January happenings

January is typically a planning month in the garden. So we planned, and we also prepared. The kids had five stations to rotate through his time. 

The first was making a bird feeder out of a toilet paper roll, peanut butter and birdseed. 

The next item of business was stopping in to check out the seed catalogs for seed planting wish lists for the next meeting in February. 

The kids took it very seriously. We even heard from a parent about a variety of beans that only their family grows. We are hoping to try those in the spring. 

Another important station was to help start a worm bin. Worms produce wonderful fertilizer for the gardens. And they are very helpful to the soil when they are in the gardens. We created worm bins by layering them with newspaper, food scraps, worms and a bit more newspaper. They were sprinkled with water and have been working hard to eat up all of the food scraps and make worm waste for the gardens. 

Then the kids were allowed to try a snack. On Monday we had bird nests.  Granola nests with yogurt, berries and bananas. Of course we used the scraps in the worm bins. 

On Thursday we had dirt cups...chocolate pudding, crushed Oreos and gummy worms. The kids were very careful not to offend the real worms by showing them what they were eating 😉. 

After fueling up we had them write in their journals about what they did and learned that day. Then we went outside quickly to put in the things brought in for the compost. Our students are doing a great job of adding to the compost. This month we got a bunch of egg shells, lots of dryer lint, coffee grounds, food scraps, and some horse poo. We are going to have the best and healthiest gardens ever. 

I want to thank all of the wonderful parent volunteers who worked so hard with the kids to get them through all of the stations.  I also want to thank the special volunteers who have stepped up to provide snacks and work in the gardens outside of Garden Club time. We have  big plans this year and everyone has been so supportive. Even the First graders are working to help raise funds for a special project this year...we want to build a greenhouse that we can use for seeds and plants throughout the winter.