wicked plants

Our garden club took an off-the-books field trip to the Science Museum of Virginia this month.  Have you ever wondered about poisonous plants?  The new exhibit entitled Wicked Plants takes you through a home to show you some very dangerous plants.

This one didn't seem so bad.

But this tree sure did.  I believe it was called the 'sandbox' tree, also known as possumwood.  Its bark is covered by pointed spines, its sap is poisonous, and its fruit explodes shooting seeds hundreds of feet away.

Some of the kids were disappointed that most of the plants were fake.  

(I think it was for our own protection.)

The best thing about the Science Museum is always buttons to push, wheels to spin, and things to touch and do.  Here we are crowded around to watch a plant grow as we spun this mini movie maker.

These boys braved the stinkiest of smells.  If you lift the lid to those boxes, you get a whiff of the plant that is under the glass dome.  My advice....don't do it!

This room had a mystery to solve, using clues from the scene.

Our favorite part was the private cooking demonstration Sra. Melara arranged.  The chef prepared a spaghetti squash using different parts of plants...the root, the leaf, the flower, but no stem in this recipe.

We learned that anything with seeds, biologically speaking, is a fruit from the flower of a plant.  So the spaghetti squash was a fruit!  And so was the long-debated tomato. 

Many kids enjoyed the sample she provided, and some even had thirds!

We had a great time at the science museum!  The Wicked Plant exhibit will be around through May 17th if you are interested in learning more.

And I thought I'd include a shot of the old entrance to the Science Museum.  It is under major construction!  This is right where the giant pendulum used to swing.

birds in winter

Winter can often seem silent, without a sign of life except for random snowmen smiling from our yards.

The next few pictures are from my personal bird feeder.  We decided to fill it with black-oil sunflower seeds just after the first snow.  I have never seen so many different birds at one time!

See if you can identify each of these birds:

BIRD #1:

BIRD #2:

BIRD #3:

BIRD #4:

BIRDS #5 and #6:

BIRD #7:

BIRD #8:

BIRD #9:

(there he is again!) BIRD #10:

And the trickiest of all, BIRD # 11 !!  You may want to try National Geographic's Bird Identifier to help you on this one.

We encouraged the kids to recycle materials from home and put up some bird feeders to help out the birds through this snowy winter we've had.  This one is made from a milk jug.

For our meeting, we had the kids eat half an orange, then they filled it with peanut butter and birdseed.  We set them in the snowy garden outside and within a few minutes, a bird had already found them!

Here are the answers to our bird quiz:

1.  Chickadee

2.  Tufted Titmouse

3.  Cardinal (female)

4.  Eastern Towhee (I think)

5.  Cardinal

6.  Goldfinch

7.  Blue Jay

8.  Tufted Titmouse

9.  Cardinal (female)

10.  Tufted Titmouse

11.  Bluebird! (a juvenile)

natural decorations

Our last meeting before the winter break, we decided to make pomanders from clementines and cloves and mini pinecone trees.

 Why the sad face?

Happy faces are much better!  We snacked on popcorn while we worked.

The pinecone trees were set in mini pots that the kids decorated and had a pipe cleaner star on top.

We hope everyone had a wonderful break!

seeds

In our last meeting, we talked about SEEDS!

We had lots of examples to look at and enjoyed the seeds some of the students brought in to share with us.   The book A Seed is Sleepy, by Dianna Aston, helped us understand more about how unique seeds are (some can weigh 60 lbs.!) and how they are similar, as well.

Here is a link to the recipe for the delicious pumpkin muffins that we ate.

We used the different seeds to make mandalas.

The kids worked together on one mandala at each table.  We used clear contact paper to stick the seeds on, however glue would have been a better option.

Some of the seeds were too heavy to stick well, so we covered each mandala with another sheet of contact paper.

Another option is to use an old CD as a circular base to make your design.  A beautiful example can be seen at Twig and Toadstool.

At the end of our meeting, we headed out to the 2nd grade garden to harvest some of the cabbage that had grown.  It's amazing what can come from a tiny seed!

building a compost pile

What goes into a compost pile?

A good compost pile will contain green materials for nitrogen (fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags), brown materials for carbon (dried leaves, straw, old grass clippings, shredded paper egg cartons, ), water and air.

Our garden club listened to a book all about dirt while eating clementine oranges and apple slices, so we could compost the rinds and cores.

Some of the things we put into our school compost pile included leaves, dryer lint, cotton quilting scraps, and the children's all time favorite...aged horse manure!

The children took turns dumping the items into our fenced off plot near the garden.

Crushed egg shells, collected by Sra. Melara over many months, were also added.

Composting makes us SMILE.

We also got to dig up our buried treasure from the last meeting.  There was no change in our radish, a root vegetable.  But the banana peel had disappeared!

One lucky guy found a helpful worm!

A plastic bag is NOT good for composting.

A friendly cricket stopped by to check out what we were doing.

The beginning of a tiny green pepper was discovered growing in this white flower.

And finally, we cleared out the large plants from our garden and added them to our compost pile.

Why is composting important?

It reduces the amount of waste we send to the landfill, returns nutrients to the soil, naturally fertilizes, and is a great way to save money for gardeners and farmers.

For more information on composting, visit this webpage from Alberta, Cananda or this one on composting in schools.