2nd Grade Investigates Rocks!

How can three volcanic rocks look and feel so different?  2nd grade is investigating and describing three very different types of rocks.  They have discovered that properties of rocks (what makes a rock a rock) are a great way to give a detailed description of a specific rock!

Drawing the rock is one way to show how the rock looks.

How does the rock feel?

This rock has holes in it.  

The shape and color are also good ways to describe a rock.

The cream rock comes off on your fingers a bit.

Is the rock dull or shiny?

One of the rocks is smooth.  The other two are rough.

Everyone is very curious what the rocks are called!

What happens when you rub the same rocks together?
Some of them make rock dust!

Exploring Mealworms with 1st Graders!

1st graders have started to learn all about insects.  How do you know if something is an insect?  The easiest way is to count how many legs it has...if it has 6 legs, it's an insect!  We have been making observations about mealworms.

The mealworms have lines on their bodies.

This mealworm is playing dead so it won't get eaten.

Does the mealworm prefer the soil or the oats?

My mealworm likes the soil.

Which will it be, soil or oats?

It can hold on to me!

The mealworm tickles when it walks on my hand.

Does the mealworm like light or dark paper?

"The mealworms need to start in the middle of
the container, otherwise that's cheating."

I think the mealworm likes the dark paper because it can hide.

Kindergarten Learns about Trees!

Kindergarten has been exploring the different parts of a tree and how those parts help the tree survive and thrive!

Leaves, seeds and a section of trunk! 

Looking very closely at the leaves.  They help keep our air clean!

There are lines on this tree stump.

This seed is spiky! 

The classes were fascinated with the prickly seeds they found.  They wanted to know why they were so spiky.  After some brainstorming, they came to the conclusion that the spikes would make the birds or animals drop the seed instead of eating it.  Then the seed could grow into a new plant!

So many different types of seeds and bark!

Birch bark.

The magnifying glass makes the seed much bigger.

The biggest pinecone ever!

Counting the rings on the "tree cookie". 
The number of rings tells how old the tree is! 

Some bark is smooth and some bark is rough. 
The bark protects the tree.

Making our own trunk sections.

How old will we make our tree?

A Monarch Caterpillar in our Butterfly Garden!

What a surprise!  After two years of growing milkweed as part of our pollinator garden, I found a monarch caterpillar!

Three different types of milkweed in our garden!

Busy exploring the indoor habitat.

It started out quite small, but doubles in size every few days.

After showing all the classes the hungry caterpillar, I noticed it was getting sluggish and put the caterpillar back in our garden to finish it's journey!  Hopefully we will find more caterpillars.  There certainly is evidence they are around!

Our Garden Looks Amazing!

Thank you to all the families that took care of our garden throughout the summer!  It looks fabulous.  So much produce for the school lunches!  This garden couldn't happen without your help.  Thank you!

Our pollinator garden is still growing!

So many cherry tomatoes!

Our strawberry plants are amazing!

An eggplant blossom!

The basil looks great.

Patty pan squash blossom.

A very small carrot from our garden.

More ripe tomatoes, with green one still growing!

Our milkweed garden really grew this year.
Hopefully we will attract some Monarch
butterflies!

Butterfly bush in bloom.

A pepper!

Our cucumber plants are climbing the
trellis, but no cucumbers yet!

PS 58's garden, looking good!

Look at the PS58 Garden Now!

One last post before the summer vacation!  This is what our PS58 garden looked like this past February.  We had four square raised beds and three long rectangular for planting our vegetables and pollinator flowers.

All this spring, my two after school gardening classes and various classes through out the school day helped to add four new raised beds to double the size of our garden!  They helped water plant and weed our garden!

On the last day of school, there were bees and butterflies pollinating our plants; there were tomatoes and green beans growing; and flowers on our cucumber, pepper, strawberry and patty pan squash plants!

I want to thank the families that have signed up to water our garden this summer.  Without them, the garden wouldn't survive!

I hope everyone has a marvelous summer and I can't wait to see what the garden looks like in September!

Wow! The Chicks Have Grown!

Here is a picture of our chicks from their upstate home...they aren't so little anymore!

I was given eggs laid by chickens a few years older than ours.  Our chicks won't start laying eggs for another few months! The lighter egg in the middle was laid by a younger chicken than the other bigger and darker eggs.