much, but boy, do we feel it!  Up until now, I have simply invited kids to explore and harvest during our regular outside time.  However, real lessons are planned for planting the new veggies and seeds.  This involvement will also instill more respect and pride for the garden, a realization that we must be careful and take great care in how we maneuver though the garden.  We have spacing to think about, seed depth, etc.  Also, where to plant what plants/seeds, how to divide gardening opportunities with the 2 other pre-k classes, finding time to plan, and do all the other mundane, but necessary paperwork and daily tasks.

Amazing discovery reveals to us nature's balance...

I had noticed that our small sweet pepper plants were missing some leaves.  Being that it is very accessible to little hands, and we have a new batch of 66 pre-k kids using this playground, I figured that the leaves were getting picked off by the kids.  We also had very heavy rain from tropical storm Lee.  Most of the plants have slowed in production, which is fine as we are about to switch to fall veggies.

During our outside time yesterday, L. and I were doing our usual garden inspection.  L. is one of my kids that consistently checks the garden as soon as we get outside, gotta love it!  With his handy bucket, L proceeded to fill it with a large harvest of green beans.  As I inspected our pepper plants, I stumbled upon something awesome that I had learned about when researching beneficial and harmful garden insects.  I find this subject particularly fascinating, as I have learned that certain types of plants can be planted to attract insects that will combat the bad guys. This falls into a category referred to as companion planting, I will get into more details in a future post, but this is definitely a HUGE part of our future gardening plans.  A great example of a balanced ecosystem.  A great way to draw in the kids attention, keep them interested, and encourage them to look more closely, more often.

Anyway, here it is, finding this guy in our garden actually makes me feels like I have achieved something, like I am moving up my personal, (imaginary) levels of 'gardener status,' lol.

Horn worm, with parasitic wasp cocoons!

Cool!  This guy was on a stem of one of our pepper plants.  Horn worms are known to do some serious damage in gardens.  They can quickly eat through many leaves before one even realizes there is a problem.  Their markings are beautiful, and they camouflage easily on plants.  They turn into a large moth, the sphinx moth I believe, though there may easily be wider range of varieties.  At this point, I am happy to have known it was a 'horn worm with parasitic wasps!'

Now, about parasitic wasps.  These guys are AWESOME!  We spotted a small wasp over the summer KILLING a caterpillar, and then flying off with it.  The boys LOVED that!  The other more incredible thing about whatever type of parasitic wasp this is, is that they lay their eggs inside horn worms!  The worm becomes the 'host' for the eggs, when the eggs hatch, they eat the insides of the horn worm, then chew out of it and create a cocoon on the horn worm's body!  Ewww, right!?  Gotta love mother nature's pest control methods! :)  After showing this guy to the pre-k kids, I stayed later to show the after-school kids, since many of them were with me over the summer.  We were all fascinated.  I explained that if we find horn worms, we would remove them from the garden.  But, because this one has eggs on it, we want to keep it in our garden.  This will allow the population of good guys to thrive and protect our plants!

Those aren't cucumbers, they're pickles!

It's been a hectic past couple of weeks!  Now, thanks to new kids and new germs, I am home sick.  At least I can finally get caught up on some blogging.

As I promised in a previous post, we had to make pickles due to comments from kids that what we had growing were pickles, NOT cucumbers, lol.  :)  It's amazing (and a bit disturbing) how far we as a society are removed from the process of gardening and how veggies and fruits grow.

During my last week with summer camp, we finally had enough ripe cukes at once to make pickles.  This was a 'wing it' activity, as I have never made pickles before and of course, did not try it out ahead of time.  The aspect of 'canning' was definitely NOT an option.  I know nothing about that stuff, and it takes months, as well as an array of unhandy supplies to can foods.  Luckily, I found a recipe for 'refrigerator pickles.'  Here is a link to the recipe:  Refrigerator Pickles

The great thing about this recipe is that it only takes 3 days in the fridge and they are ready to eat!  The other thing about it is, it doesn't have a bunch of ingredients or time consuming processes, as canning does.  The basic ingredients: cucumbers, vinegar, salt, sugar, garlic, and dill.

We began by going over the ingredients in the recipe.  The kids had to smell each ingredient, lol.  Which was fun...vinegar?  Garlic?  Sure, take a big sniff!  Many commented that the vinegar smelled like Easter eggs.

On this day, we had 30 kids, between the ages of 6 and 7.  This activity really held their interest well, even though not each kid was able to do an action.  Looking back, I could have done the same activity in 2 groups.    Yet, summer camp is very hectic and hard to plan for, never knowing how many kids, juggling field trips, etc.

The kids were amazed by the inside of the cucumber and all of the seeds.  I explained that each seed, if later planted would grow into another cucumber plant, thus providing us with many more cucumbers, and then many, many more seeds.

I tried to crop this pic, but couldn't find it, I swear I am wearing a skort, lol, shorts are underneath!

I picked kids that were sitting quietly and raising their hand to add ingredients.

We added the cucumbers, garlic, and dill to the container.  Then added the other ingredients to the pot.  The ingredients in the pot had to be boiled then cooled to room temperature.  Therefore, we finished off the activity later in the afternoon.

We also did a chart, each kid predicting whether they would or would not like the pickles.  Three days later, the pickles were ready!  I was worried and honestly, a bit scared to try one.  But, they were perfect!  Nice and crisp with a good balance of saltiness and tartness.  We had enough for each kid to have a couple as well as all the teachers.  The teachers liked them better than the kids and many requested the recipe.  Some of the kids didn't want to taste them. I had hoped that because they were so involved with so much of the process...from cucumber seed to pickle...that they would more apt to give it a try.  Well...not so much the case, until I pulled out the camera to take pics of the kids that were tasting!  Then, everyone had to try one, lol.  Whatever works!

Later that day we went back to the chart and filled in the column for "Did you like the pickles."  Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the chart, but 5 kids liked them that predicted they would not.  Pretty cool!  I have already done this activity again with my new pre-k crowd, and it has also been a hit.  I highly recommend this for any age, and don't forget, even if you don't have a garden, you can still make your own pickles!  :)

Last week with summer camp was a harvest hit! Yet, bittersweet...

Well, due to thunderstorms, field trips and heat advisories, we were kept off the playground for most of the week.  Finally, last Friday morning we made it outside.  I was pretty concerned that many of the plants in the squash family would be done.  Because of the weather, and outright chaos of a drastic increase in students and my assistant leaving, I barely had a chance to breath, let alone spray pesticides.

As I counted heads passing through the door, my dedicated little gardeners ran ahead to see the garden.  They were back before I finished counting!  "OMG, Ms. Caitlin!  You gotta come see!"  I was in awe of how much had grown in such a few days, and everything looked healthy!

This my absolute favorite picture so far!  I love how these 3 are stacked up over each other, discovering 3 cantaloupes!  I was concerned about the cantaloupes as (after planted of course) I read that it is not recommended to plant them that time of year.  I guess it depends on how long they takes to ripen, but we have a good 2 months, at least...based on the average October 15th frost.  The other thing I love about this pic is the boy in the background, standing straight and tall, gazing up at the corn...too cute!

Speaking of corn, the kids had an ah-ha moment, so excited to spot the tassels (hairs) in the stalks!

It's hard to see from the picture, but M is pointing at the 'hairs.'  It hit me that this was an 'ah-ha' moment for many of the kids.  The corn was now showing something a few of them had seen on corn-on-the-cob.  Finally this plant called corn was producing something they could relate too.  WE have also learned how corn pollinates.  The top part of the stalk produces flecks of 'pollen' (don't know technical term) that fall down into the baby cobs, causing them to pollinate, planting the corn in blocks rather than a single row greatly enhances the chances of pollination, with the help of wind. We planted 3 rows with 3 seeds in each row...a lesson in multiplication!  :)





The cucumbers were also a hit as we found 4 ripe.  Yay! We have enough to make pickles!  We also dug deep into our green bean bushes to find a handful for harvesting.

  

Having the garden along the chain link fence has proven to allow easy access as well as additional trellising for our vining plants.

The cantaloupes have really taken to growing on the fence.  We will have to keep an eye on the stems to be sure the weight of the cantaloupes don't cause them harm.  Nylon hose "hammocks" may be in order in their near future!  :)

One cantaloupe can be seen peeking from behind the bottom right leaf.

Finally, we had a red tomato!  I read online that tomatoes will stay green when temps don't get below 70, well that's been very true of the extreme heat we have been having.  This particular tomato was hidden under other toms and much foliage.  This turned into an on-the-spot discussion about why that particular tomato ripened first.  The kids picked up quickly on the fact this it was more shaded and therefore cooler.  We expanded more on this once inside as I explained that my tomatoes at home have been ripening throughout the summer.  I drew a picture of how my garden backs up to a privacy fence built in a north-south direction.  I drew a east-west line over the fence/garden, showing how the sun rises and sets across the garden, getting half as much sunlight.  The kids that were still paying attention by this point understood very well, lol.

This marked my last day with these kids, as pre-k planning has now begun.  Time to transition towards some fall garden items as well.  I really hope that whomever the after-school teacher will be, will continue to use the garden as a tool for learning, as she will have many of the same kids I had this summer.  They may leave her with no choice, as their excitement grows with each new veggie in our garden! :)

It has been a hectic past couple of weeks, when I get a chance I will also be adding posts about our pickling experience, the corn stalk graph, as well as graphing the growth of our watermelon verses cantaloupe through measuring their circumferences.  Stay tuned!

Garden, end of July, 2011

Feeling defeated...

I guess we have hit the second round of the dreaded SVB's.  This time they hit our precious Giant Pumpkin plant.  :(  I was planning some great activities with these:  measuring the circumference to follow it's rate of growth, comparisons with the watermelons growth, more predictions, etc.  A real 'wow' factor for the kids.  Our diligence in  hunting/removing the eggs is not enough.  Upon finding a different insect the other day and not knowing whether it was a good one or not, M. (age 6) said, "We better just kill it, after those SVB's, better safe than sorry."  She's got a good point.  I hate to veer from organic, but we need some chemical warfare, Bacillus Thuringiensis otherwise known as BT.

1st baby pumpkin, not yet pollinated

At least our watermelons are coming along well.

Isn't it cute!  :)

Our Gardening Bulletin Board

I have one bulletin dedicated to displaying what we have been doing and learning in our garden.  The subject areas will stay, and I plan to add/remove activities as we progress through the year.  I am using it with summer camp now, then with Pre-K during the school year.  It is constantly evolving, and is an easy way to display to parents/admin. the progress.  The other component I have yet to add, is a descriptive note about each activity and how they correlate to the learning domains/standards.  This component is something NAEYC really likes to see and I should have it on there already!

I just noticed as I was going through my pics, that I didn't take one of the whole board, just took pics of each section.  In doing this, I somehow missed the title, centered and above the other stuff, "Gardening is our path to learning," or something like that, lol.

left side of board

This shows some of our corn cobs as well as the kids tilling and composting the old spring stuff.  I was able to stick with our summer camp calendar that had a day set aside for bubble wrap, and tied it into our gardening.  I LOVE bubble wrap!  Our summer camp is divided into 3 age groups.  We rotated the groups so that each group did 3 bubble wrap activities.  With my activity, we gave each child a yellow 'cob' outline, and a 'husk' outline to cut out.  For the 2 older groups, I had them write a prediction on their husk, stating how many days they though it would be until our corn stalks produced corn.  I omitted this with the 5 years old's because they take longer to cut out shapes and have less writing abilities.  This was a last minute decision based on lack of time.  In the future, I would pre-write,  "_____________ predicts we will have corn in _____ days," on the green husks. Then the younger crowd can write their name on the first line and the number on the second space.  The children then painted white paint on the bubble wrap and laid their yellow cob over the bubble wrap to make the little circular imprints that look like corn kernels.

Obviously the corn cobs help the kids with fine motor skills.  They also provide another 'media' to create artwork, and include scientific development by making predictions.

In the photos, the children are developing their gross motor skills.  Social skills are integrated as they take turns using the garden tools.   Recycling the old plants into the compost bin adds a 'self sustaining' social studies element as well as science.

 The mathematical area has some of the 'observational data' that the kids did on our corn.  We have marked 2 corn stalks in the garden that are different.  One is a straight stalk and the other one has 2 side shoots.  The children drew a pic of each stalk and then wrote a prediction about how well each one will grow, and why.

This uses math via noticing differences in height and number of shoots/stalks.  They are also writing (literacy) and predicting (science).  I also have a couple of these under the "Language and Literacy" section of the board though it is not shown.  They had some great thoughts on these, some thinking that the one with the side shoots would grow better because there are more leaves to get sunlight.  Others felt that the side shoots would take more energy from the main stalk, causing it's growth to slow down.  Smart kids!  We are also measuring these two stalks and graphing their heights twice a week, to determine the 'growth rate' of each.  I will post a pic of that later.

The red tape marks the 2 stalks we are observing, picture taken early/mid July 2011

On the right side of the board we have a prediction chart concerning our watermelon and giant pumpkin...yes I said GIANT.  I'll save that for another post, lol.  We planted both seeds on the same day and they both sprouted around the same time (over the weekend.)  The children had 2 predictions to make on this chart:  Which plant would have the first blossoms, and which will produce the first harvest.  I was amazed  by the discussion/debating that the children had over this as they  waited for their turn to write 'watermelon' or 'pumpkin' for each prediction.  

This is a great example of why I allow my class to be 'louder' than others.  These kind of predictions also help keep them interested in the garden, as they are so competitive and ALWAYS want to be 'right'!  

 

Farmville didn't prepare me for this! Dad...this one's for you! :)

Ugh!  I had NO idea that insects were SUCH a menace to a garden!  Beware...some of the pics are graphic!

It started out as an exciting morning.  The kids spotted a really cool looking insect!

We picked it up, looked at it, and discussed what we should do with it.  I explained that it could be a good insect for the garden or a bad one.  We inspected the leaf he was sitting on, it looked nice and healthy, and we had already harvested 2 summer squash from the plant.  So...we PUT HIM BACK ON THE LEAF. I promised the kids that I would look it up on the internet when I get home.

I posted the pic on a garden forum, and within minutes received my answer in bold, urgent words:  squash vine borer.  I had never heard of it and luckily the person from the forum provided me with an excellent link to info and pics of the dreaded SVB.  Armed with a copy of the info, I went to work the next day and shared it with the kids. Grossed out and very concerned we headed outside to see if we could find the tell-tail signs of eggs on the stems or even worse, signs that one had indeed bored into the stem of our squash plant...ick!

See that yellow stringy stuff on and next to the hose?  Yup.  You may also be able to make out more of that nasty stuff up higher on the stem as well.

The SVB information sheet informed us that the plants were probably doomed at this point, as the larvae bore into the stem and take all of the nutrients from the plant.  BUT, the plants may have a slight chance if we can find and remove the larvae...again...ick.  Of course we couldn't let our plants die without a fight!  Armed with large plastic tweezers and child safety/nubby ended scissors, I went in for surgery.  I made the best 'incision' I could (with child safety scissors, lol!) up the stem, beginning where the yellow icky stuff was spotted and...ew, ick, ick, ew, gross, gag!

That nasty white wormy thing is a SVB larva.

Another smaller larva in another plant.  :(

We ended up finding six of these DISGUSTING critters in four different squash and zucchini plants.  The last step to try to save the plants was to bury the damaged stems and water well, in hope they can recover.  This occurred two weeks ago and so far, we have only lost one squash and one zucchini plant.  The remaining two plants look pretty healthy, but have yet to produce more veggies.  The kids and I are now diligent in checking for the eggs and yellow 'ick' signs! Because we live in the fine southern state of Georgia, the SVB's get to grace us with two life cycles per summer!  

I have been able to find the positives in this immensely, disgusting experience. We have experienced the life cycle of an insect FIRST HAND.  I can't think of a more 'hands-on' experience than that!  And...if there IS one, I'm not sure I want to deal with it, lol.  :)  The loss of the 2 plants has added space for our now sprawling pumpkin and watermelon vines!

The garden, July 29, 2011

Was it worth all the work?  I wasn't so sure, until one of my students came up to me and gave me a hug.  She said, "Ms. Caitlin, that was THE MOST disgusting thing I have ever seen.  But it was really cool at the same time!"  :)  Yep, it's worth it.

Green beans, another pre-blog experience, from spring pre-k, 2011

After we planted our hardier, cooler weather veggies, I had a packet of green beans which recommended to plant later in the spring.  I decided we could start these indoors, and transplant them.  This helped the kids understand that different plants have different needs, as well as paying closer attention to changes in weather.  I got one of those Jiffy peat pot kits that had 25 pots, perfect for our class of 20.  Unfortunately, I can't find pics of the beginning.

I was setting up/figuring out how quickly the peat absorbed water, which I figured out works much faster with warm water.  I had set one pot in a Styrofoam bowl and had poured cool water in, not soaking up much, I went to the kitchen to get warmer water (can't have hot water hitting little hands!)  My assistant was still in the room, but involved with an activity.  One of my overly zealous students decided to get hers ready as well.  She set a pot in a Styrofoam bowl, and added water...with soap!  As a 'consequence' to her not waiting to follow directions, I informed her that this pot will be hers, and we will continue to water it with soapy water.  She was pretty upset, but I lessened the blown by adding that it will be an experiment.  We can observe the difference in how it grows compared to the others.

Each child got to plant their own bean.  They sprouted very quickly and were growing much faster than the weather was warming.  

Green bean seedlings mid-March 2011

The plastic cup in the middle is holding the 'soapy water' fed green bean.  :)

To the relief of my student, it grew just as well as the others!  I thought about sabotaging it, (oh, the horror!) but that just wouldn't be nice nor good science...hopefully she still learned her lesson in following directions! :)

Because the green beans were growing so rapidly, I decided we needed to take some action.  I reviewed with the kids about why we didn't plant them outside and they agreed that it was still too cold for them to go outside.  This evolved, with no planning(!) into a lesson in gravity! 

Top heavy green beans

The kids observed that one of the plants had flopped over.  I asked them why they thought it fell.  These are some of the 'higher level' thinking answers I got from what I thought would be a 'high level' thinking question:

"P. bent it over!"

"Somebody else broke it."

"It wasn't me!"

"It's not MY green bean!"

"Yes it WAS you!" pointing...

"No, it wasn't!"  tears...pouting...stomping...

Deep breath....sigh...

Must...remember...this...is...pre-k...  :)

Ok, so must 'redirect,' another one of those classroom management terms we hear in training, lol. 

I thought for a second, and recalled Z's new baby sister.  I asked Z why they have to hold her head up.  Finally we were getting somewhere..."Her neck isn't strong enough."  Another kids said, "Her head is too big."  Haha!  Right, and then I asked, "What holds us to the earth?"  "Gravity!"  Ah-ha!  They remembered the extremely fun ping pong ball activity:

Sadly, because it was about to be spring break, we planted them a couple weeks later, then had a couple cold nights, and the poor green beans didn't make it.  Another lesson learned...the hard way.  At least we had enough beans left over and they are now growing well in our summer garden!

Bees!

When I used to hear the word "bees!" squealed by a child, I knew I would turn to see that child, and soon to follow, the rest running, yelling, and swatting.  It didn't matter how many times I stressed to 'just walk away,' and 'when you swat they will sting,' and 'they are more scared of you then you are of them.'  For some reason even a fly in the classroom can cause a complete loss of control...doesn't take much, lol.

Honey bee and Bumble bee pollinating at the same time!  Could this pass as
 Multicultural?!?!  I think so!

Now, thanks to our garden, we celebrate bees.  I have taught the kids the difference between 'male' and 'female' blossoms and how the bees need to 'mix' the pollen from each in order for the fruit/vegetables to grow.  Okay, before I had this discussion, I had to find another way to refer to the 2 types of blossoms, otherwise I feared the topic of mommy, daddy, and babies would ensue.  Because we had not yet gotten both types, I drew a picture.  The first type, or male, blossoms show up first, then a week or 2 later, the second type (female) begin to show up.  The first type have a straight stem connecting the blossom to the main stem/vine.  The second type will have a bump at the bottom of the blossom, then connected to the main stem/vine.

Our cucumbers, growing on the trellis were the first to have both types.  Just above the 2 bottom leaves, the blossom on the left is the 'first' type, and the blossom on the right has the baby cucumber.  This one has already 'set' or pollinated.  The kids were amazed to see the babies.  I was amazed that some kids have never seen a whole cucumber...only sliced.  Wow, gardening is more important than I thought!  Another child said, "They look like pickles to me!"  Guess what we'll be making in a couple weeks?  Yep, pickles!  I don't know how to exactly yet, but I know it involves vinegar...how hard can it be?!  :)
Our spring garden did not need bees for pollination, so this has added some great learning opportunities.  The kids still squeal, "bees!" but when I turn around, I see kids peering into the trellis and into blossoms.  They are making slow and calm movements!  We also have modified our snack/lunch song.  Instead of saying the words with hand movements, we buzz.  The kids request this method all the time to "call the bees to our garden!"

Squash:  lower blossom is the first type, upper blossom is the second type.

K. peeking through the leaves to watch the bees bounce from blossom to blossom.  :)

PS!  I did check our allergy list to assure that we have no (known) severe allergies to bees.  We don't, but I really don't know what I would do differently if we did...aside from keeping an epi-pen in my pocket?

Pre-blog, an overview of the spring 2011 garden experience...

This summer is my first major-ish gardening experience.  My director and I finally convinced the owner to add a raised bed to a portion of our playground.  We planted some lettuces, radish, spinach, cabbage, and cauliflower in the spring with pre-k, which was great.  However, I felt that we were just scratching the surface of potential.

A not-so-brief summary of the spring 2011 pre-k garden:

We had enough radishes for all to taste, and made a chart of likes vs. dislikes.  3 out of 20 kids asked for seconds and really liked them.  We also shared the lettuce at our end of the party, parents brought in addition salad ingredients.  The lettuce was...bitter.  I am guessing we should have harvested sooner. This provided math, social/emotional, and health/nutritional experience.

"Cabbage Whites" invaded our cabbage and cauliflower.  As I was inspecting our plants, I noticed holes chewed through many of the leaves and even the heads of some cabbage.  A closer inspection revealed green caterpillars along the veins of the leaves.  We were amazed at how well they were camouflaged... reinforcing a past vocabulary word, yay! A teachable moment!  Nothing like seeing an animal's natural defenses first hand! I cut the leaf from the plant that had 2 caterpillars on it, and let the kids explore the details using magnifying glasses.  

Not ever having a caterpillar/butterfly experience myself, AND not yet knowing what kind of caterpillar we had, I stuck the leaf and caterpillars in a small 'bug catcher/viewer' that we keep in our 'playground kit' and set it on a shelf in the science area of our classroom.  That evening, I googled (I can't believe 'googled' STILL shows up as a misspelling, even with a capital g!) "green caterpillar cabbage garden" and quickly found info and pics.  It will turn into a Cabbage White butterfly, cool!  In school the next day, I shared the info with the kids.

The kids were more worried about the cabbage than excited about the butterfly aspect.  Then it hit me,  "Well, we have a dilemma." I love using bigger words with kids, always provides an 'unintentional-to-them' teachable moment, lol.  I reminded the kids that we like butterflies for our garden because..."they spread pollen," a couple kids shout out.  Ok, so I know it's better to have them raise their hands, but hey, I was excited too.  So, I asked them what they thought we should do.  I didn't really know what to do either, so ha, why not let them decide?  Silence...wow...SILENCE!  They were thinking, really thinking.  It was one of those 'higher level/critical thinking' moments that we hear about in our teacher training and classes, encouraging us to use open ended questions, etc.

Now, I do feel the need to add something, for fear of creating a false image of ALL of my kids sitting in a perfect little "crisscross applesauce" circle.  I am sure some were thinking about what we were having for lunch, needing to take a shoe off, what would happen if they pulled that red lever by the back door, wanting their mommy, needing a band-aide for an invisible bruise, why is everyone so quiet, etc. 

Anyway, we decided to spray an organic insecticide on all but one cabbage, so the Cabbage Whites could have that one and we may still get to enjoy ours when they were ready.  What a great compromise and lesson in sharing :)  Plus, it offered us the opportunity to observe the effects.  Now, reflecting on what I now know about gardening, next time we will skip the spray, and I will encourage the kids to pick off the caterpillars and place them over the fence on the opposite side of the playground,  That's much more hands-on than me taking the 'keep away from children' yet still 'organic' spray out on a Friday afternoon after the kids have left to spray the plants.

Oh, and the caterpillars that we kept in the bug viewer!  Within 2 days the larger was spotted by a kid hanging from the top of the container in his 'chrysalis,' or what I was taught, in his cocoon.  Of course we had to read, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, and they really did get fatter, just like the story!  The second one soon followed and we were able to successfully release them.  Who knew it would be that easy?!

This is an excellent example of why I detest doing lesson plans 1-2 weeks in advance...aside from being ADD. and a master procrastinator of paperwork, how can we maximize on our 'teachable moments' if we are tied down to the always demanded, must be posted, must be followed, must show evidence of...blah, blah, blah?  I have harnessed my ADD (to an extent) and have become a teacher with great flexibility...yeah, that's it, lol.

Sorry so long!  My laptop was stolen around the end of our spring gardening and had all the pics on it :(  Future posts will have pics. I love taking pictures, for the parents, documentations of learning, and  for my personal resume/portfolio.