Jason and I met with a small group of children in the Charity Garden to observe how the plants had sprouted and to sew more seeds. The small group: Devin, Dawson, Owen, Maddox and Phoebe slid into gloves and explored the new seeds, soil, bugs and growth. We noticed that the last rains had decimated a roof line row of seeds in our planter beds, that our pole beans need support, we need to thin the fig vine to create more light, and we’ll do another succession planting in approximately 3 weeks.
Devin planted more sweet peppers, “I’m in charge of these ones.” And Maddox planted pole beans with Jason, “One, two, three, four…”. Owen planted the sugar snap peas and related the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk. “Jack climbs up into the clouds. With Peggy we’re going to pretend that next time.” When Dawson was waiting for his turn, he located some mushrooms that had sprouted after the rain. “These are definitely poisonous mushrooms. Sometimes when the rain falls and the stuff makes mushrooms. Where you have soil it makes mushrooms.”
Dawson later planted bush beans and questioned, “How do they
get into a plant?” I dug up a seedling hoping to find a discarded seed shell
nearby and showed it to Dawson. He took a picture and asked, “Where is the seed?”
Teacher Strategies:
Use Luca’s seed starter window kit he brought to EW circle
to observe how a seed turns into a plant.
Take some drawings and photos of the mushrooms and use resources to identify them.
Put rain gutters on the wish list.
Execute childrens ideas on how to support the pole bean vines.