Spring Garden

Our farming and gardening block is so much fun! One thing we just had to do to kick start the block was drop by the local feed and seed and pick up six new darling chicks. Once again, the broom closet is a little barn as we raise up our chicks to be big enough to move into the outside coop.



I found a nice poem to begin our gardening block with by A. Fairman in Wynstones: Spring

A little brown bulb went to sleep in the ground.
In his little brown nightie he slept very sound.
Old Winter he roared and raged overhead.
But the little brown bulb did not move in his bed.
But when Spring came tiptoeing over the lea,
With fingers to lips as soft as can be.The little brown bulb just lifted his head,
Slipped off his nightie and jumped out of bed!

Here is Rowan's rendition of the poem:


We started our formal lessons by reviewing the seasons and the months of the year. We sang the "Months Song" many times and worked out some creative charts. Thanks to Our Little Nature Nest blog, I also found this lovely book online called "Bobby of Cloverfield Farm" by Hellen Fuller Orton http://manybooks.net/titles/ortonhf2865228652.html. This story is simply a perfect accompaniment to our farming and gardening block.

This week, our painting theme was
"The Four Seasons Color Wheel".

Rowan's is on the left, mine on the right.

After our verse, poem, story period, Rowan cannot wait to get outside and actually garden every day! We have been focusing on the soil, getting it ready, checking different garden beds for soil that is too heavy or too sandy, turning the compost so it will be ready sooner, feeding our friendly worm bin and cleaning our the hen's big coop so that we can make use of their fine manure (after it sits a while and cools down!) We cheated a bit and used store-bought potting mix to start some early seeds (squash and cucumbers and lettuce). As we were weeding one bed, I decided to transplant a couple of the "weeds" we had pulled (an evening primrose and some foxgloves). I talked to Rowan about root division and the difference between plants grown from seed and those made from cuttings or division (I am keeping this in mind for a little math work later: division review). After we finish about an hour's worth of gardening, Rowan has plenty to write about in his daily gardening journal.After he finished his youth orchestra performance, Rowan came right home and burned his music! I was a little surprised at this, but now he is super focused on learning some new fiddle songs and it is amazing to see how much better he is at both reading music and picking up the rhythms! The orchestra experience, despite his nervousness, was so positive, I hope he will do it again. He has already said he is looking forward to Celtic Camp this summer (a fun local strings music camp focused on Celtic and other fiddle tunes - combined with climbing trees, swimming and running around in the woods).