On January 14, Ms. Fein's 2nd graders had an introduction to composting. Composting is food for the soil. It consists of browns (most of the items come from trees) and greens (most are vegetable and fruit scraps). I read to them from "Kids Can Compost" by Wen-Chia Parker. The children learned that the 5 ingredients for compost are greens, browns, water, air and heat. The children looked at greens (food waste) including apple cores, banana peels, lettuce, kale, potatoes, bread, pasta, tea bags, egg shells, and coffee grinds. They also looked at browns including toilet paper rolls, paper towels, paper, twigs. They wrote in their journals and drew an illustration of a compost bin with some of the above contents. At the conclusion of the garden session they were able to give an example of something that could be composted.

The children also planted seeds and seedlings and added material to the compost bin.

Vocabulary for the lesson: compost, seedling, illustration, moist.

Adding veggie scraps to the worm bin.

Planting broccoli seedlings

Watering seeds