Back in the Garden

We had only half of the classes due to field trips. Today we took the 2nd graders on an observation walk around the garden to see how it had changed during the winter vacation. One girl said, "the plants got very big!"

Some of the seeds that they planted are growing-especially radishes, lettuce, and carrots. Some poppies are also coming up.  The kale seedlings are doing very well and we will start harvesting them. GG, a volunteer, showed some children what happened when pansies went to seed.

We spent a lot of time looking at at the broccoli plants that a local boy scout had planted in one of the beds. Some of the plants were almost ready to harvest, some were ready and some had yellow flowers. We explained that people usually eat broccoli before it flowers and that people also eat the stems. (We'll discuss more about broccoli next week since people can also eat the flowers and leaves.) We'll save some of the broccoli seeds from the flowers for next year.

The kids observed that there were holes in some of the plants and that some of the plants had been eaten. They knew that squirrels hadn't eaten them since the the beds are covered with wire. We'll discuss more about pests and how to prevent them later.

The kids worked in three groups. One group measured the broccoli bed, one group planted seeds in plug trays and one dug for grubs. The measuring group used both a yardstick and a tape measure. "We measured the broccoli plants and we measured the perimeter of the beds".  I explained that the perimeter is the outside of the bed. The bed is 36 " x 136". One of Mr. Jacob's students added up the numbers--344".  Mrs. Fein's group measured the height of the broccoli plants. The seed planting groups planted carrots, spinach, lettuce and cornflowers.

New vocabulary this week: perimeter. Continuing to reinforce the names of the vegetables.