What to bring: a picnic for yourself and your family, work gloves if you have them, bug spray
There is a strong possibility it will rain, so if we need to postpone, plan to come on Wednesday, July 1 instead.
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On Monday, June 29 at 5:30pm, Outdoor Ed is hosting the first (of several, we hope) family picnic and work nights for the garden. Those weeds are SO happy about all the rain we've gotten!
What to bring: a picnic for yourself and your family, work gloves if you have them, bug spray There is a strong possibility it will rain, so if we need to postpone, plan to come on Wednesday, July 1 instead.
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Here are a few images from the last few days of school... Have a wonderful summer, everyone! School's out, but the gardens are still growing and I'm still blogging. After a couple weeks of vacation I'll be back with updates and announcements for summer volunteers.
KG and first graders harvested lettuce, kale, spinach and radishes from their salad garden last week. What a bounty grew there this year! Goes to show what a little TLC and a lot of good purple cow does for a garden... We have a few tips for successful salad harvest and consumption with kids age 5-7: Tip #1: Scissors! Small safety scissors used in the classroom work best. Kids can clip leaves at the stem instead of pulling up the whole plant. Even if you plan to pull up your salad garden and plant something else in that spot, cutting the leaves prevents dirt and roots from mucking up the bowls used to clean the leaves. Tip #2: Lemon oil! This was new to me. KG parent Camille used a few drops of lemon oil in the rinsing water as a natural disinfectant. Plus, it smells good. Tip #4: Dressing!! I have to admit, for a lot of kids, eating salad is ALL ABOUT THE DRESSING. We brought homemade dressing (recipes below) and spooned it on plates for the kids to dip the leaves in. Ranch dressing is especially popular, though some also liked vinaigrette. Some kids ate a few leaves, while others crammed fistfuls into their mouths and couldn't get enough. To make ranch dressing, mix the following in a jar and shake it up:
To make vinaigrette, mix the following:
Spring in Madison always amazes me. It seems like we wait and wait until we can hardly stand it, and then Spring comes all at once, with flowers (and weeds!) growing furiously so one barely recognizes the same place in a garden from one day to the next. Today, our school woods is lush and green from top to bottom. Two weeks ago if you stood at one of the main trail, you could see to the other end. Today, your view would be obstructed by explosion of leaves and flowers that have enjoyed abundant rain this season. Every spring, retired art teacher Linda Gourley digs up hundreds - yes, hundreds - of ephemerals from her own yard and brings them to Crestwood so that every student can plant them in their grade-level plots. This time around she drew up some charming instructions and labeled all the plants with price tags, not because we need to pay her money for them, but so the students understand what they would cost at a local nursery. Some plants she brought (hepatica, twin leaf, trillium) are really quite rare and precious. We were able to get most classes outside. Rain, field trips, holiday weekend and scheduling issues prevented a few from having their turn, alas. But in the two weeks surrounding the Memorial Day weekend, at least 300 ephemerals were planted! Additionally, bags upon bags of garlic mustard were filled and chucked in the dumpster and the kids tried to put a dent in the jewel weed taking over the back half of the woods. We tell the kids that they are the caretakers of these woods. It belongs to all of them, and part of their responsibility as students at Crestwood is to pull weeds and plant native flowers. My hope is that by caring for this space, they will appreciate the importance of natural and wild spaces, and that they will carry that appreciation beyond Crestwood as they make their way in the world.
Of course, all of this happened two weeks ago! Next post I'll try to catch up on all the vegetable planting. Like I said before, spring comes in a rush! Cheers, Susan |
AuthorCrestwood's OE committee is dedicated to outdoor learning for all students. Archives
August 2017
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