Saturated Growing and Cooking

Swiss Chard and green cabbage mix from the Casey Garden-- stir fried in some vegetable oil and soy sauce. Yum!

String beans "hanging out" at the Casey Garden

Started in the classroom during May, my daughter's Lima bean plant is starting to bear some fruit from the flower.

String beans picked, prepared, and waiting to be cooked by my daughter. They were delicious. She boiled them in some salted water, plunged them into ice water, and served them with our summer supper. I loved them! Best of all, because she grew them and cooked them, she tried them!

I saturated the photos above to match how much fun we are having with the garden! It is so rewarding to grow something, care for it, harvest it, and create something delicious (and healthy) for the table. Inspired by the Casey Garden, we have planted several vegetables in our yard: okra, zucchini squash, yellow squash, several tomato varieties, green peppers, Japanese eggplant, and watermelons. We've also added to our herb garden and have started some sunflower plants from seed for the birds. We are having the best time watching everything grow and differentiate. Even if our plants don't produce much (because our planting times may have been off), we are learning through the process.

Summer Garden Gathering :: 2

At this week's summer garden gathering, we watered the dry soil and drying plants, harvested a few beans, read several books about the seed to plant process, shared some freshly picked local blueberries, and made our own garden observation journals from recycled materials. If you missed making the journals, there are many online resources to help you make one of your own.

www.makingbooks.com has several different journal types that could be used for a garden observation journal. We made a modified Stick and Elastic Book recycling a cereal box for the cover and using a magnolia twig for the stick.

You could also use the instructions on the www.kidsgardening.com website here. This journal is slightly more involved to make, but the helping hands of a parent could make it possible. If you make a journal on your own at home, please bring it to the garden to show the rest of us and to use for your observations!

The books we read and perused were from the Jackson-Hinds Library System. We checked these out from the Willie Morris Branch from the 580's of the children's section. The children at our gathering would have read every book if we had let them! They were so interested in the illustrations and photographs and hungry to learn more about plants. The last book we read was about hungry plants or carnivorous plants. Everyone was fascinated and learned something new. If you have gardening books at home or visit a public library to check some out, bring them to share with our gardening group!

Lastly, here are some ideas for how to use your hand-made field journal:

• Choose a plant and observe it every day or once a week for a period of time. Really look at it closely. Measure it and record its growth. Sketch it. Photograph it. Ask questions about it.
• Write poetry about a plant, gardening, or eating something from the garden.
• Write a short story about a gardening experience.
• Make plans for what you might want to plant next in your garden.
• Collect photos of plants from seed catalogs, newspapers, or magazines.
• Record things you learn about plants from gardening books checked out of the library. A librarian can help you find fiction and nonfiction books about plants or gardening.
• Include a recipe you used to prepare something harvested from the garden.
• Write from a specific perspective (other than your own), such as that of worm tunneling under their green oasis.
• Find a spot outside and sit quietly for 5 minutes. Use your senses to absorb the scene and then record observations, ideas, and feelings. What do you hear, see, smell, taste, feel?
• Doodle, draw, paint, collage, reflect. . .
  
• What ideas do you have?

You can bring your field journal to the garden each week to share with the group and to continue your observations about the progress of the garden. If you keep your field journal all summer, you will have something to share with your new classmates and your new teacher when you start school in August! You can also share it at our Summer's Celebration on August 5th, 2009!

It is not too late to join the work and fun of the Casey Garden! If you are interested, post a comment below. Everyone is welcome. Coming next Wednesday: a field trip to the Tougaloo Sustainable Community Garden!

Summer Garden Kick-Off

On Friday, June 5, 2009, parents, students, teachers, and friends of Casey Elementary met for a summer orientation and preview of summer gardening events. In the photo above, Melanie Allen prepared tomatoes from the farmer's market with basil from our garden! Serenity Luckett (above right), gave a history of the garden project and introduced future summer activities. Since Casey is a creative arts school, we especially hope to encourage students and families to create art inspired by the garden. Gardening + Art = gARTening!

Andy Williamson (camera-man in bottom left corner), from Mississippi Public Broadcasting's Mississippi Roads, is following the Casey Garden throughout the summer to produce a show about gardening in schools. He hopes that his piece will inspire other schools to catch the gardening bug. Mr. Williamson also filmed footage at garden activities during the Casey Family Arts Festival and when students harvested lettuce and spinach for a teacher appreciation salad during the last week of school.

During the orientation, Mrs. Allen helped the children label all plants, harvest vegetables that were ready, and plant new plants. We harvested onions, cabbages, Swiss chard, and pole beans that everyone could take home for cooking and eating. We also fed the Casey turtles some of the cabbage! We planted eggplant, watermelon, sunflowers, and cucumber plants.

As a final activity, Julie Owen helped students to plant their own pots with zinnia seeds and their own peat pellets with a squash seed for germinating at home. We encouraged all participants to monitor the progress of their seeds and sprouts with measurement and careful observation. Some of the squash seedlings may be transplanted to the Casey Garden in empty portions of the beds.

Students gathered outside of the "turtle courtyard" to watch the turtles munch away on cabbage leaves placed out for them only minutes before.

The next garden meeting is Wednesday, June 10, 2009, at noon. Please bring a picnic lunch and plenty of water to drink! We will be indoors for part of the meeting to make our own garden observation journals out of recycled materials. Please bring any empty cereal boxes you may have, magazines or newspaper photos of gardens, seed catalogs, or drawings that can be cut and pasted to decorate our covers.

If you are interested in participating in the Casey Garden, please post a comment below. We need families to take turns watering the garden each week. A tentative schedule for summer garden activities is listed below, but please be aware that events/dates may change as the summer progresses.

• June 5: Orientation, planting of seeds in individual pots as well as garden boxes,

• June 10: Regular picnic, make observation journals from recycled materials, art introduction

• June 17: Picnic and trip to Tougaloo garden
  

• June 24: Regular picnic day with book reading or garden activity

• July 1: Regular picnic day with book reading or garden activity

• July 8: Meet at Farmer's Market in Jackson, take tour of market and talk to farmers, each child buy one item, meet back at Casey for picnic and discussion about farmer's market

• July 15: Regular picnic day with book reading or garden activity

• July 22: Tour Mynelle Gardens and learn about flowers there
  

• July 29: Regular picnic day with book reading or garden activity

• August 5: Garden celebration with slide show and art presentations by kids. Teachers report August 6.
  

Also, check out this wonderful website full of resources and information about gardening with kids.

http://www.kidsgardening.com/

If you were at the garden on Friday, we would love to hear what you or your children thought about the day's activities. Please comment below!

Transformation

Transformation

We searched for tiny, white worlds,
eggs on milkweed,
like Horton and his speck of dust.

Now, we are observing
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
who must eat
and grow,
eat
and
grow.

Watching children
watch their caterpillars
and care for them
creates a chrysalis
for us to share.

Our wonder spins the silk button that
anchors our retreat and reflection.

We become more.
We are monarchs.

We emerge
together,
daily,
to fly on wings of
books, drawings, dances,
paintings, poems, stories,
questions, songs, gardens,
and dreams.

Over the weekend, one of the monarch butterflies that my family and I have been raising emerged from her chrysalis. We did this project with several other Casey families after we rescued the eggs and harvested milkweed during a special Monarch Butterfly Rescue program of the Clinton Community Nature Center. I highly recommend this annual event to all families!

I wrote "Transformation" during the process of raising "Matilda" (in photos above) from an egg to a butterfly with my children and sharing her with groups of students at various schools. I had intended to read the poem for the Poetry Out Loud portion of our Casey Family Arts Festival on Saturday, May 2, but I couldn't find my poem when it was my turn.

I also wrote this poem while writing an essay about arts integrated education for Anne Foster's Education Blog for change.org. I do not claim to be a poet. However, I love reading poetry, and I like how the process of writing a poem distills my thoughts to what is essential. Both the field study/scientific experience of raising the monarch butterflies and the creative process of crafting my poem informed the writing of the essay. Likewise, drafting the essay informed the development of the poem. Finally, a little bit of my background as a children’s librarian found it’s way into the poem, too.

Casey Elementary and its emphasis on arts integration has transformed my children's lives and my life as a parent (and librarian), too.

photos of "Matilda the Monarch" taken by Julie Owen on May 3, 2009

Celebrate Arts Education Month!

After-school ballet class with
Ballet Mississippi instructor, Julie Moran

March is National Arts Education Month!

Top 10 Suggestions for Celebrating Arts Education Month

1) Ask your child every day about what arts activities he/she did in school.

2) Observe your child's classroom during an arts integrated lesson.

3) Visit a music, drama, art, or library class at Casey.

4) Write a letter to our school board, a newspaper editor, or the state legislature in support of arts integration.

5) Thank our Casey teachers and administration for their creative ideas.

6) Support your child in their creative pursuits.

7) Tour a local museum or attend a cultural or arts event in Jackson.

8) Offer to help a classroom teacher with an arts project or arts integrated lesson.

9) Help your child learn about a new author, artist, musician, poet, actor, or dancer.

10) Save the date for the Casey Family Arts Festival on May 2, 2009!

What other ideas would you like to share? Please comment below.

Good Idea for Home

Just in time for Arts Education Month. . . a music video for Tanya Davis' song "Art" by Andrea Dorfman.

I found this video link today in a blog post by Amanda Blake Soule on her blog that I check every day for creative ideas of artsy/craftsy things to do at home. On this post, titled "in the morning," she put out paper, paint brushes, and watercolors after her children went to bed so that they would find them on the table, ready for creativity, when they woke up in the morning.

I think this is a wonderful idea for a "staycation" or weekend activity, and I plan to do this with my own children over spring break since we are having a leisurely week at home. Maybe they will let me sleep-in a little if they are busy making things at the table in the kitchen, and I'll have a mini art show waiting for me when I wake up.