Plant Detectives

Because the weather has been so cold . . . brrrrrr . . . we've been doing some learning on the computers about plants. We used a really cool site: http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/gpe/index.html
to learn about the different parts of plants and what they need to grow. After we finished researching a "case file" we solved some plant mysteries. It was fun. We worked in partners, too, which made it a little easier.
We also did some more plant observations. The seeds that we planted at the beginning of the year keep showing us new stuff. Sometimes they grow really well. Sometimes they shrivel and die. Sometimes nothing happens. Today, 3 more of us reseeded our plant jars. We put in LOTS of seeds to make sure SOMETHING grew. Next week we will take our plants home. Since we'll be gone for 2 weeks, it would be a good idea to have them in a warm home instead of a chilly school. Hopefully it won't be too cold on the way home. These flower sprouts don't like chilly weather.

SHOOTS!

Were we surprised when we saw how many different plants were shooting up in our flower jars! Those of us who re-seeded have lots and lots of little sprouts. We think they will need some more room soon. So we'll be transplanting them into larger containers. We continue to journal our observations. Some of us are measuring how long the leaves are growing. We all measure how much water our soil is holding. Someone also noticed today that all the plants seem to be leaning in one direction. We realized this was because we had left our jars sitting next to the window for 2 weeks. All the plants were growing toward the light! Fascinating!
For the rest of our time today, we worked in cross grade partners to study plants on the internet. Once we have reviewed our first case, we will attempt to solve a mystery.

The Cut and Mulch Salon

Okay, it was pretty darn cold today, but the sun was out so Mrs. M. said we had to get out and do some winterizing. The first thing we did was cut back the tall grasses outside the 3rd grade windows. We would grab a handful with two hands and Mrs. M would use loppers to cut the stalks off close to the ground. Then we had to fold the long grass a couple of time to put it in a large bag. We filled up 4 bags with the grasses. There is still one more grass plant that needs to be trimmed, but we had to get to the front reading garden before our class time was over.


In the front reading garden we cut back all the mums and mulched them. If we cover up the stems, they should stay nice and toasty during the winter and be ready to bloom again next fall. We all took turns using the smaller clippers to cut the mums back. We had shoveled a trashcan full of mulch and used it all up to cover the trimmed mums.
We had a few minutes to go check on our jar flowers. We were so excited. Many of us who replanted last week have up to 6 plant stems! It's wonderful to see something growing after such a long time of nothing. One of us realized we had drowned the seeds, because when we tipped the glass jar, water seeped out of the dirt. She'll probably have to replant next time, with a few others who still don't have anything growing.

Rainy Day :(

Today we wanted to go outside and winterize our gardens. But Mother Nature thought it would be funny to play a joke on us. It rained. :( So, instead we worked in our plant journals. We took a look at our jar flowers. Those of us who didn't have any plants got to plant new seeds. We had to loosen the soil and take some out. Turns out we had those pretty packed. We found some seeds had tried to grow and there were baby roots, but they were too deep in the soil. Next we took dead plants out of their pots to study the roots. We were surprised how long some of the roots were. Once we took off all the soil, we found 2 worm friends and a roly poly bug. We invited them to live in some of our living plants. Last we used all of our soil, mixed it with a bulb fertilizer, and put it in an aquarium. We planted about 10 bulbs, most of which were tulips. We think the other were daffodils. We will see. Hopefully something will grow.

Mini Paws

Did we mention that we also had 11 mini paws? These are for all our school staff who are not classroom teachers. So last Friday, we wrote all the instructional assistants', specialists' and staff's names on the little paws. We put them in a wagon and went around the school looking for everyone. When we found someone who wasn't busy, we told them what we were doing, found their paw, inked up their thumb, and cleaned them up after they printed. We called ourselves "full-service" because we brought the paint, paper towels, wet wipes and the garbage! We all had a job and it was fun. We didn't find everyone, though, so Mrs. M had to send a e-mail to invite all the rest. They've been coming in all week. The mini paws look great, too!

A Most Productive Day

We got so much accomplished today. First we checked our flower jars. Some of us have sprouts that are pretty big. Some of us still don't have any green shoots. And some of us had green sprouts, but now they aren't there. We're learning that seeds sometimes grow correctly and sometimes they don't. All in all, it's pretty interesting.
Then Mrs. M. showed us how some of the plants in our classroom reproduce, which makes more of itself. Two plants grows new plants from the underground root. Another plant grows baby plants on a shoot shot out from the plant's stems and leaves. We are going to have quite a few baby plants to pot later this winter.




Next we went outside and did some dead-heading and thistle pulling in the front gardens. It will look very nice for the Halloween parade this afternoon. Last we help Mr. Oscar bring six containers of mulch to the hosta garden. The mulch is like a blanket for the hosta roots. They will be nice and warm during the winter.
We had hoped to put the stepping stones in the outdoor classroom today. (All the kids in school got to put a thumb print on one. They look really cool.) But no one contacted us about donating the crushed rock or gravel for the stepping stone area. Hopefully we can get that here next week and then place all our paw prints.
Mrs. M. said she'd post some photos for this entry later.

The next steps . . .

Our paw print stepping stones look soooo awesome! Today we stained the rest of them in our school colors, yellow and blue. Then we started writing the classroom teachers' names on them. We also put what grade they teach and the school year, 2008-2009. We used paint pens for that. The blue one was being difficult, and then the tip for the gold pen got really short. They turned out okay, though. Then we wrote a letter to the classroom teachers inviting them to come to the Challenge classroom sometime next week. We want every student to put a thumb-print on their classroom's paw print. They will get to use whatever color paint they want. It is going to look so cool when they are all done. We are planning to place all the stepping stones next Friday. Keep your fingers crossed that we have good weather.

Another step closer

We took our paw print stepping stone out of the mold today and took a look at which of our trinkets we could see. Only a few are showing. We were really surprised to see some very light weight things, like a guitar pick and some coins, had stayed put and are easily seen. Next week we'll be finishing up all the paws so that each classroom can come and put their thumb prints on their class's personal stepping stone. We are planning to put them all in the garden on Halloween!

We went outside to check out our new deck. It was put in last weekend. We think it looks pretty great! We also checked out the area where our stepping stones are going to be. There is a pretty nice space for them, but we need something to fill in the gaps around where our stepping stones will be. So when we came back inside, we wrote a letter to local landscaping companies to ask for donations of crushed rock, small pebbles or pea gravel to fill it in. That will make it even easier for us to maintain, since we won't need anyone to mow any grass! We hope someone will have some material we can have.

Maybe a little tooooo quick

This past Friday, we were a small group. 2nd grade was on a field trip, so 3rd grade got to make the Challenge paw print stepping stone. We used Quick-Set cement and boy was it quick! A little too quick. It hardened in the bucket before we could pour it in the mold. Most of the Challenge kids had put little souvenirs in the mold to represent themselves. Once we poured the cement, a lot of the light-weight things floated to the top. The super balls were the worst. Mrs. M kept poking them back down with a pencil but they would come back up. Finally, when the cement was hardening, they would stay down. We can't wait to see which of our trinkets will be able to be seen. What was really cool though was how when we poured it, the concrete was cold. But as it started to get hard, it got HOT!

We took a look at our jar plants. Some of us have new sprouts, some of us don't. One of us even has 2! Two of us have sprouts underground but next to the glass. We took some moisture readings and gave the soil some water if it was too dry. Then we placed them all back in the sunshine.

Finally, we went outside and did some more weeding in our hosta garden. There's a weed in there that looks like really big creeping Charlie. It is really rooted in there well. We pretty much left it alone. The grass, though, was easier to pull up. And we kept amazing ourselves with how long of a root we could pull out. We took a look at the outdoor classroom space and pulled up a few big weeds there, too. The deck was put in this weekend! We'll have to get all our paw print stepping stones out there pretty soon.

Attack of the Thistle Enemy

When we went outside today, we had 2 jobs to do. We dead-headed the marigolds and the mums in the front of the school. The marigolds were in the barrel garden and the mums were in the reading garden. Dead-heading means taking off the dead flowers by pinching the stem under the old bloom. Our fingers smell like flowers now. It was pretty easy to dead-head. Then we put on our gloves and started to pick thistle. The thistle had invaded our reading garden! Even when we had our gloves on, the thistle felt prickly when we picked it. They are mean nasty enemies to the plants we want in the garden and our fingers. We made a big difference after we picked all of the thistle out.
We learned about some of the grasses that are planted in the garden. The grasses have "feathery things" on the top of them that are actually their seed pods. When the seeds dry out later this fall, they will fall down and go into the soil. Next year we'll have even more grasses.
We also found a few more interesting things in the garden today, like two different kinds of mushrooms. Mushrooms are good for the earth because they are decomposers. That means they break up dead plant material to make food for the soil. Mushrooms are also called fungus. We also found some white mold growing in the mulch. Mold is another decomposer. Decomposers show up when there's been lots of rain.
There was also a cricket hopping around in there. We found a grub, but we threw him away because he is a pest.

Jar Flowers

We planted wildflowers in jars today. We used antique jars from a farm in the early 1900s (we're reusing them) and filled them with soil. Then we put six tiny seeds into each jar. We were surprised at how small and different looking they all were. The seeds were in a wildflower seed mix. Some of the flowers we might be growing are black-eyed-susans, poppies, forget-me-nots, and candy tuft. After we poked in the seeds, we covered them with more soil. We pushed it down and added even more soil on top of that. We watered them. Because the soil was soooo dry, the water stayed on top of the soil or got underneath the soil and floated it. It will soak in eventually. Last, we put them in the sunshine by the window. We will keep a log of what we observe all year. Hopefully we'll have flowers all winter!

Planting Frenzy

Today, we started off planting an avocado seed that had grown roots and little itsy bitsy stems. Soil gives nutrients to the plants in it. That's why it is called black gold. We learned what back filling was, too. You put the soil back in to cover the roots. Then we went outside! We planted the azalea and 2 ground covers. First we un-clumped the soil. Then Mrs. W dug the holes. We took the plants out of the containers. The azalea was a rough job! It took 8 of us to loosen it up and tug it out. Then we all back filled the plants. We newspapered the garden next. We did this to keep the weeds from growing. It blocks out the sun. We put a little bit of soil on top of the newspaper to keep it from flying away. Then we covered everything (except the plants) with lots and lots and lots of mulch; 3 garbage cans full! Finally we gave everything in the garden a nice drink! Our outdoor classroom is looking great!

First Steps into the Outdoor Classroom

Friday, we were able to take our first real steps toward completing the outdoor classroom. Mrs. W. came across an awesome deal on some plants. We had to decide where to place them based on sunlight needs and height requirements. We made sure that the grasses we planted wouldn't cover up the windows of the classrooms. Since we ran out of time, Mrs. W. planted them for us this weekend. They got lots of rain to start off their lives in our new learning space.

Weeds, say your prayers!

This morning we pulled weeds in the hosta garden. We learned how to pull a weed. You dig down to the root and then pull on the top of the root, twisting slowly. It is important that we get the root because if you don’t get the root, it will grow back, again and again and again and again and again . . . . ☺ We learned which plants are good in the garden and which are bad. The bad ones are called weeds. Weeds are anything you don’t want in you garden. They can hurt the plants you want in your garden by taking the water the good plants need. It can steal the nutrients from the soil. It can wrap itself around a plant and “choke” it, which would kill it. We found lots of bugs in the garden, too! There were crickets, daddy-long-legs, pillbugs, ants; lots and lots of ants. They crawled all over Kathleen. Our hosta garden looks much prettier now.