Ms. Gardner's class amends soil, composts and plants

Ms. Gardner's class came in two groups for 45 minutes each.  The main lesson dealt with amending the soil-what amend means, why we do it and what is in the amendment. One student read the label on the front of the bag which lead to a discussion of what worm castings were and why we were using organic amendment. We also discussed why we were using fertilizer and how it would get to the roots of the plants. After the lesson, the children volunteered for three activities-measuring the area of the bed to determine how much fertilizer they would add, mixing in the soil amendment and composting. The parent volunteer helped the children measure the bed and then read the fertilizer bag to determine the amount of fertilizer. The second group got to plant sugar snap peas, marigolds and bean seeds after which they watered the bed. They learned that marigold petals are edible. When the children were finished working, they each got a sugar snap pea after stating something that they'd learned.