Marquez 2nd Graders Celebrate International Compost Week

This week each 2nd grade class visited the compost bins and added either green scraps or brown scraps to the them. This reinforced the lesson in Compost Stew the book that their teachers had read to them.

We now have two bins in the upper yard area-one is a worm bin and the other is a tumbler. The worm bin seems to be the favorite one for the children to use-perhaps because of the red wrigglers in it. They enjoyed looking at the worms. Many of them enjoyed touching them.  Their "bedding" is primarily strips of newspaper, small pieces of cardboard and dirt.

The composting process reinforces the lesson on decomposers of many months ago. Worms eat decaying plants, all fruits and vegetables that are kitchen scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds,etc. but not dairy or meat products.

The hands-on experience of each child adding something to the bin ensures that they'll know at least one thing to add to the compost bin.

We discussed that composting is a way of recycling food scraps instead of putting them down the disposal or throwing them out in the trash.

Checking out the worms