Kids Garden Class 2018

[Collector]

You are doing a great service for your community. I enjoy gardening because I was around it as a child with parents and grandparents. You never know when you will create a spark of interest in a child that will catch fire and stay with them throughout their life.

 

[thistlebloom]

Yesterday afternoon we met for our 4th class time.
Our BFWOTD was Horticulture. It's a repeat from last year, but not such a common term that the kids remembered the definition.

I split the kids into 3 teams, one to plant corn, another to lift and pot some more volunteer potatoes, and the third to use their watering cans to water the containers.

I had already watered the garden, but using the watering cans is a favorite and I needed to keep them occupied while I worked with the corn planters. Of course several of the boys ended up watering each other until I stepped in. There will be other days when we can get soaked, but right now we are still teetering on the cliff of chaos and I have to maintain as much order as possible until the routine is established.

I ran into a scheduling issue, the three teams were unevenly tasked as far as the time required to do their assignments, so some were finished before the more time consuming and attention heavy corn planting was done.

This is going to take some creativity on my part to have other things to occupy them when there is slack time. I came up with a rock collecting chore. We have no lack! I gave them a bunch of nursery pots and sent them out to pick up rocks as big as their fists or bigger. I told them that they were going to be used for a landscaping project later this summer. That kept them busy for awhile.

We planted the Painted Mountain corn, and when we went back to work in our journals I handed out some ears of dried PMC for our Observation of the Day.

Their task is to observe closely and record their discoveries in their journal. Some of them do this well, and some are too young to have developed writing skills so I am kept busy helping the littles with writing a few basics in their journals.

It was a good session, but it's such a large group with a wide age range that I will need to be ultra organized to keep it working smoothly.

 

[Collector]

Sounds like an interesting session, you may need to find yourself a teachers aid.

 

[thistlebloom]

Yes. I need to work something out. Either a parent, or the oldest kid who is 13.

 

[Carol Dee]

Sounds like an interesting session, you may need to find yourself a teachers aid.

I would volunteer as an aid but live too far away!

 

[catjac1975]

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.

View attachment 26080

Our first crop -sweetpeas!

View attachment 26081

They all look like they will not mind getting dirty.

 

[digitS']

Yes. I need to work something out. Either a parent, or the oldest kid who is 13.

Oh, I don't know ...

I was so rebellious at 13! My DB was going into his late teens and would drop out of senior year in high school. I could see what he was getting away with.

"Teenagers," it was such a loaded term. What could be expected of me? We left the farm the next year and that writing was already on the wall ... Chores that were so important through my childhood were just gonna be walked away from. I'd be an urbanite!

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

This is a nice 13 YO I'm talking about. If he wasn't he wouldn't be in my class!

They all look like they will not mind getting dirty.

Nope, they don't think anything of it. They're all country kids. Getting dirty is an everyday occurrence. They all have horses and steers and pigs to take care of.

 

[majorcatfish]

@thistlebloom we need a update.....

 

[thistlebloom]

@thistlebloom we need a update.....

Yes, I'm so far behind. Thanks for the reminder Major. Hopefully tonight. I have a bunch of pics to download and sort.