Fall 2021
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Welcome to the MMS Outdoor Classroom!
We are thrilled to share our curriculum for the outdoor classroom with you! Our plan is to offer you lesson plans, resources, and creative ideas for using the garden space with your class.
Keep growing!
What’s buzzing in the garden…
Our first fall garden club meeting was a harvest celebration. Our MMS gardeners harvested tomatoes, peppers, kale, cucumbers, beans, and herbs! They also enjoyed designing beautiful flower bouquets for our annual farmer’s market!
Besides our new 6 ft fence surrounding the garden that was installed last December and expanding the garden beds in the spring of 2021 , we created a beautiful pollinator garden this summer. Our fifth grade class of 2021 presented us with a generous donation/gift to make this possible. Our mission is to educate the students about protecting our pollinators like bees, butterflies, and moths.
It was a busy summer with our volunteer families tending the garden and helping with preparing, designing, and planting in the pollinator area. A few of our families witnessed the incredible journey of two monarch caterpillars emerging from their chrysalis as beautiful butterflies! We captured this amazing transformation on video! Let us know if you would like access to the video. We are very excited to share this new addition to the garden with you!!
Have a wonderful week and “Thank You” for helping our garden grow🌱
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Welcome to the MMS Outdoor Classroom!
We are thrilled to share our curriculum for the outdoor classroom with you! Our plan is to offer you lesson plans, resources, and creative ideas for using the garden space with your class.
Keep growing!
What’s buzzing in the garden…
Our first fall garden club meeting was a harvest celebration. Our MMS gardeners harvested tomatoes, peppers, kale, cucumbers, beans, and herbs! They also enjoyed designing beautiful flower bouquets for our annual farmer’s market!
Besides our new 6 ft fence surrounding the garden that was installed last December and expanding the garden beds in the spring of 2021 , we created a beautiful pollinator garden this summer. Our fifth grade class of 2021 presented us with a generous donation/gift to make this possible. Our mission is to educate the students about protecting our pollinators like bees, butterflies, and moths.
It was a busy summer with our volunteer families tending the garden and helping with preparing, designing, and planting in the pollinator area. A few of our families witnessed the incredible journey of two monarch caterpillars emerging from their chrysalis as beautiful butterflies! We captured this amazing transformation on video! Let us know if you would like access to the video. We are very excited to share this new addition to the garden with you!!
Have a wonderful week and “Thank You” for helping our garden grow🌱
Spring 2020
MMS Says, “Recycle, It’s No Waste of Time!”
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
-Lorax
Everyday at Merritt Memorial is Earth Day! These past few months we have implemented a green educational program that empowers students and staff to help the environment through recycling, composting, and reducing our waste. Our mission is to create a learning experience for our students that will prepare them to lead the world toward a healthier, cleaner, more sustainable future. We are excited to share with you some highlights from our green programs!
“A community that is engaged and
working together can be a powerful force.”
Green Machine Compost Team
“Help our garden grow! Let’s compost!”
- In November, the 5th grade Garden Club members went into each homeroom and performed a skit that helped the students learn about the beauty and magic of composting.
● Items we are composting are fruit/vegetable peels, coffee grinds(from the main office), paper napkins, and tree leaves from the school property.
● Garden Club members collect the compost from the rooms at the beginning of their lunch period and bring it down to the cafeteria.
● Compost is sorted and cut into small pieces before it is added to the compost bins.
● MMS currently has three compost bins located in the MMS Garden.
Recycling in the Lunchroom and Classrooms
- Launched our recycling lunch program; all containers labeled #1,2,5, water bottles, and milk cartons are washed and rinsed by a team of students during lunch.
● All classrooms have labeled bins for recyclable paper, recyclable plastic, compost, and trash.
● Student council members collect all recyclable paper and plastic every Friday afternoon and our custodial staff places collected items in designated recycling bins outside.
● Garden Club members have created posters that are hanging in the lunchroom promoting the benefits of waste reduction, recycling, and composting.
● All recyclable containers from the HSA lunch program are displayed for students to reference when sorting their own food.
● We are using fewer garbage bags daily making it cost effective. Our custodial staff has informed us we have reduced our garbage in the lunchroom from 8 bags to 2 bags a day.
Green Team
Our GREEN mission is caring for the MMS Community and our environment.
We have shared our recycling/compost program with the HSA committee and Mr. Conlon.
● Discussing and researching fundraising ideas: selling reusable utensils, lunch containers, and snack baggies all with the MMS logo.
● We have stopped using clorox wipes in the lunchroom and replaced them with the product Force of Nature, a multi-purpose cleaner that kills 99.9% of germs with no toxic chemicals. For more information, visit: https://www.forceofnatureclean.com
● All students are using Avant-fragrance free instant hand sanitizer before eating lunch.
● Encouraging students to bring in their own utensils.
● Monthly Green meetings are being planned.
● Creating a volunteer Green Team to help with our recycling program during lunch periods.
Monday, May 6, 2019
“It was a busy morning in the garden. It felt good from my head to-ma-toes!”
- We planted a variety of tomatoes.
- Turned the soil to prepare for planting.
- Planted more pepper plants in our strawberry patch bed.
- We filled the compost tumbler with many different items:
- Browns, browns, and more browns: newspapers,cardboard, brown paper bags,and leaves
- We can always count on farmer Noelle bringing her food scraps from home to add to the compost: veggie peels,egg shells,coffee grinds, and fruit skins.
- It took seven of us to spin the compost tumbler!!!!
- We added/planted basil and purple sage in the herb garden.
- We enjoyed some peaceful time drawing/labeling our planted beds on recycled brown paper bags.
- We discussed what we will be planting next garden club meeting: cucumbers, potatoes, beets, brussel sprouts, onions, and edible wildflowers.
- During the week, farmer Leslie will be researching companion plants for potatoes and cucumbers.
- We pulled up greens growing in the wildflower bed in preparation for seeding next meeting.
- We cut the greens into smaller pieces and added them to the compost!
Monday, April 29, 2019
- Got a new bin to put all of our gardening things inside and then, we decorated the top of the bin and everybody signed their names and wrote comments
- We planted red, orange, and yellow sweet peppers, and lettuce alongside the strawberries. We are excited to see flowers budding on the strawberry plants. The strawberry grows from each flower
- We also planted different types of lettuce: romaine, butter crunch, arugula, Swiss chard, ad kale
- Put newspapers, fruits, vegetables, brown bags into the compost bin and mixed it by turning the compost bin around
- Watered the plants with water from the rain barrel
- Planned things to plant, like tomatoes
- We also turned the soil over, so our soil would be ready for planting
- We also smoothed out the soil after turning the soil
By Leslie K., Mia C., & Sophia L.
Monday, April 22, 2019
Happy Earth Day
“We make everyday Earth Day in the garden!”
Today we started our spring planting in the herb garden.
<3 Farmer Harzynski
“We make everyday Earth Day in the garden!”
Today we started our spring planting in the herb garden.
- We talked about the different characteristics of each herb plant and how they are used in cooking.
- We enjoyed inhaling all the fresh scents from the herb garden!
- We think the basil and lemon balm smell the best!
- We planted the following herbs:
- Basil
- Rosemary
- Lemonthyme
- Cilantro
- Lavender
- Leeks(vegetable)
- Oregano
- mint
- We continued to turn the soil in the beds with our garden tools.
- We saw 5 hawks fly by and land on the school roof.
- We planted bright yellow Marigold flowers in the herb garden to attract bees and other pollinators.
- We started our new batch of compost. First, we added a layer of leaves we collected around the garden. Next, we snacked on oranges and bananas and added our fruit skins to the bin and gave it a few spins.
- We talked about the different types of green/nitrogen foods we can compost...coffee grinds, tea bags,eggshells,veggie/fruit scraps and skins.
<3 Farmer Harzynski
Monday, April 8, 2019
"I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose, I would always greet it in a garden." – Ruth Stout
- We continued to prepare the soil for planting by adding bags of organic compost to the raised beds. We used our garden tools to turn and even out the soil. We even turned the soil in the cinder blocks.
- We emptied the compost bin. Next week we'll start a new batch!
- We smoothed out the soil with rakes and other tools.
- Added two different kinds of soil together (Organic compost from our bin and organic store-bought compost)
- We discussed what plants we should plant.
- We cleaned up leaves from the side of the fence.
- We crushed egg shells from the compost.
- We saw a turkey vulture hanging out on the roof of the school.
- Mr. Brown surprised us with a recycled bird bath he made for the garden. He cut the bottom of a 5 gallon plastic water container and attached it to a wooden pole. Thank you Mr. Brown for all your help and creativity.
- We heard many birds singing this morning. They are busy building their nest in our bird houses.
By: Yuna L., Thomas R., & Tyler C.
Monday, April 1, 2019
First Day of Garden Club!
Garden Club is for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders to get their hands dirty in the amazing outdoors. Today was our first day back in the garden, Spring 2019 season! The cold weather didn’t stop the dedicated gardeners who arrived at 7:45 am with smiles and determination to start preparing for our Spring 2019 season! This is what we accomplished this morning in the garden:
We would like you to come join our garden so please join if you are interested!! Our next meeting will be Monday, April 8th. Thank you!
By: Shaina G., Tyler L., and Sarah H.
- We planted sunflowers in biodegradable containers. These will grow indoors for the next 6 weeks and the gardeners will be watering and observing the plants
- Woke up the dirt from the cold, turning the soil to prepare it for planting
- Picked up leaves for the new compost and put them in brown paper bags
- Used compost from last year to put in the a few raised beds to naturally fertilize the soil which adds important nutrients to the soil
- Picked up all the roots from the beds/soil
- Leveled out the soil in the raised beds
We would like you to come join our garden so please join if you are interested!! Our next meeting will be Monday, April 8th. Thank you!
By: Shaina G., Tyler L., and Sarah H.