Stony Brook Field Trip

On Tuesday of this week we headed off to Stony Brook Nature Center in Norfolk for our spring field trip.  It was a picture-perfect day!  The children learned a great deal more about organisms and the different things that are needed in habitats such as forest, field and pond.  Think.... water, food, space and shelter.  We were lucky enough to see many different types of birds, plants, trees and insects as we hiked along the paths at Stony Brook.

Many thanks to our chaperones George Mix, Nicole Crocker and Blake McDermott for joining us on our adventure.  We all enjoyed a picnic lunch outside upon our return and then the children did an amazing amount of writing detailing their time at the nature center.  It was a great day indeed!

 

Our Garden is Open for Business!

Well, Room 10's garden is up and running for another season!  On April 27, with a beautiful sunny day on our side, we headed outside to begin planting.  Prior to putting the seeds in the dirt, however, we did what any good gardener would do and planned our approach.  We...

• Wrote our "Respectful Gardening Rules" so that we use the space with care, and respect for nearby classrooms.
• Brainstormed all the different types of vegetables and flowers we might like to grow, and learned that certain types will do better given our space and timing parameters.
• Broke up into four gardening teams, determined which seeds each team would plant and labeled our plant stakes.
• Invited Mr. Ravinski to come a day ahead of time with his rototiller to prep our soil.  He agreed!
• Coordinated a few parents helpers for the big day..... many thanks to Blake McDermott, Inger Kenworthy, Patti Allen and Michelle Mix for their extra sets of helping hands!
• Purchased fresh sets of seeds, salt marsh hay for our path, a new hose and spray nozzle.  Many thanks for the donations to our garden fund!

Pictures tell the story best, so take a peek below to see how our garden opening unfolded.  It was a lot of fun and we had many laughs.  Your first grader has surely reported that since then we have several new seedlings popping out of the ground.  Fingers crossed that our lettuce will be ready for harvest in time for Salad Day in June.  More soon about our garden's progress in the days ahead!