The GROW Team
had a great turnout for its spring clean up April 17 when numerous
students and their families came out for the latest Ravensworth
beautification project. Students, parents and staff showed up with
wheelbarrows, rakes, and yard tools under blue skies and balmy
temperatures. While some parents manned a grill to supply volunteers
with burgers and hotdogs, others raked debris, spread mulch, weeded and
planted to ready Ravensworth’s grounds for the spring planting season.
GROW
Team leader Fehmi Midani oversaw the workday and Ravensworth principal
Pam O’Connor, vice principal Tim Paper and kindergarten teacher
Adrienne Ramage pitched in, as well. The work began at 8 a.m. and a
steady flow of volunteers cycled in and out throughout the day.
A
focus of the efforts was renewing the 4th grade colonial herb garden.
Several 3rd and 6th grade volunteers assisted in cutting back and
digging out the existing herbs which had become overgrown and
unattractive. They weeded and edged the bed to create a tidy garden.
Using our math skills to measure the perimeter and find the area, we
re-shaped the bed to make it larger and more symmetrical. To be
resourceful, we re-purposed some old cobble edging stones from an
unused bed to frame our new herb garden. The children collected leaf
mulch, which is provided free from the county, and wheelbarrowed to to
the new bed. They turned the soil and planted new herbs, finding
cocoons and other insects in the soil along the way. The herb varieties
include lavender, yarrow, mint, thyme, pineapple sage, fennel, lamb's
ear, rosemary, chive and everlasting strawberries. These herbs are
types which would have been present in colonial herb gardens and used
for culinary and medicinal purposes.
We started our morning with
a brief lesson on herbs and how they differ from spices; we considered
how herbs have been used by many ancient cultures through time, and
what their purposes have been. We looked at products that we use today
with herbal ingredients such as soaps, tea and medicines. By the time
we were done, the children recognized the similarity between the garden
they designed and created to photos of actual gardens in Williamsburg.
They were an enthusiastic and focused bunch of workers who participated
in every aspect of the project. They even labeled the herbs by
recycling broken pieces of concrete from the school's parking lot curb
that had been crushed by snowplows this winter.
Our kids are
capable of doing so much and more when we present a new challenge to
them! So many lessons from their school curriculum, including math,
life sciences, and social studies were echoed in this project. This
project supported their classroom learning with collaborative, hands-on
work.
-Julie Liu-
Editor's
note: If you want to demonstrate to your children a love for growing
things and community pride, there's no better place to begin than our
GROW Team! Please consider volunteering - the rewards to you and your
children are tremendous.
GROW Team Has Great Session! |