Kids Garden Class 2018

[thistlebloom]

We cartwheeled into another summer today with our first Kids Garden Class of 2018. All the usual suspects attended with the addition of our newest member, 4 year old Sparkle (not her real name) .
4 is the age they can begin and she has been impatiently waiting for two years while her 3 siblings have been attending.

This year there are 15 kids enrolled ( ) . That's all the siblings in 4 families, plus one boy whose little sister will join us next year.

Despite having procrastinated all winter putting the summers lessons together, and doing the up till midnight prep routine, today's class went smoothly and was great fun.
What a great group of kids!

Today's Big Fat Word was Observe. As an exercise I gave each kid a tulip and told them to share aloud their observations and write them in their (new, fresh) journals.

Then we discussed soil, and how it was different than dirt. The kids went out in 4 teams with mason jars and collected some soil. Two teams got garden soil and two teams gathered soil from outside the garden. They added water, put lids on and shook it all up. The jars are waiting and settling until next weeks class when we'll observe the different layers of sediment.

We did a lot of other stuff too, but I don't want to get too long winded here or @ninnymary won't read it all.

We are gardening in containers this year trying to outwit the gophers. Next week we are mixing up our own recipe for potting soil.

Our first crop -sweetpeas!

 

[baymule]

I love it! That has to be the best crop of sweet peas I have ever seen!

I have to get busy and get your corn sent to you! It will go out Tuesday.

 

[ninnymary]

Thank goodness you didn't write a long post! I tend to lose interest after awhile, haha.

Love the containers and a class of 15 is pretty big. Good luck and those kids are lucky to have you share your expertise and teach them. Those parents are lucky too that you keep those kids for a few hours out of their hair and all for free!

Mary

 

[Nyboy]

15 kids

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

How sweet the class is and all your sweet peas!!!

 

[majorcatfish]

glad to see you space them seeds out correctly.....

 

[flowerbug]

oh my!

 

[thistlebloom]

We had our third class session this afternoon. All 15 kids attended. Our last session was abbreviated as only 4 came, but they mixed up our soil for the containers, and filled them all.

Today was slightly chaotic, everybody was excited to be together, our class time was necessarily shorter than usual and it was raining. Once school is out we'll meet in the mornings and have more time, and hopefully get into the swing of our regular schedule.

Our BFWOTD was heirloom. The older kids planted Bluejays beans in cowpots, and were proud to be participating in an important bean saving project, and the littles chose other heirloom seeds for their growing season.

No pictures. I had my hands full managing our material, answering questions, and herding kids.

I can think of all kinds of things I wish I had pointed out and discussed, but they are more interested in the doing part, and not so much the lecture part. Can't blame them for that .

We are doing a sort of experiment with some volunteer potato plants that showed up in the bed they harvested from last year. We lifted them and planted them in nursery pots. We'll see if they will grow some potatoes, or if we shocked them too badly to do anything.

 

[ninnymary]

Happy you had a great turn out!

Mary

 

[Beekissed]

I love it that you give a gardening class to kids, Thistle. That's so needed in every single community in this land. People in urban areas are so clueless most of the time about their food supply, so having someone teaching it to children on a regular basis is key. I think all schools from primary to high school should have agriculture as a required course.