For this session of Young Scholars, we were tasked with building something out of recyclable materials. Since we are garden people, we decided on a greenhouse. After walking the aisles of Home Depot and sketching designs, we decided on a PVC structure, walls built of water bottles and a roof of caps. We announced our…
Yes! HES Has a Tower Garden!
We have talked about buying a Tower Garden for quite a while and it is NOW official. Our new Tower Garden (purchased with grant money from the 2018-2019 school year) is installed near Herndon Elementary’s cafeteria for all to see, touch and (hopefully) taste! But I am getting ahead of myself….let me back up a…
HES Young Scholars, 5th Grade (Day 5 – Game day)
The end had come! Day 5. Review time….or Game Day as we decided to call it. Excitement was in the air (so was photosynthesis, transpiration and some pollinators by the way…). We began by playing a pollinator game. We used a relay in which students balanced cheeseballs on spoons in order to review how pollinators…
HES Young Scholars, 5th Grade (Day 4)
On Day 4 we did another dissection….this time the whole flower. We gave each student alstroemarias for the dissection and another random flower for a compare / contrast exercise. How differently did each flower smell? Did the flower parts feel the same? Did they look similar? After the initial analysis, it was time to look…
HES Young Scholars, 5th Grade (Day 3)
For our third session we began by observing the plants we had planted on the first day. Some of them were getting so big, especially the lima beans! We then began our main discussion: Plant processes; photosynthesis, respiration and transpiration Most of us know that photosynthesis is a process used by plants to convert light…
HES Young Scholars, 5th Grade (Day 2)
For our second Young Scholars Club session we began by observing the plants that we had planted two weeks previous. The students were excited to see that the seeds that they had buried in the soil were (for the most part!) tiny plants. The students were asked to write observations about how their plants had…
HES Young Scholars, 5th Grade (Day 1)
For our Young Scholars Eco Club, the fifth graders would be learning about seeds, parts of a plant and photosynthesis. On Day 1, we began by dissecting a lima bean. We had soaked half of the beans overnight so that they were porous and could easily be pulled apart. We used diagrams from ‘ Botanists:…
How Many Garden Beds are Too Many?
Like anything….it started with an idea. As my husband was repairing our existing beds (they had multiple run-ins with the lawn mower) Jill and I thought ‘Why not add more?’ The rest is history…but actually it is still happening, so I guess we should say the rest is history and present….and realistically…future. The next thing…
How much does one school compost?
January is RRR (Re-use, reduce, recycle) month at Herndon Elementary; Jill and I (the Garden Ladies) are visiting classrooms and talking about re-using, reducing, recycling instead of throwing things away. We wear our recycled paper earrings and bring a coconut bowl. We show pictures of starburst wrapper bracelets and talk about using Tupperware instead of…
Hydroponic Gardening
Hydroponic gardening (or hydroponics for short) is the system of growing plants with just mineral rich solutions instead of using soil. It is a system that is getting more recognition as being a safe, productive, and land resource conservation method (more information on different types of hydroponics here). Herndon Elementary School was lucky enough to…
Composting Companions
Today’s blog post is written by four 3rd grade reporters. Two of them observed 2nd grade’s initial compost experiment about 3 weeks ago, and two returned for the observations and poster-making last week! We hope you enjoy! On the day of Halloween, Ms. Kirk’s class was doing some composting, and they were the first ones….
3rd-6th Grade Food Day Recap
Today’s blog post is brought to you by two 3rd grade Spanish Immersion classes! Food Day was a day when kids in 3rd-6th grades at HES got to go to 7 different stations to learn how to make healthy food and activity choices. It was on October 24th, 2017. At Food Day there were chefs,…
Herndon Elementary School Garden 