Garden Time And Class Chain

Our Class Goes Harvesting And Creates A Class Chain

Our class went out to the community garden and picked celery, onions, carrots, and beets. We will be using the fable, "Stone Soup", as an anchor for our project. We also used some of the beets for making beet chips in the cafeteria on Friday. The students watched while I used a mandoline, a French slicer used for making very thin "chips", and then they oiled and salted them. They were accepted very well by the class. We will make the soup together and then try it in class. The class also had one student who with some help was able to used all of plastic chain links to make an extremely long chain. We then walked to our special for that day having all the teachers and kids hold it off the ground. It was a nice community building activity.

Pumpkin Patch

Our Class Takes A Trip To Hudak's Farm stand
On our second field trip, our class got an opportunity to participate in many fun and educational activities. We picked out a pumpkin, decorated it with vegetables and plants, and got to see how the food from our school is tuned into compost. The farm uses the compost to then grow their wonderful vegetables and fruit. We also experienced an old fashioned way of getting dried corn off the ear. Later that week, we were able to go outside and each student pressed their own apple and tried fresh pressed apple juice.

Monarch Migration

Our Class Migrates To Mexico

Our class participated in an incredible activity last Friday. We were able to incorporate an authentic learning project where the students were the butterflies making their way to the mountains west of Mexico City, Mexico. We were treated to class made salsa and chips, quesadillas, Spanish music, and traditional dress. This culminating event featured a "cross pollination" of many content areas and was just a blast!! Our afternoon ended with the release of our butterflies.

Salsa And Seeds

Our Class Makes Salsa And Finds Out About Seeds
We made salsa on Thursday for our "Butterfly Migration" on Friday. We used tomatoes and peppers from our school garden and students were able to chop, blend, and mix. We also took a look at how seeds disperse and tasted a variety of seeds. It was a very fun week with lots of opportunities for hands on learning.