Kindergarten's Outdoor Learning Update

Our Kindergarten students were thrilled with the opportunity to pair with 1st grade to plan their ideal gardens (as seen below).

After the planning process, we planted! Two Kindergarten classes planted in pots in their classrooms, two classes planted in the greenhouse, and one class planted in the garden-bed.

Kingswood First Grade Garden Update

Here's what first grade has to say!

We have been planting lots of seeds.

We weeded the garden a lot!

We have been watering the garden.

We are taking care of the garden.

New plants grew.

Flowers need sunlight and soil.

Tiny plants are coming up.

When you water the seeds they grow bigger.

The seeds are starting to sprout.

We have been planting seeds.

We looked and we saw some growing up.

It has been raining a lot!

The onion seeds we planted now look like little grass sprouts!

Our plants have been growing and growing a lot.

Some mushrooms grew in our garden!

We have been looking at our garden a lot!

When we went to the garden we picked some weeds, and then the other class weeded the rest!

Plants need water, soil, and sunlight to grow..

Our onion plants have all of that!

The soil is the most important thing for plants.

The most important things plants need are water and soil to make them grow bigger and bigger.


Stay tuned for our next post!!!!

Observing soil!

Third grade has been working hard to learn the parts of a plant so that we are ready to plant our own lettuce, pansies, and celery! We have observed humus, clay and sand in dry and wet form to see how they change. Our classes even discussed in which environment our plants would thrive. We can't wait to see how they grow... check back for updates!

Seeds Have Been Planted!

The 2nd graders were so excited about this project when we presented to them what they would be doing. We all met with our paired classes in 4th grade to discuss what the two classes would be doing. Both classes will be grown lettuce, but in different ways. 4th grade will be doing their growing through hydroponics while 2nd grade will be using soil. The students met with partners and the 4th graders explained to the 2nd graders what hydroponics was and the 2nd graders were able to explain how they were going to grow their plants through soil. The students loved meeting with the older kids, discussing their projects, and getting to know them!

 2nd graders have used the last couple of weeks to get their seeds planted and into their soil cups. We are not only growing lettuce, but also cabbage, kale, peppers, collards, and broccoli. The students loved getting their hands dirty and being able to plant their seeds on their own.

Hydroponic Expert Visits 4th Grade!

This past week 4th grade had the pleasure of meeting former Cary mayor Glen Lang. Mr.Lang,  now in retirement, spends his days as a second career farmer. Mr Lang is co owner of LL Urban Farms. Hydroponic lettuce is main crop of LL Urban Farms, so Mr. Lang was able to share his expertise with our entire 4th grade! Since we are brand new to the world of hydroponics, we were super excited to hear his gardening tips. We especially liked that Mr. Lang shared with us that he learned everything he knows about farming from YouTube!! So we will definitely be checking out some videos on hydroponic farming in the coming weeks! To prepare for his visit, each student came up with a question or two to ask!

We are very excited to see how well our hydroponic lettuce grows so that we can have Mr. Lang come back!!

4th Grade Collaboration and Imagination Meet!

Recently our 4th graders meet with our 2nd graders in order to collaborate on our hydroponics project! We met in small, collaborative groups to discuss our newest planting adventure:) We had lots of fun talking about how our different planting styles will compare to each other. The 2nd grade will be planting romaine lettuce using traditional soil techniques while the 4th grade will be growing their lettuce using a hydroponic farm wall.

During discussion, we had these questions:

Which grade will have their lettuce grow faster?

Will the soil produce better lettuce? Why or why not?

What other crops will be grown?

Which method of planting will have the most success overall?

Stay tuned for news on future collaborations!!

Surprise Sprouts

The fifth graders were so excited to finally plant our red leaf lettuce seeds this week. We are using an innovative tray that contains pre-filled compartments of peat moss. We hypothesized that peat moss should retain moisture better than soil, since it feels like a sponge. We wondered if this means we will have to water the tray less often than with soil. The holes for the seeds are even pre-made, so all we had to do was push a few of the tiny seeds into each hole.

Some questions we had after planting the seeds:
Will the peat moss actually stay wet enough?
How long will it take for the sprouts to appear?
Will the stems be red or green?

The tray also comes with a grow light, but since we have learned that lettuce survives with little sunlight, we decided to place the tray by a window for a few hours each day. We expected to see sprouts in about a week, but to our surprise....

Our first little green sprouts made their appearance on Day 3. We have realized that the peat moss actually does need to be watered every day, because it feels dry to the touch each morning.

Now we wonder how we can continue to care for our sprouts until they are long enough to move to the Aquaponics system! 

Fourth grade farmers?!?!?

Yep, it's true. Fourth graders are gearing up to become farmers!

This week our fourth graders received an exciting shipment. What's in the boxes? Well, that we can't tell you.....but we can give you some clues!!

1 - Our seeds will not be planted in the ground.
2-  We will use NO soil to plant.
3 - Our gardening will be 'state of the art'
4-  Our gardening can be done indoors and in small spaces!!

Stay tuned to our blog to see what we are up to!!!!