Sunday, November 6, 2016

A new outdoor learning area... and, 'Phase I' of creating our future community garden space begins!

Joan has been leading the construction of a new outdoor learning area at Dickson, which we would like to be prominently featured in this week's blog post. But before we commit to doing mostly that, we would like to quickly do a bit of a photo digest on other happenings over the past week:
Preparing the toppings for pizzas. Fresh sauce made from vine-ripened tomatoes donated from Juanita's Produce in Candler and hand-picked by Mr. M!
Baking pumpkin bread using flax seed that the students ground into flour by hand
Carving out a pumpkin. Seeds were counted, cleaned, further inspected, even tasted :)

First graders starting up some of their very own microgreens. Yum!
OK, now more on this new outdoor learning area: Fourth grade and reading buddies -- along with the IDES learning garden team and Asheville Greenworks -- are preparing this space so that teachers can take their class outside to have some fun and natural education+play.  Eventually the space will become a pollinator garden full of awesome native trees and other pollinator-friendly plants! We will gladly take teachers and classes (and parents) on a tour if you'd like an orientation of sorts, or... you can head over there with your own gear and plan. Either way, it is awesome and majestic and... please consider bringing some of your own ideas to help us further invent this space!

Students can sit and paint the divine fall foliage of our forest (bring your own paint and brushes) Or, just sit on a freshly sanded mini-log and marvel at the contrast between the sky and the trees. Three deep breaths and your day just changed for the better =)
Pumpkins are a hit! Lots of ideas for how to use them to encourage learning (counting, moving, etc.) are written down at this station, compliments of Ms. Shader
Painting station, and seats enough for an entire classroom to take in the forest view to the north...
Baskets can be used for collecting treasures from nature - pine cones, acorns, flowers , seeds etc sort of like and Easter egg hunt! Take what you find or leave it ... your choice!
We've brought in bunches of seeds, and will continue to bring in more - maybe you have seeds from home that could be added to the pile? Kids can count them, compare shapes, etc.
Buckets can be used to collect rocks and trash and sticks and debris - you might dump filled buckets into the big trash can!
Enjoy these wood pieces - we have so much of them! Please encourage students to take some home or build in the classroom, or up cycle into ornaments or whatever!
Teachers: if you want help (in the form of a person accompanying you) with this and any of our other educational activities planned for the next couple of weeks, please either DROP IN at will or email Joan (link at the top right of the blog) to reserve a day and time that she can plan to work with you. Parents: teachers will let you know if they have garden-related stuff planned for your kids during the day, and how you might join in and help.

Finally, I decided that the signupgenius page was WAY too formalized and cumbersome to recruit extracurricular participation from parents and the community. Instead, Joan and I want to declare permanent volunteer hours open to parents, neighbors of IDES, local businesses, anyone in the Asheville community that doesn't mind getting dirty and gettin' er done:

-- Fridays 3:00 until 5:30 PM
-- Saturdays 1:00 until 4:00 PM (or later, if the tasks at hand demand and the mood permits =)

At the end each blog post (YOU ARE HERE :) we'll describe the focus of the coming week. We do ask that you email Joan if you intend to come, so that we can have a head count / ensure that we have enough snacks and tools on hand. This coming Friday and Saturday we'll be:

1) Building some microgreen 'garden-in-a-pot/tub/etc's for classrooms to keep right outside their doors
2) Executing on Phase 1 of our Community Garden space: Relocating raised beds

Hope to hear from those of you that want to get involved with the garden -- either during the school day or afterschool at the end of the week / outside normal school hours!