Worms and compost and butterflies—oh, my! How to incorporate environmental education into the classroom, from building an indoor compost bin to creating an outdoor classroom
Environmental Education for Children
1 1/2-hour session — limit 4 presenters
Preschoolers
11/17/2017 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM Room B403 Georgia World Congress Center
Maris Miles, Class Teacher, Clara Barton Center for Children; April Cappeluti, Teacher, Clara Barton Center for Children
How to engage 3-5 year olds through recycling, vermiculture, and gardening, while enhancing language, literary, cognitive, social-emotional, gross and fine motor skills. An accredited Maryland school’s experience on growing an environmentally aware program from the ground up! Setting up and maintaining a classroom wormery. Answering the questions “how do you get good dirt?” and “why is dirt important”? Creating a Monarch Butterfly Waystation and involving families, the local community, children and teachers. Exploring the role of pollinators in our garden.
Speaker was from Maryland – raised with dad and grandpa who collected things – bird eggs etc – turn over a rock
what makes good dirt? – dark, crumbles in hand, helps plants grow
Fascinating Worm Fact – Gippsland, Australia – 9ft worm
Book – Worms eat my garbage – Mary Applegate
faucet at bottom really handy
teach the worms too – they need direct sunlight
direct light for a few hours – teach them to burrow
have the kids involved setup “their” wormery
banana peels, apple cores, shredded paper, salad, leaves, coffee grounds
hand towels – ripped
look at their lunches and leave for worms
the kids involvement is paramount
grow potato
chunk of potato with eye
when green stuff comes up, add more dirt
dictations
“I love worms because _______” then draw picture
grow the art – put up the tree trunk
then tree leaves, apples, worms
(mod lodge stick- add tissue paper)
recycling – what can be reused
paint the leaves
michael Recycle — litterbug doug
Monarch way station – site plan
construction workers – dirt (boy scouts)
experts appear (if you do this)
grow monarch with milkweed and get your own
take pictures of what nature items you want them to find and put them on cords for eye spy
just build – you can’t let it go in one go
hardy back – tie dye – cotton sheet
wring it out and let dry
pollinator garden
plant nectar plants – no pesticides
no pesticides in Spanish and english
bees – bee kit
life cycles and compare and contrast
wormsinthesensorytable@gmail.com