We have returned from a week away (Thanksgiving break) and there are leaves everywhere.  Mounds of them. The 4th Grade Garden Club members pitched in raking up leaves to help keep the school beautiful and neat.  We also transplanted the Sweet Peas along the side.  With luck, they will provide us with beautiful flowers when we get back from Winter Break next year. 

The two caterpillars that we raised turned into chrysalis then Monarch butterflies.  The first to become a chrysalis, then emerge last week, was healthy and eager to be set free in our garden.  The second one, sadly, seems somewhat deformed and is not doing well.  We will keep it supplied with oranges and hope it perks up.

Today we added radish seeds to our large plot plus two more lettuce plants and two chard plants.  We gave two other rooms our extra snap peas seeds, lettuce and chard plants. In our smaller plot, we added snap pea seeds. We also enjoyed garden art with Ms. Lisa.  As always, we puttered around the garden picking up weeds and debris and observed the changes in our plants as they start to take off.  Missing today was Ms. Silvia and Ms. Carolyn.  We missed you.  

The 4th Grade Garden Club was glad that the much wished for rain storm held off until later in the day.  We had lots to do.  We started by picking up trash that blew into the garden.  A group of students became Team Garden Signs and met with Ms. Lisa and Ms. Carolyn to decorate garden signs assembled by Ms. Liza.  Another group of students became Team Herbs and planted some dill, thyme, and ?. Still another group became Team Viola and planted violas in the Garden Club's two plots.  More students joined Flower Pot Team and added potting soil and Iceland Poppies, Snap Dragons, and Pansies in an empty potting container near the Densmore gate.  Ms. Silvia met with students and showed them the butterfly that emerged from the cocoon.  A few weeks earlier we saw it as a caterpillar, then as a chrysalis, now as a adult butterfly.  Today we set it free.  We also took a look at the two Monarch chrysalis that formed from the two caterpillars we have been feeding - boy the ate a lot!  Ms. Silvia also showed us a pumpkin carved into a jack-o-lantern that now has mold spores growing on it. We put it in the worm bin.  We will check next week to see how the worms liked it. Plus, Ms. Silva brought a very interesting tomato with plant(s) growing from it.  Lastly students planted some avocado seeds in to pots.