Worms, week one

It's one part science project.

 

It's one part class pet.
 

It builds on the classroom cooking, and the outdoor science (here and here) that Young Kindergarten has been doing all year.

 

Young Kindergarten greeted a ball of red wiggler worms on Thursday.

 

The worms will be living in their classroom for the rest of the year, eating food scraps and other waste.

 

Students took a close look at their new classmates, using magnifying tools and drawing and writing their observations.

 

No legs. Long. Cute. Shiny. Wet. Moving.

 

Mr. Gillen, the sixth grade science teacher, came by on Friday to talk about the role of worms in a healthy soil.
 

Mr. Gillen runs Magic Tree Vermicast, where the Young Kindergarten's worms' great-great-great-great-great-grandparents came from a few months ago, and he took the students on a walk across Gordon's campus looking for worms who are already living here.

 

On Monday, Young Kindergarten noticed middens in the Gaga pit. 

 

Ask a Young Kindergartener what a midden is, and what it has to do with worms.

 

The end game in all of this is a Young Kindergarten garden, tended with love and fueled by worm castings.

 

On Monday, they started some seeds in the classroom.

 

Tuesday, they cleared two garden beds and started some seeds outside.

 

That's a lot of work in less than a week, but these students are excited for spring.

 

The next lessons will include some tough lessons in patience, as they wait for their seeds to emerge, and leadership practice as they practice taking care of something smaller, younger, and more fragile than they are.