So yesterday as soon as I published the first post, I felt that I didn't leave the originally intended impression. Actually, I didn't tell you anything about the purpose of this blog. I told you that I am an educator. I teach in Richardson Independent School District as an ESL teacher. I am sure you're wondering what an ESL teacher has to do with gardening. Well, to be honest, not too much until now. And even then, the relationship is haphazard. Here at Springridge Elementary (SRE), we began Enrichment Clusters last September. Our principal attended a workshop for this new supplement. She and a few other teachers on campus trained the rest of us. At first, the feelings for all of us were bittersweet. I do feel bad for saying that for you to read, but you have to know that teachers are busy people with little extra time and somehow we are expected to add supplements to our curriculum every year. I'm not sure how we do it, but we do. Keep in mind that we believe it's for the children and if it's going to help them then we will find a way!
So, the blog yesterday was a lot about me, me and me. My intentions are to make it about the kids, kids and kids. If parents, community members, teachers, etc. are going to read this one day, then they don't want to know about Ms. Cohen. They want to read about their children. Yesterday's blog was a super edited version of what we had been working on for the past 15 weeks. I hope you realize that the garden enrichment cluster started out as a tiny six week plan: learn, grow, create, make and share. Now its plan is to be a monumental model for other schools in our school district. You need to know that it's facilitated by Tom Savay and me. If you meet us, you will quickly find out that we are NOT gardening experts. We love the kids; we love to teach; we love to let them be enriched by what gardening will offer. If you google youth gardening, you will find a plethora of websites dedicated to kids' gardening. One such website, that we use the most is http://www.kidsgardening.org/. They are fantastic. Very well-versed, as they should be, in the area of youth gardening. They provide curriculum/lesson plans. Enrichment clusters are designed as authentic learning and one main ingredient is application. In our race to complete the grade-level TEKS by TAKS time, there is often not enough time for application. EC is a way to bring the outside world into the school world and practice applying their skills in an area of interest. If you know the SRE teachers, you will know that we educate the future leaders of the world so if that means stopping our standard curriculum for 70 minutes for a minimum of six weeks so that the students can have authentic learning applied to real-life situations, well, then so be it.
Phil Lozano replied to the email with our measurements. We are given the go ahead to use the Kiddie Timber materials, meaning, he has enough of them for us to use. After building the raised beds, our next task will be to find soil, irrigation (most likely manual, eg. water hose), gardening tools, etc. I will make up some interest forms with times for our garden meetings then send them home. Look for these in the Wednesday folders. Tom and I will feel better if we can organize the meetings in grade level clusters. Maybe we'll even add a morning option (before school) and an afternoon option (after school). I am almost positive once we hear back from the interest forms, our next step is to write the by-laws and vote in officers. Be prepared for this to be a whirlwind. We are on a time limit so it has to move quickly.
We are still waiting to hear back about our account for the Garden Club. We are ready to fund raise. So far, the best idea is to sell plants. We get 50% profit! This was found at the Kids' Gardening website. I told you they were the best. Someone I forgot to mention yesterday is Mrs. Mary Lou Smith. She works in our office. I can take the honor of keeping her even more busy this year than usual. She is my go-to lady when it comes to following the rules. In my world, I just do and sometimes don't plan for the regulations (otherwise known as the word "No").
So parents, community members, teachers and relatives, when you read this, keep in mind that we like "free!" We are also fond of connections. If you know anyone that loves to garden and is available to help us, we need manual labor and tools. Please contact me: Sarah Cohen 469-593-8620. Leave a message.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Beginning (September 2010)
One might think that gardening is simple. Sure, you get some dirt, water, seeds or plants, mostly sunny location--Hello, Edible Garden!...think again. That's the easy part, now picture this: soil (ph level appropriate). What does that even mean? Actually, I do know what "Ph level" means, but I said that because I thought it would show emphasis on my "who cares about ph levels of soil kind of attitude." Yes, I am an educator. Yes, I believe that we, as I speak for all my teacher counterparts, shouldn't keep any of the critical information from the students. That is the point of learning through enrichment. Seriously though, ph levels of soil? Fine, I'll do it. I will teach the kids how to find the ph levels. They will LOOOOOVE it then thank me later on in their lives for being able to find the appropriate level of ph in soil. Did you know that having slightly acidic soil creates a nutrition friendly garden? Eggshells help the ph go up and coffee grounds make it go down. OK, so we didn't actually test the ph of the school's soil, but we read that we have the most nutritionally rich soil in the Dallas Metroplex! We learned about most of our "Ph balancing" during our compost bin lesson. Don't even get me started on trash.
Ok, well, it did inspire me to start my own compost bin at home. Only did I begin that compost bin (a birthday gift, might I add) when I realized that I couldn't keep our evening visitors at the school from using it as an actual trash can. Bringing the bin into the school only allowed bugs to join our classrooms and leaving it outside allowed Wendy's and Whataburger to rot in it. It was a true lose-lose situation. Ugh. So, I made the executive decision, since people were actually throwing trash away opposed to the constant littering then we ended up, somehow WINNING! Sheen fans, feel free to add voice intonation to that last word. Actually, our cilantro plant (think Salsa) died and we weren't quite sure what to do with it. I'd recently seen a beautiful compost bin creation at my friend's, Shelley, home in Boston, MA. She is my gardening hero, as well as, my composting hero. This is probably one of many of her shout out moments. Be prepared. Her husband, Matt, built a huge compost bin with an attached handle to turn the soil. AMAZING! Well, here at SRE, that kind of compost bin might not work and we are on a tight budget so we settled for an actual bin with holes for aerating. Done. Oh, we even had a soil expert, Associate Professor of Soil Science from Texas AgriLife Extension Center at Dallas (extension of Texas A&M that is) help us build our compost bin. We needed an expert. His assistant was more than friendly! I told her all I needed was someone to talk to the kids about soil and answer a few of their questions. No slideshows. Just relaxed conversations about soil. Dr. Sloan rocked! The kids drilled the holes and added the trash in correct order. We rolled it around; it was fun.
In the meantime, there was lots of watering and cleaning up our attempt at an indoor garden. Did I mention that we built our first garden indoors using storage bins? I love how my craftiness comes out. Random, but it worked. The tomatoes and bell pepper grew just fine. You already heard about the cilantro's burial plot. Either way, this was quite a learning experience for all involved. I learned, indoor edible gardens are too much work for a full-time teacher, just kidding, I learned a lot more than that negative comment. I should put that in the realization category...so let me rephrase. I realized that indoor edible gardens are a lot to handle and teach at the same time. I learned how fascinated kids are with the whole process of gardens. They are their own little worker ants and definitely know how to put me in my place about what is good for our garden. This brings me to my next topic. Since, the indoor garden completely drained me, it was time for our garden enrichment cluster to move to bigger and better options. Well, there are only two (according to the kids): indoor or outdoor. You guessed it. We are in the process of building the outdoor garden, turning our enrichment cluster into an actual club with an account (for fundraising purposes) and ongoing meeting times. So far the kids have measured and planned how the garden will be built. We added the 3rd dimension to make it realistic and to measure the amount of soil (ph balanced) we will need. Voila, the blue prints to a perfectly located outdoor garden with a pizza topping theme. The majority rules decision to grow vegetables that add to the deliciousness of pizza. This only, after there was a quick teachable moment over how we cannot grow cows or chickens or pigs in our edible garden. Just when you think something is common sense, children are always there to bring you back to the reality that is, if you want them to learn, you have to teach it to them. You can imagine my facial expression when not one of them were quite sure what a pepperoni, sausage, or ham plant looked like. Is it a tree? Is it a vine? Is it the flower or the root? Hmmm...now you understand what a teachable moment is.
So, onto my final topic for this particular blog post. Money. Money makes the world go round is a good phrase and I feel is a good choice to describe our situation. I am not complaining with my $50 budget provided through the school budget. I wish it were more because gardening is an expensive hobby. I think there was an old game show where the contestants ran around a grocery store under a certain time limit with an amount of money that was almost impossible to spend. Yes, kind of like that, haha. I felt this way at Home Depot, Lowe's, and more recently Bruce Miller's Nursery. Thank you infinite number to both of these stores for donating to my cluster. Donations came in the form of wholesale prices and gardening knowledge. I will see you again very soon. This will be no surprise to them because I did warn them with a wink and a smile on my way out with my full basket. So, you know that teachers are probably the best at playing what we call "the teacher card." People either feel sorry for us or they imagine us educating America's youth thus give into our plees for free or hugely discounted materials. The grateful teachers do appreciate those more than they might ever know. I don't prefer to use my card a lot, but I will pull it out in a time of need. Hence, my statements about Home Depot, Lowe's and Bruce Miller's Nursery. RISD's Associate Director of Grounds, Phil Lozano, who I suspect might think I am not qualified for this task I have taken on, has been another huge aid. I finally, after much built up tension, asked him how we planned to pay for the gardens. He simply stated, I even believe with some elegance, "I have vendors. I ask them." Yep, that's right, and he did just that. We received enough Kiddie Timbers (plastic borders most commonly used for playgrounds) to build 4 raised beds (16 sq.' each). And, just in case, you cannot draw conclusions or make inferences...all for free! Pause for applause.
One more shout out before I put an end to this first blog. Mr. Tom Savay. You are amazing. I enjoy our non-planting conversations while we wait for your wife and grandson to find us. And maybe, one day, you will convince me to camp. Build a garden and I will come. Corny, Field of Dreams references, I know. The official community member for our Garden Club is your job, if you will have it.
So this is the beginning of our gardening adventure here at SRE. It's been longer and the plans are to make it even longer. I will post pictures soon; as soon as I make sure all the kids have permission to be posted on the internet. You know me, looking out for my little friends.
Ok, well, it did inspire me to start my own compost bin at home. Only did I begin that compost bin (a birthday gift, might I add) when I realized that I couldn't keep our evening visitors at the school from using it as an actual trash can. Bringing the bin into the school only allowed bugs to join our classrooms and leaving it outside allowed Wendy's and Whataburger to rot in it. It was a true lose-lose situation. Ugh. So, I made the executive decision, since people were actually throwing trash away opposed to the constant littering then we ended up, somehow WINNING! Sheen fans, feel free to add voice intonation to that last word. Actually, our cilantro plant (think Salsa) died and we weren't quite sure what to do with it. I'd recently seen a beautiful compost bin creation at my friend's, Shelley, home in Boston, MA. She is my gardening hero, as well as, my composting hero. This is probably one of many of her shout out moments. Be prepared. Her husband, Matt, built a huge compost bin with an attached handle to turn the soil. AMAZING! Well, here at SRE, that kind of compost bin might not work and we are on a tight budget so we settled for an actual bin with holes for aerating. Done. Oh, we even had a soil expert, Associate Professor of Soil Science from Texas AgriLife Extension Center at Dallas (extension of Texas A&M that is) help us build our compost bin. We needed an expert. His assistant was more than friendly! I told her all I needed was someone to talk to the kids about soil and answer a few of their questions. No slideshows. Just relaxed conversations about soil. Dr. Sloan rocked! The kids drilled the holes and added the trash in correct order. We rolled it around; it was fun.
In the meantime, there was lots of watering and cleaning up our attempt at an indoor garden. Did I mention that we built our first garden indoors using storage bins? I love how my craftiness comes out. Random, but it worked. The tomatoes and bell pepper grew just fine. You already heard about the cilantro's burial plot. Either way, this was quite a learning experience for all involved. I learned, indoor edible gardens are too much work for a full-time teacher, just kidding, I learned a lot more than that negative comment. I should put that in the realization category...so let me rephrase. I realized that indoor edible gardens are a lot to handle and teach at the same time. I learned how fascinated kids are with the whole process of gardens. They are their own little worker ants and definitely know how to put me in my place about what is good for our garden. This brings me to my next topic. Since, the indoor garden completely drained me, it was time for our garden enrichment cluster to move to bigger and better options. Well, there are only two (according to the kids): indoor or outdoor. You guessed it. We are in the process of building the outdoor garden, turning our enrichment cluster into an actual club with an account (for fundraising purposes) and ongoing meeting times. So far the kids have measured and planned how the garden will be built. We added the 3rd dimension to make it realistic and to measure the amount of soil (ph balanced) we will need. Voila, the blue prints to a perfectly located outdoor garden with a pizza topping theme. The majority rules decision to grow vegetables that add to the deliciousness of pizza. This only, after there was a quick teachable moment over how we cannot grow cows or chickens or pigs in our edible garden. Just when you think something is common sense, children are always there to bring you back to the reality that is, if you want them to learn, you have to teach it to them. You can imagine my facial expression when not one of them were quite sure what a pepperoni, sausage, or ham plant looked like. Is it a tree? Is it a vine? Is it the flower or the root? Hmmm...now you understand what a teachable moment is.
So, onto my final topic for this particular blog post. Money. Money makes the world go round is a good phrase and I feel is a good choice to describe our situation. I am not complaining with my $50 budget provided through the school budget. I wish it were more because gardening is an expensive hobby. I think there was an old game show where the contestants ran around a grocery store under a certain time limit with an amount of money that was almost impossible to spend. Yes, kind of like that, haha. I felt this way at Home Depot, Lowe's, and more recently Bruce Miller's Nursery. Thank you infinite number to both of these stores for donating to my cluster. Donations came in the form of wholesale prices and gardening knowledge. I will see you again very soon. This will be no surprise to them because I did warn them with a wink and a smile on my way out with my full basket. So, you know that teachers are probably the best at playing what we call "the teacher card." People either feel sorry for us or they imagine us educating America's youth thus give into our plees for free or hugely discounted materials. The grateful teachers do appreciate those more than they might ever know. I don't prefer to use my card a lot, but I will pull it out in a time of need. Hence, my statements about Home Depot, Lowe's and Bruce Miller's Nursery. RISD's Associate Director of Grounds, Phil Lozano, who I suspect might think I am not qualified for this task I have taken on, has been another huge aid. I finally, after much built up tension, asked him how we planned to pay for the gardens. He simply stated, I even believe with some elegance, "I have vendors. I ask them." Yep, that's right, and he did just that. We received enough Kiddie Timbers (plastic borders most commonly used for playgrounds) to build 4 raised beds (16 sq.' each). And, just in case, you cannot draw conclusions or make inferences...all for free! Pause for applause.
One more shout out before I put an end to this first blog. Mr. Tom Savay. You are amazing. I enjoy our non-planting conversations while we wait for your wife and grandson to find us. And maybe, one day, you will convince me to camp. Build a garden and I will come. Corny, Field of Dreams references, I know. The official community member for our Garden Club is your job, if you will have it.
So this is the beginning of our gardening adventure here at SRE. It's been longer and the plans are to make it even longer. I will post pictures soon; as soon as I make sure all the kids have permission to be posted on the internet. You know me, looking out for my little friends.
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