Monday, June 30, 2008

Week 3 is underway!

We started week three of Garden Camp today!

After a healthy breakfast, we wrote in our journals and answered two questions: what are the parts of the plant we eat? Why do we eat plants?

Plants have leaves, roots, a stem, seeds, flowers, and sometimes fruit. We eat plants to help keep us healthy. They have many nutrients that people need.

We pulled weeds in the garden today. It is important to pull the weeds so that the plants get all the nutrition, not the weed. We also pulled weeds in front of the building to help our school continue to look great!


We did some planting at one of our neighbors, who is also the grandad of one of us at garden camp!
After lunch and free time, we spent time reading silently. Then Mr. Johnson shared with us what the parts of plants do. There’s a lot going on in there!

Then we cleaned up, watered the garden one more time, and finished the day listening to Miss Smith read out loud to us.

Here is a video of today:



Garden Camp at Edison rocks!

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Week 2

This week was awesome! We learned all about farms and how farmers grow plants and raise animals to make money. We were able to visit a farm and see how these farmers raised cows to get milk and fertilizer. We also designed our own farms. We made posters and went to the computer lab to make advertisements. Overall, this week was just as fun as last week, and I can't wait for next week!!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Day 6

We had plenty to do and learn on Day 6 of camp. Starting the day by journaling is a great to get our thinkers activated and ready to learn! We also took care of morning gardening chores by watering and weeding. It was time to plant some more of our plants from the greenhouse too.

The weather was beautiful so we had lunch outside in the courtyard again. In addition to our own silent reading time, Mr. Johnson and Miss Smith have been reading a book to us. It is a mystery book and keeps us on the edge of our seat!

Community service is part of what we do at Garden Camp. We spoke to one of our neighborhood friends about helping him with his yard. We are excited for the opportunity to serve!

Tomorrow, we might be taking a field trip. Check back to see where we go!

Monday, June 23, 2008

Day 5


Today was a busy day! There were extra people here today taking pictures for our school. They took many pictures of our Garden Camp activities too. Here are what two students have to say about today:

Dominick: "We pulled weeds and watered our plants. We also ate lunch. We also did a KWL chart about farms. Miss Smith told us to look at things in our house to see what came from a farm. Corn, peas, and other things grow in the spring. In summer, soybeans, watermelon, cucumber, celery, zucchini and peppers are grown. We played outside on the swingsets and picked up trash."

Joanna: "We ate snacks. We watered. We learned about farm animals. A chicken comes from a chicken. Milk comes from a cow. Eggs come from a hen. Meat comes from a pig and a cow. We played outside and picked up trash."

Here is a video with a few highlights from today:

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Day 4 - Farmers Market and Microscopes

Today we got a great start with breakfast in the room and by journaling. Today was also our first trip to the farmers market, so we worked together to create a list of questions for our research. Our questions were:
  • Where do your seeds come from?
  • How long did it take for _____ to grow?
  • How many different types of plants do you grow?
  • What jobs do you do to make your plants grow?
  • How do you know when to pick?
  • How do you decide the price?
With clipboards and our questions in hand, we walked to the farmers market, which is just a few blocks away. Here is a video with pictures of what we did on our field trip.




After lunch and silent reading time, we explored microscopes! We learned that a microscope magnifies whatever is being viewed by 4, 10, and sometimes 40 times! To demonstrate, Mr. Johnson showed us the letter 'e' under the microscope connected to the computer.


After that, we were able to use the microscopes that Mr. Johnson got out for us. He and Miss Smith helped us get the different slides of corn parts focused so that we could draw them. The tiny little things under the microscope were cells. We learned that every living thing is made up of cells, even people!


On Monday, we will see more pictures of cells and start another week of Garden Camp!

The First Week of Garden Camp

The first week of garden camp was SO MUCH FUN!! We have already learned a ton about what it takes to grow plants, and what we can do with the plants we grow. My favorite part of the week was our trip to Farm N Garden. Ben, the owner, gave us an amazing tour and taught us so much about how we use plants. He also let us eat many of the vegetables that he had growing in his garden. This week was great, I can't wait until Monday!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

This Weeks Theme

This week we have been learning about how to classify plants and the anatomy of plants. We have been observing the plants in our schoolyard to identify plant structures that are similar and not so similar. Today we observed different kinds of roots, leaves, stems and seeds. Tomorrow we will look at the most basic structure of the plant, the cell. This will be many of the students first experience with a microsocpe.

Day 3 - Community Service

There was plenty to learn and do on day three of Garden Camp. We started by writing answers in our journal to these questions: What are three things we learned at Farm N Garden yesterday? What do we want to do with our plants after they grow? After collecting them, how many different types of plants do we think are outside of Edison?

Mr. Johnson showed us three of his books from college. They are botany books and list all of the plants that are native to Michigan. There are over 250,000! He said those books are like a dictionary for plants in Michigan. Instead of looking up words, you have to identify the plant by its leaves instead.



After that, it was time for some gardening. Some of us planted tomatoes and carrots while others helped to weed the other garden beds. Gardening is hard work but it is also very fun and rewarding!

After a quick snack, we split into two groups to canvas the neighborhood with our letter that we wrote on day one. This is the letter where we offer assistance to our neighbors to help with their gardens and yards.

The weather was beautiful, so we came back and had lunch in the courtyard. Chicken noodle soup, crackers, and an apple slice with peanut butter...yummy!

In the afternoon, we talked about the different parts of a plant. We learned about the root system, stems, and more. There is more to a plant than meets the eye!

We wrapped up the day by watering, reading, and journaling. Tomorrow, we are taking another field trip. Check back to video of where we went and what we did!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Day 2 - Field Trip to Farm N Garden

We started the day journaling and preparing for our field trip to Farm N Garden. Here is a video with highlights of the trip.




We learned many things from Mr. Ben at Farm N Garden. Did you know there are more than 9,000 kinds of grass in the world? They have many different species growing in the botanical garden there. Some grasses don't grow as fast as others, which means they don't have to be mowed as often. This is good for the environment because if we mow less, we use less gasoline and produce fewer emissions into the atmosphere.

We saw more than grass though. There was alfalfa, sorghum, and clover, which are grown for feeding animals. They also had broccoli, peas, and different kinds of edible greens that people can eat for food. We even got to try some of them fresh from the garden!

As our tour started to wind down, Mr. Ben and his daughter brought us healthy snacks (carrots, grapes, and juice boxes) that we enjoyed in the sunshine. The botanical garden is a great place for a picnic!

Before we left, we looked at the seeds in the Farm N Garden store. All of us were able to pick out a few seeds that we could plant ourselves back at Edison. We also picked out gloves to use while gardening.

When we returned, we had a healthy lunch and some time to play on the playground. Everyone came back together in the courtyard for silent reading time, which went by really fast! We wrapped up the day by planting our seeds and watering the garden. All in all, it was a great day at Garden Camp!

Special thanks to Ben and all the staff at Farm N Garden for making our field trip a great time!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Day 1 - Here we are!


It was a great start to Garden Camp 2008 at Edison today!

We started with introductions, then got right into it. First, we journaled and asked ourselves these questions: What do all plants have? What do all plants need? How do we use plants? There are many different answers and we wrote about them in our journals.

After a quick snack, Mr. Johnson reviewed how to water plants, pull weeds, handle tools, how to plant, and handed out gloves for us to use. Then we went outside and planted peppers and tomatoes.

Part of Garden Camp will include serving our community. Together, we wrote a letter that we will give to our neighbors near Edison asking if we can be of service to them and help keep their garden and yard looking as good as ours. It is good citizenship to be of service to our neighbors.

After lunch, we toured the school grounds looking for different kinds of plants that grow right in our own yard. We took samples of these and brought them back to our classroom to organize them. There were big, small, skinny, wide, and many other ways to categorize them. We put them on large sheets of paper so that we can study them further and better organize them.

One of things we need to do twice a day is water the plants that we are growing. We have some things growing in the greenhouse, but some things are outside too. We all get the opportunity to water, weed, and care for the things we are growing.

We wrapped up the day with silent reading, learning about the different parts of a plant, and listening to Miss Smith read to us. Overall, it was a great first day of Garden Camp at Edison Environmental Science Academy!

Monday, June 9, 2008

Welcome!

Welcome to the official blog of all things gardening and green at Edison Environmental Science Academy.