Fifteen sixth, seventh and eighth graders from Ms. Delano’s advisory group upstairs at HTMMA spent three hours on a recent Wednesday working in Explorer’s garden. They were cheerful, energetic, kind, thoughtful and industrious, and we can’t thank them enough! These hard-working middle schoolers shoveled, hauled and spread a truckload of compost on vegetable beds, weeded pathways, loosened soil, re-covered vegetable cages with bird netting to keep out the squirrels, and planted two beds of lettuce and radishes for our food service program. We can’t wait till they come back to work and learn again. Thank you!!!
Mrs. Hawke’s, Mrs. Manguil’s and Ms. Schultz’s Kindergarteners Meet the Worms! October 12, 2009
Kindergarteners from Mrs. Hawke’s and Manguil’s class, and Ms. Schultz’s class recently met some very important garden workers — worms! After reading the book, Worms at Work, each class met Explorer’s Red Wiggler Worms, the worms that live in our worm composter and make rich fertilizer for the school garden. Red wigglers eat vegetative garbage and turn it into worm castings. Some students loved meeting the worms. Others were less sure they wanted to make their acquaintance. Reluctant worm friends just peeked over their friends shoulders at the worms, and sometimes ventured to poke a finger at their soft bodies. Others took to worms like worms to soil!
Mrs. Manguil’s group also dug in their garden bed looking for night crawlers, the big fat brown worms that live in much of our garden and aerate the soil. Alas — no night crawlers on the day we looked! But the students’ digging for worms helped aerate the garden, too, mixing good compost and air into the moist soil. Now the soil will be ready for planting.
Butterfly Buddies Hunt for Insects and their Host Plants October 12, 2009
Mrs. Rothschild’s first graders and Ms. Lim’s fourth graders will be working on expanding our butterfly garden this year. Pairing up weekly, with each first grader paired with a fourth grade buddy, half the buddy class pairs go out into the garden while the other half stays inside and works on a related inside project.
Recently, butterfly buddies went into the garden to look for insects and their host plants. They found butterflies and milkweed, green lynx spiders on several plants, spittle bug juveniles on the sagebrush, spittle bug adults, called leafhoppers, on the tomatoes, a red banded crab spider, and more. Students used their garden journals as a place to make scientific drawings of the animals and their host plants.
Year End Work Day October 9, 2009
Thank you so much everyone for the amazing clean up of the garden! I can’t believe what 35 people can do in 3 short hours –especially when half the people were under four feet tall! We weeded all the beds and paths, laid down two truckloads of wood chips over all the paths and even over the open dirt area, transplanted poppies, pulled out edibles and bagged them up, chopped up peas and buried them and composted them, pruned the Laurel Sumac, cut back the overgrowth on herbs, pulled out the masses of Feverfew, as well as the giant mother plant and mother Sorrel plant — did I miss anything? Wow!
Fifth Graders Make Lavender Sachets from Hand-Dyed Cloth May 14, 2009
Fifth Graders in Mrs. Carrico/Mrs. Frost’s class and Ms. Malesky’s class made lavender sachets using the purple silk cloth they dyed with purple cabbage. They have the sachets to their mothers for Mothers’ Day! Mrs. Goerke brought extraordinary skill in guiding Ms. Malesky’s class through the sewing process!
Fourth Graders Make Herbal Remedies May 14, 2009
Fourth graders studying the Spanish Colonial period planted herbs that were grown in the California Missions. Now that the herbs have grown, Ms. Kuhl’s and Ms. Adams classes used their herbs to make a variety of products.
- Culinary Herb Mix: Leaves of basil, oregano, and garlic were taken from their stems and mixed together for students to take home for cooking.
- Mint leaves and lavender stems were steeped in boiling water to make a mint/lavender tea once thought to be useful for stomach ailments.
- Using a recipe supplied by our Master Gardener and said to be hundreds of years old, students cooked mint leaves in Crisco (the recipe called for lard!) until the oil turned green. Then the mint was strained from the oil and the green oil was beaten with grated beeswax until it was the consistency of frosting or chapstick. (We thought of this as f a Burt’s Bees meets Betty Crocker sort of concoction.) The resulting poltice was once used to soothe burns. Most students, however, thought it would make a good Mothers’ Day gift for soothing their mothers’ rough and tired feet!
- Lavender sachets — students peeled lavender blossoms from their stems and crushed them to release their fragrance. Then they wrapped the crushed blossoms up in cloth and tied it with a ribbon as a Mother’s Day gift.
Mother’s Day Sweet Peas May 14, 2009
Mr. Sarda’s kindergarten Sweet Pea garden has really taken off! Students in five different classes were able to pick large bouquets for their mothers for Mothers’ Day! Mr. Sarda’s class also made sequential, circular books about the cycle of their pea planting experience, learning to write some garden words while they worked: Peas – Plants – Flowers – Pods – Peas.
Explorer Family Hiking May 14, 2009
Many Explorer Families have expressed an interested in supporting each other in exploring the outdoors. Richard Louv makes it very simple in his book Last Child in the Woods – Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. Go outside, he says, and, if you feel a little nervous about exploring on your own, go with another family. Each family has a place they enjoy being together outside. Share your place in nature with another family, and expand the network of our children who get outside to explore nature on a regular basis.
This blog can be used as a forum for families to connect in nature until we find a better way to do it. If you have a hike you would like to share with another Explorer family, send this blog a post with your family’s last name (NOT your child’s name or age) and your child’s teacher’s name, and where you would like to hike. Families can connect with each other safely offline using the school directory, by looking up your contact information.
(Note: This is not an Explorer-sponsored activity. If connecting everyone through the blog gets too onerous, we’ll figure out another way to help families connect. Meanwhile, let’s give it a try!
Fifth Grade Colonial Fiber Arts Garden April 29, 2009
Fifth graders in Mrs. Carrico/Mrs. Frost class, and Mrs. Malesky’s class learned how colonial American’s used plants to make and dye cloth this week. They learned about colonists’ choices about importing cloth or making their own by growing flax for linen, and cotton for cloth, or raising sheep for wool. Colonists spun thread and year, and wove and knitted it into cloth. They recycled cloth, after clothing was worn out, into rag rugs and patchwork quilts. They made their cloth more beautiful with vegetable dyes, handmade lace, and embroidery. Boys and girls learned to stitch — girls stitched to make clothing and household goods, boys stitched to make harnesses and farm good, and/or sails if their family fished. Students had a chance to see hand spun and dyed wool, hand woven garments, a patchwork quilt and a rag woven place mat. Then they tried their hand at making a vegetable dye out of purple cabbage — an aromatic experience for the whole school!
