City Farmers

So I have an issue with growing plants in that I'm not a person willing to put the effort into caring for temper-mental plants.  That is unless I will be given yummy produce as a reward for all of my hard work.  Hence, our family "farm" was born!  After attempts to grow tomatoes and peppers both in pots and upside down in a contraption that I still don't understand, it was decided that the best place for the garden is my parents backyard.  In the fall the soil was turned over and compost added to ready the harsh Carolina red clay for wonderful vegetables for our supper table.  After months of letting mother nature and time do their thing we added more compost, fresh soil and lots of sweat to lay out our garden right in the middle of town.  I must say that I'm quite proud of our efforts so far, lots of tomato plants (that are almost as tall as me!) tons of peppers including lilac peppers, and an assortment of squash, okra, lettuce, carrots and all of my favorite herbs!  So far so good in the garden, I even had a taste of the delicious lettuce while weeding the other day.  I can't wait for a farm to table dinner that traveled all of 20 feet!
Here are some pictures from the family "farm"!

Tomatoes!

Apple Mint

One day they will be carrots

LILAC PEPPERS...that's right, I said LILAC!!

Okra

Salad Bowl lettuce...delish!

I'm just so proud of them...had to show the tomatoes again!

Lovely shot but had to show that they're already up to my shoulders!

A Trip To The Zoo...

It's that time of year when everyone is starting to get a bit restless and summer vacation is on the horizon so I'm working hard to keep everyones attention and keep art fun.  One of my favorite things about my job is working with other teachers to provide lessons in multiple subjects.  I really do feel that the more integration used in schools the better the learning experience will be.  This is why I was thrilled when one of our first grade teachers approached me about doing a project with them.  First graders are headed to the zoo in a few weeks and were starting a research project on animals in our zoo.  They would be using various methods to learn about their animal and creating a book so I was asked to help them create their book covers.  Due to the end of the year stuff that always seems to pop up I wanted to make sure this lesson could be completed in 2 class periods so that it would be completed before their trip to the zoo.  Week one was spent looking at the images of the animals and sketching and on week 2 I had card stock "book covers" with their animals and names ready for their creations!  I was amazed at how wonderful their work turned out.  You could definitely tell the students who had been working hard on their research projects and had seen many images of their subjects.  Here are a few of our Book Covers!