Hello VHE garden friends,

Spring is off to a slow start this year, but we are making progress in our outdoor classroom already! I took advantage of the wet conditions and lack of thunder this morning to make some repairs to the tire ruts leading into the garden. There’s only so much flattening one can do with boots and a shovel, but once it dries up a bit, we can get a little extra soil in there and finish the job. I want to share with you the pictures I took today. Come and check it out yourself! (whispering: and if you need to deliver anything to the garden, please no driving on the grass until it is much much much drier.)

 

Garlic sprout

There’s plenty of earthworm action out there!

New places to sit: stumps and benches.

New raised beds with rain garden in background

Folks, we’re gearing up for another growth spurt in our outdoor classroom. Check out the items in our wish list. Topping the list of fun items is an old boat or canoe we can stabilize in the garden for kids to play in. What a great use for an old boat!

We’re also looking for someone with carpentry skills to take some time to assemble raised beds. We’ll get the lumber, we’ll have it sawed into the right dimensions, and we’ll deliver it. All you have to do is screw it together into raised beds. We need them by April 20th.

Sound like someone you know could help? Put them in touch! Call Mary at 608/658-8914 or marymichaud@tds.net.

Outside, the garden may be buried under snow, but take a look inside our classrooms and check out what’s growing on the Windowsill!

The 4/5 students of Mr. C.’s class and Mrs. Mahr’s are rooting coleus and pothos cuttings and learning how important it is for scientists to ask lots of questions when conducting an experiment.  Students were encouraged to work together to come up with reasons why some plants root in water and others do not.

Ms. Delgado’s K/1 kids did the same project, only our little scientists soon found out from their drooping cuttings that their north-facing windowsill isn’t providing the sunlight their baby plants need to grow.

In Ms. Ostertag’s 2/3 classroom, each of five groups of kids suspended a sweet potato (with toothpicks) in a mason jar filled with water.  These sweet spuds should sprout roots soon and send out twisty, twirly, curly sweet potato vines.

And off the windowsill, Ms. Ostertag’s and Ms. Mileham’s class are making greenhouses out of recycled milk and juice containers.  For the next couple of weeks, kids will continue working in small groups to build their greenhouses and plant in them.  They will get to dig in the dirt indoors!

As each container is filled with soil and seed, it is placed outside Ms. Ostertag’s window to soak up what sun it can in the snowy garden.  We just may get to see some green growing out there soon!

Special thanks to the teachers and parent volunteers who are keeping our VHE’s Windowsill alive this winter season!

From Molly Krolczyk, a garden parent volunteer:

Mushrooms like the dark!

Gratitude underlies the exprience.

Mushrooms from the kids’ perspectives.

Kids organize their learning…

On February 13, kids from Ms. Ostertag’s class harvested some of their mushrooms!  Here is what happened:

• Caleb and Batool delivered some to Ms. Anne in the front office and Mrs. Keeler, our principal. (Ms. Keeler was out of the office at the time).
• Ms. Anne shared after school that she had eaten her mushroom and loved it.  She had all kinds of awesome words to describe its fresh taste vs. the store bought mushrooms.  She said she’d be happy to stop in the class sometime when she is going by to share her mushroom tasting experience with the kids in room 125!
• Kendra is jazzed to write on the red chart in the room with a mushroom harvest update.
• More mushrooms should grow.
• A big poster made by Lola is now hanging in the hall (with permission from the office).   It’s across from the big clay project.  It shares information about the mushroom project for the whole community.
• All the kids drew (and some labeled) the parts of the mushrooms today with oil pastels and painted over them with more watercolor fun!  Thanks Kathy for helping all those little artists with their brushes and water in such a short amount of time.  Kathy Broznya (another garden room parent) and I noticed that no two projects looked the same!  Lots of creative mushroom paintings out there.
• Some kids were just totally fascinated looking at the huge gills under the big broken mushroom cap.
• Lola’s family took extra mushrooms home tonight to get the dirt off and return to class tomorrow for those interested in taste testing.
• Huge thanks to Ms. Ostertag for supporting this little growing project and making space in her class for it to happen, and making a “job” for different students to water them.
• The young gardeners in rooms 125 and 103 are now growing sweet potato vines in water jars on their windowsills!

Thanks, Molly, for all your mushroom action!!

Our rain garden, doing its thing this morning!

Did you know that since 2010, the Van Hise Elementary Outdoor Classroom web site has had nearly 10,000 page views? We average between five and ten visitors a day, and we have had visitors from more than 15 countries across the globe.

Yep, our little garden is FAMOUS.

FAY. MUSS.

Reblogged from Madison Area GROW Coalition:

Check out the fine work of our friends over at the GROW Coalition. A schoolyard design gallery full of wonder! Share it with kids, and witness their reactions.

I sat in the garden, spattered
by the great drops of winter,
and it seemed to me impossible
that beneath all that sadness,
that crumbled solitude,
the roots were still at work
with no one to encourage them.

From Pablo Neruda: Absence and Presence

————

We must protect the forests for our children,
grandchildren and children yet to be born.
We must protect the forests for those
who can’t speak for themselves
such as the birds, animals, fish and trees.

Zitkala-Ša, Yankton Sioux Woman

—————-

That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology,
but that land is to be loved and respected
is an extension of ethics.

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

————————–

Treat the Earth well:
We do not inherit it from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.

Ancient Indian Proverb

——————

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.

Chinese Proverb

—————-

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Mary Michaud, VHE Parent Volunteer has been named one of three winners of the Metcalfe’s School Garden Leader Awards for her commitment and leadership in bringing garden-based learning to the Madison area!  Thanks to Mary’s hard work our school will get $1,000 for our Outdoor Garden Classroom!

Just three years ago Mary shared her vision to create a sensorial space for our children at VHE and today, thanks to many volunteers encouraged by Mary’s lively spirit and enthusiasm, we have five raised beds, twelve loose beds, compost bins, a shed, two hoop houses and a 700 square-foot rain garden with more than 25 species of native plants and wetland plants!

Mary won this award because of the many volunteer hours she has spent collaborating within the community, researching and writing grants, securing funds and donated materials.  She has successfully grown our garden into a learning space where our children can use their bodies naturally to climb, pull, jump, reach, leap and crouch down low to see their natural world up close.

At VHE our creative teachers are weaving the Outdoor Classroom into their curriculum, taking their students outside for sensorial breaks.  Kids are learning problem-solving skills and studying math, science, literacy, art and music throughout the school day.  The garden has become a place to meet friends after school; to play a game of football or to run in between the beds and hide among the willow.

We are growing!  This year every teacher at VHE has planted in the garden with his/her class!

Our Outdoor Classroom is a very special place and thanks to Mary’s dedication, our kids know that the garden belongs to them and that they belong to the garden.

Congratulations Mary!

Back by popular demand, and just in time for the holidays! These artful photographs, all taken in the Van Hise Elementary Outdoor Classroom, feature flowers and a purple cabbage all grown by our kids. Greeting cards with a purpose!!

Proceeds will go toward new raised beds and equipment to expand the kids’ growing season!

You can purchase a set of 4 cards for $10. Single cards will be available for $3 each after Thanksgiving. These are great holiday gifts, especially if you are interested in sending something to relatives that is unique and represents your school. Or share this site to invite others to order the cards!

Here are the photos:

To order:

1) Email your name, the name of your child’s teacher, and the number of sets you would like to order to marymichaud@tds.net.

2) Place an envelope with a check for the total amount made out to Van Hise PTO, and write “garden fund” in the memo box. Send the check to school with your child, and your child’s teacher(s) will put it in the PTO mailbox. Or you can drop it off in the office, too.

3) If you are ordering and do not have a child who attends Van Hise, please add $2 to cover shipping costs, and include your snail mail address. Send to: MM/Cards, 5025 La Crosse Lane, Madison, WI 53705.

4) Cards will be sent home in your child’s backpack the week before Thanksgiving.