Excited for presentation!

The third grade students are excited to share their findings at the end of the year. We have been observing our lettuce plants and have been planning our presentation!

Growing... Growing...

Primary's plants are growing quickly...and almost ready for our end-of-year salsa party!

Pepper Plants (above)

Tomato Plants (above)

April has been a busy month for outdoor learning in fifth grade and gardening with 4th and 5th graders.  When I last blogged, our garden club members had started seeds indoors and had wonderful seedlings, but we had to wait to plant outdoors because of the frost predicted in early April.  Last Friday, the 22nd, we finally transplanted to our gardens.  Our flower bed has zinnia and cosmos, our herb bed has chives, cilantro, basil, and mint, and our veggie beds have heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce.  We hope to get mature cucumbers by the end of the year, but the tomatoes will probably ripen later in June.  We will continue to weed and water the plants.  Luckily we had a rainstorm Friday afternoon to give them a good dose of natural rainwater.  There are some perennial grasses that are tougher than weeds to get rid of, but at recess and on gardening days, we pluck some.
The mint is coming in nicely.  We have chocolate mint in the herb box and peppermint in a pot by the fence.  I also have a spearmint plant in my room that students nibble on from time to time.

5th graders went on a walk around campus last week while the weather was nice to observe signs of spring and encourage writing.  Students found out that chive flowers are stronger and spicier than the stem.  We were disappointed that there is no honeysuckle yet. We noticed new plant and animal life, dandelions for blowing ,birds singing and the warm breeze on our faces.  We spread blankets on the ground to just listen, then read poetry.  When I read the lyrics to "Blowing in the Wind" as a poem, the wind started to blow so it felt a little magical.  We also read Robert Frost, who they are familiar with, and various other poems.  It is really hard to get this squirmy bunch to sit and just be, but it was an enjoyable attempt.

Babies!

Today was an exciting day at KES! Our eggs have hatched and we now have babies in one of the houses! They are tiny! The mother bird is extremely protective of her babies, and has been somewhat aggressive! Now we will wait and watch to see when they hatchlings fledge the nest!

Baby chickadees have arrived!

More exciting news: our bluebird nest now contains 5 beautiful eggs! We know that bluebirds will lay 1 egg a day, and we noticed the first egg on Wednesday. On Friday there were 3 eggs, and this afternoon there were 5.  So, we'll know if she's finished laying eggs if there are still 5 eggs tomorrow when we check. Then it should be about 2 weeks before they hatch! Who knew bird watching could be so fun!

Wednesday, April 13th 

Friday, April 15th 

Monday, April 18th

Friendship Garden Progress

Our Poem for this week...

April Garden Fun

April is here, the cold is gone
The sun just peeked through the clouds
All around us spring has bloomed
Of our garden we are so proud

The April rains have saved out soil
The earthworms helped out too
The dived through the garden and made
Tunnels under all the roots

We missed our garden while we were gone
For Spring Break when school was closed
We hoped and wished it would be OK
I think the plants started to grow!

What have we seen????

At first the plants were little, but the next time they grew a little bit bigger.

I saw the potato plant grow bigger.

The celery stalk is starting to grow.

Our garden is getting better and better, because of our earthworms. 

The earthworms are making tunnels so the roots can get the water they need.

The plants have been growing a lot, because of the rains and the earthworms.

The plants have sprouted some more.

Our onion plant grew some leaves.

We grew an onion in water. It grew leaves and roots. It got so big and so stinky that we had to move it to the garden!

The plants started to grow roots. 

The earthworms helped our plants by eating the dead plants and made new nutrients.

The rain and sun are helping our garden grow. 

One of the onions is so big that it's growing over the edge of the garden!

The plants are growing really really big... maybe we should start picking the vegetables.

Our garden is so big with all the plants inside... the soil, sun, and rain has been helping it grow. 

Our plants are so big that we are running out of space in our garden!

All the plants look a little different and a little the same. 

We have needed to prune the potato plants.

Our garden is growing bigger and bigger and bigger. 

We've had to learn to be patient and give the vegetables time to grow... they're not ready yet! 

We have BLUEBIRDS!

We have our first bluebird egg! Stay tuned! 

Baby birds arriving soon at KES!

4th grade is thrilled to announce...we're expecting baby birds! We've been closely monitoring our bluebird houses, and although these are not bluebird eggs, we are excited to finally have a nest at all! There are six red speckled eggs in one of the houses. We can tell by the appearance of the nest, (messy, and made from hair, moss and feathers, instead of strictly pine straw), that this is another type of bird. After researching further, Ms. Webster's class believes that these are chickadee eggs! We will know soon, as we expect them to hatch sometime this week. Chickadees usually hatch within 12-13 days. We'll post again soon when our hatchlings have arrived!