Summer WORK pays rich REWARDS!

<a href="http://vols.pt/BNyGLr" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.volunteerspot.com/imgs/icons/signup-btn.png" alt="Click to View Volunteer Opportunities on VolunteerSpot"></a>

Click on the above link to sign up for a week of WEEDING/WATERING/HARVESTING in the HM School Garden!  We just ask that you are available 2-3 times during the week -at your convenience- to come by the gardens and do some spot weeding, water if needed, and harvest ripe produce!

This coming Sunday- June 14 - is our last volunteer work day in the garden until September!  We need some help to catch up with the weeds after all this rain and warm weather we have had.  We also need to paint some signs and most definitely make a salad with our fresh greens!!
Come join us anytime between 1-3pm :)

Sharing the Model!

One of my job descriptions is to spread the HM Garden model to our friends and neighbors in FCPS.  The Quander Road School has requested my advice on the garden they are beginning and the following is the latest update on their progress!  I wanted to share :)  

"In honor of Earth Day I thought I’d send everyone a little update about the garden.

We have a shed!

If you haven’t looked outside recently, you should do it. The garden is looking more and more like a real garden every day. Thanks to Mr. Kelly’s hard work, and Ms. Vance and Ms. Rudert’s donations of tools we’ve made some real progress!

So here’s what’s growing in Quander Garden.

We’ve planted a berry patch. Soon we will have blackberries, raspberries, grapes and strawberries! This year’s yield will be pretty low, if we have one at all. But next year we should have a significant amount of fruit coming right out of our very own garden. We are also experimenting with melons!

We’re working on a three sisters patch. This is now the Native Americans used to grow their fields. Corn, beans, and squash are all planted together. Beans climb up the corn stalks and the squash benefits from the shade given by the corn plants. It should be an exciting experiment.

Each of the students have been given a row to be in charge of. So far we’ve got cauliflower, carrots, lettuce, spinach and onions all planted and growing right along. It is really neat to see how differently the kids care for their rows. Tyler has tied each of his cauliflower plants to a stake in order to ensure that they don’t fall over. This is not necessary for the plant, but shows a real above and beyond level of caring for his plants. Sarah weeds with gusto and pinash to protect her plants from the ever present weeds. This is particularly cool since she was pretty unsure about this whole garden thing a few months ago.

Attached is a picture of their “dramatic weeding”. Thanks to Tyler for the dramatic coloring. (note: the color of the hair is the real life color. It’s a fabulous sight to see them in the garden together)https://webmail.fcps.edu/owa/attachment.ashx?attach=1&id=RgAAAABlR%2bEZLIsmT7ucPleC8MjhBwAAru7l36XSQp0ZBOLUyy%2fEAAAEm6i5AABj0JO7nHx4QYu%2bDvjfVn7rAAHP9PqRAAAJ&attid0=EACd8%2bFODPZnQKsqp4nUT5r5&attcnt=1

Please come out and see our garden. Bring students out to explore! There is also always work to be done if you want to help and/or know of a kid who needs community service.

Thanks for all your continued support.

Ms. Bottle and the Gardening class."

Earth Day April 25th 10am-2pm!

10th Annual HM Earth Day Celebration!

Saturday, April 25th   10am-2pm

Come out and join us for some good "clean" fun!

Lot's of things to keep you and your kiddos busy:

Make a Kite-Sample healthy foods-Paint-Haul mulch-chat with students about projects we have going to Save The Bees!  Take a look at what our Eco-team has been up to and see what you can do to Green our Planet.

Hope to see you there :)

Summer Camp?!

Hi all,
I know that some of us have started or are done looking at summer camps to keep the kids busy this summer.  Arcadia Farm
(information here ) runs a spectacular program that my own kids have attended the last two summers.  They loved every minute of it and I want to try to give back a bit.  If you can take a minute to check out their information, I am trying to raise $300 to send a child from a low-income home to Farm Camp this summer! 
Just click on this Donation link  for more information!  

Click  here  to view a video that has interviews with the parents of the scholarship recipients -- it's pretty great.

Snow Day Chicken Hatch Success!

This post is not for the faint of heart!  You will be overcome by the cuteness of these pics!  We have only had one day at school this week to ooh and ahh over these little cuties but we made the most of that day with students coming and going to check progress all day.  INSTINCT was the word of the day as we watched the chicks learn how to eat and drink on their own.  We ended up with 26 chicks this year.  We are calling them the ABC Chicks as there will be one for every letter of the alphabet.  Names instantly filled the idea bucket for our Alphabet Chicken Name Game.  The winners will be posted before the Book Parade next Friday the 27th.  Feel free to stop in any day next week to take a peek at what all the excitement is about!  The chicks will be returned to Farmer Guerre at Maple Avenue Market Farm in Vienna in two weeks, to be added to their flock of laying hens.  We appreciate their support on this project!  Without them we wouldn't be able to provide such a great learning experience for our students :))

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CHICKEN CHATTER

Hello all!

We are getting our chicken station set up in the library!
The students are already asking questions! :P

Eggs arrive on Wednesday the 28th and will be put into the incubator that morning.
These eggs are our 2nd GENERATION!  They could POSSIBLY be from the chickens that we hatched out last year.

Chickens have a 21 day incubation cycle(they don't take snow days).  We will have a countdown set up outside the library so you will know what day we are on.

We are working on having a CHICKEN CHANNEL to tune into on the school TV! We will be able to check in on progress with fewer disturbances to our kind Librarian :)

Happy New Year!

WHAT?!  2015!

This first week back to school has presented us with the usual winter challenges; snow, cold :P

We are focusing on our INDOOR recycling program at HM and talking about WHY it is important to take care of our planet by recycling.  Did you know that each of us produces, on average, 4.5 lbs of garbage a day?!  Some multiplication problems have come out of that little bit of trivia.

It is great to see the students empowered when they know that the decisions they make when walking to the garbage can, really do make a difference!