"Wheel"y a Great Day!

A whole long time ago, probably at least a year, I came across an idea for helping urban students understand how the vegetables that they ate were grown.  Many students no longer have the opportunity to tend gardens in their own backyards, and so some of them do not know that carrots and potatoes actually grow underground.  The newspaper article suggested that students grow a garden themselves and tend it over the summer months.  The solution to the question of 'how' is quite unique!  The garden would be grown in a wheelbarrow and wheeled from one student's house to another over the summer!

A few weeks ago I distributed a letter explaining the educational opportunity, to a number of local businesses, asking for their support through donations.  Two wonderful local businesses stepped in to help us!

Today, Miss Vaughan, an assistant manager at the Baseline Road Home Depot, spent an hour and a half with our class.  She brought so many goodies!  Each student was given their own little planter box to build.  Here's the before picture...

....a photo showing our safe practices as the students worked on their projects....

....independently....

...in their own, to keep, work apron!

Here's the finished product!  Each student planted zinnias into their personal planter and will be bringing these home later this week.

Home Depot donated lovely wave petunia plants that the students planted in the school's three planters that will be housed in front of the school, along with a wheelbarrow, and some vegetable plants and seeds.

Everyone had an opportunity to get their hands dirty and learn a little bit about taking the plants out of the pots, disturbing their roots before planting, and the need for sunlight and water.  Here are the Grade Two students with the planter that will house the purple petunias.  The other planters house white and pink flowers.  They will be in charge of watering these pots as part of the responsibility pillar in our Character Education program.

The Grade Three students worked together to get the green wheelbarrow ready for planting.  This wheelbarrow has carrots, onions, cucumbers and green pepper in it.

The second business that was so generous to our plan was Salisbury Greenhouse.  They also donated a  red wheelbarrow, a large bale of planter mixing soil, a container of fertilizer and about half a dozen packages of seeds.  The red wheelbarrow has green beans (which we started from seed), tomato, zucchini squash and pumpkins in it.  The wheelbarrows will go out each morning to sit in the sunshine and will be brought into the front entrance area at the end of each school day to ensure they stay safe.

We are so very grateful to both local businesses for their generous support and plan to keep them informed of the progress of our gardens!  Let them know how happy your child was with this project, if you do indeed shop at these stores!