A Special Visitor

In addition to gardening, we are getting really good at journaling. That's because we do it every morning before going outside to garden! Mr. Johnson and Miss Smith write questions on the board to help us get started, but then it is up to us to write in our journals. When Garden Camp is over, we will be able to go back and read them to see what we learned this summer.

We worked out in the garden and in the flower beds in the front of the school. So many of the vegetables look like they are almost ready to be picked. We are excited to taste some of them when they are ready! We have learned that growing food locally is good for the environment because it doesn't take all the trucks to transport it to the store. Also, the things growing in our garden have no fertilizer or pesticides so they will be healthier and taste much better. Who knows, maybe someday some of us will have big gardens and sell fresh vegetables to local restaurants like Food Dance that we visited last week!

After gardening, we had a very special guest come to our class. Ms. Tammy Barnard of the Edison Neighborhood Association spoke to us about our neighborhood and the good things that are going on around us. We told her how we were doing our part to help make things better by working on the flower beds in front of our school, picking up trash, planting pretty flowers and bushes at a nearby house, and growing our own fresh food. Ms. Barnard brought each of us our very own copy of the Edison Voice, the newspaper published by the neighborhood association. You can see the Edison Neighborhood Association website at http://www.edisonneighborhood.com Thanks you, Ms. Barnard, for visiting us!

After a quick snack, we watched "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss. Wow! It was a neat story, but we all understood it had a bigger idea. If all the trees get cut down, there will be no habitat for animals. If factories keep polluting, the fish will die. And if there are no more trees, we will not have clean air. All the people that bought thneeds didn't really need them. We decided we can all make a difference with the decisions we make.

After lunch and recess, we had silent reading time and reading journal time. Then we all wrote a story about what we would do if someone was ruining the Edison neighborhood, like Mr. Onceler in The Lorax. We finished the day listening to Miss Smith read out loud to us. All in all, it was a great day at Garden Camp!