SWALLOWTAIL

MÁS FOTOS

FLORECIMIENTO

MAS FOTOS

I COUNTED LEMON CUCUMBERS by MELISSA

This paragraph is about an activity we did in the garden. First our teacher gave us a plant to find in the garden. We made how many of those plants can we find. We made tally marks to show how much we counted.

EVERYTHING COUNTS IN THE GARDEN

LAKEVIEW BLOOMS

Lakeview School Garden had these wonderful "blooms" on the fencing around their garden. They were simple flower shapes cut out of thick cardboard and painted by the students using tempera paint. How can we make our school garden bloom with colorful art?

LONGWOOD TEACHERS PARTICIPATE IN GLC

6 teachers from Longwood went to visit Lakeview School Garden in Oakland as part of the Growing Learning Communities program. We saw how beautiful their garden is. They have about 10 large planter boxes filled with flowering plants like geranium, salvia, and petunias. We did an activity in the garden. We learned how to gently shake the leaves of a plant onto a cardboard tray to trap insects that we could examine. I found two spiders, a ladybug, a leafhopper, ants, inch worm larva, and aphids.

Shapes in the Garden

This was a great lesson. Identifying shapes is a standard found through-out the grade levels. As we know students have different learning styles and need many opportunities to solidify their learning of new material. This lesson was easy to prepare. I just cut up pieces of paper into circles, squares, triangles and rectangles. Then I had the students go into the garden looking for the shape they held. Once they found a shape they would hold the paper up to show they found the shape. The students had a great time and really demonstrated their knowledge of shapes.

DIARIO DE UNA CIENTIFICA

Otra página del diario de una científica. Esa ilustración muestra la diferencia entre una larva recién emergido del huevo y una larva madura.

SCIENTIST'S JOURNAL

This colorful swallowtail butterfly has just laid her eggs on an anise plant. When the eggs hatch tiny caterpillars will start to eat the leaves of the plant. As they grow they will change color and be like the caterpillar Ms. Elizabeth found in the school garden today.

ENTYMOLOGY

Ms. Elizabeth found this caterpillar munching on the anise plant in the garden. It is going to be a swallowtail butterfly but right now it has to eat as much as it can to be ready for metamorphosis. You can follow the progress of this butterfly as it changes from a larva into an adult.

WHAT PLANTS DO I EAT?

I made this recipe from the book "Carlos and the Squash Plant" by Jan Romero Stevens in class today with the students.
We started by brainstorming all the plants that we eat. Then we took a look at the specific things we were going to cook for the calabacitas. I let the students taste the raw zucchini and tomato. I had them smell the garlic and chile.
As I added each ingredient I made a list that the students copied in their List of Ingredients. When I was finished I reviewed the steps and wrote out the Instructions as the students told me what they remembered.

Garden

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MEASURING THE GARDEN HARVEST

Ms. MacNab's class went out to the garden and measured many different fruits, vegtables and flowers that we found growing. We hope you enjoy some of our drawings.

BIODIVERSITY

This big moth was resting on the shaded wall at the edge of the garden. It measured about 10 cm. I was surprised at how big it was. Because it was resting its wings were tucked in so I couldn't see how wide its wingspan was.
I remember when I started at Longwood we had so many different creatures in our garden that I rarely if ever see now. We had all kinds of butterflies. We had a tree frog. I netted a praying mantis once. Sometimes when I walked in the garden bird locusts would rise up in front of my foot. I even found a rare salamander hiding underneath the wood of the planter box one winter.
There is a greater diversity of creatures living or visiting our garden now. We have many kinds of birds, especially hummingbirds. We have lots of kinds of insects, crawling and flying. We have a family of mice and there are many holes and tunnels that suggest gophers.
We seem to have lost the tree frog and the bird locusts and the salamanders. I wonder how we can entice them back.

HOW MANY SEEDS IN A TOMATO?

The students did this lesson from the Math in the Garden book today. We started by listing the different parts of a plant. Then I asked them to estimate how many seeds they thought were in a sample small tomato. Then we went for a walk through the garden. I picked out several fruits, cucumber, corn, bean, and tomato to show the students that a fruit is the part of the plant that has the seeds. I brought extra tomatoes so everyone could taste.
When we came back to the class I gave pairs of students two halves of a small tomato. They each had a plastic knife and a sheet of paper to put the seeds out on to count. I asked them to count the seeds in their half and add that number to their partner's half. Then I asked them to write the number of seeds on the sheet of paper.
Most of the students were able to separate the seeds from the pulp of the tomato. Very few of the students used the knife as a counting and grouping device. Only one pair made a tally of the seeds as they were counting even though I had explicitly taught that in a previous lesson. Only three pairs completed the activity by recording their data on the sheet of paper.
I think I will do this activity again but use a different fruit next time. I will explicitly model the estimating, the counting, the tallying, and the recording.