Sweet Selenia

"Hello My Name Is Selenia Estrada, I’m In The 8th Grade And I Go To Palestine Middle School, And As You Can See Me And My Fellow Classmates Are Making Great Progress On Our Garden. It Turned Out Amazing! First We Had To Remove Everything From The Garden, The Old Plants, Roots And Every Bit Of Weeds. Then We Decided Which Plants We Wanted To Grow. We Chose Tomato, Squash, Zucchini, Lettuce, Beans, Onions, Jalapeno, And Many More. Later Then We Got Everything Planted. Everybody Volunteers  And That Helps Everyone Get The Job Done Faster. I Always Have Fun When We’re Outside Working And I Hope Everyone Else Does Too. After We Finished Planting, We Watered Them With A Good Amount Of Water, And We Go Outside Everyday To Check On The Garden. To Make Our Garden Look Nice And Neat We Are Pulling The Weeds Out And Removing The Them Into A Bucket. Everything Is Looking Great So Far And We Need It To Stay Like That Because We Are Having The Kids From Washington School Come Over. We Went To They’re School And They Did A Terrific Job On Their Garden, We Enjoyed Every Bit Of It And I Hope They Will Too. We Will Be Showing Them Our Garden, Which Plants Are Which, And Teaching Them About Our Plants And Why We Chose Them. We Will Also Have Covers On The Floor And Reading Them Books Outside. It Sounds Like A Lot Of Fun So I Can’t Wait.
 Till Then We Will Continue What We Are Doing, Making The Plants Look Nice And Neat.

If You Live In Palestine Or Near Palestine, Come Check Out Our Beautiful Garden At The Palestine Middle School! We Will Really Appreciate If You Did. Well See Ya Next Time. Bye-Bye !(:"


I think Selenia could win the prize for the sweetest kid ever.  She has such a great attitude and positive spirit.  I just love, love, love her!

As Selenia said, we have invited the kids from Washington ECC to our visit our garden.  We have worked so hard and we want to show it off!  We are going to have a "Garden Reading Party." Once again, we are getting everybody involved.  One of the art classes is making a giant Eric Carle style caterpillar and one of the 8th AP writing classes is writing children's stories.  I found a slew of children's books about gardens and butterflies that the big kids can read to the little kids.  I'm pretty sure that everyone involved is excited about this party. I can't wait!

If you can handle more exciting news, check out the beans!  Can't wait to eat those babies!

Also, we have loads of squash and zucchini that are just a few weeks away from harvest.

Along with the squash and beans, we have one tiny strawberry blossom.  It's promising.

We've got tons of work to do to get ready for our party.  The kids want everything to look amazing when the little kids come over.   Can't wait to tell you about it!

We've got VEGGIES!

Woohoo!  Our first zucchini and yellow squash have made their appearance.  Now barring some fatal disaster, we will have accomplished one of our goals.  I love showing the kids those tiny little veggies, and I think there are tons on the way.

Since we have been testing all week I haven't seen any of my advisory kids so I don't have a student post.  Sorry.  I'll have a few next week and we have a really exciting event coming up that I can't wait to tell you about.

In the mean time, I wanted to show you how our vegetable garden is doing.  My 6th period class helped me weed and so we took some pictures.  Here ya go!

Squash, zucchini and strawberries.

Makel is showing how big one of our zucchini plants is. It's massive.

A few of my great 7th graders! Oh yeah, and our beans.

Front Page News!

 We made the paper! Check out the article in the Palestine Herald Press today! 

http://palestineherald.com/

A Very Pretty Tire Garden and Miguel

"Hi my name is Miguel and today my classmates and I are planting plants in some tires that we filled up with dirt. The last two days on Monday April 16 and Friday 13 my class mates and I filled up some tires with dirt and some fertilizer for the plants.  Our teacher Mrs. McGehee bought a ton of plants that we are planting today there so much plants that I can't even name them.  The last two days Friday and Monday were very hard, getting the dirt on the truck and dumping it into about 43 tires but all that hard work is about to pay off when we finish planting the plants and they start to grow and I know it will turn into a very pretty TIRE GARDEN."

Miguel blogged while we planted.  He's always a great worker.  I love his attitude and his demeanor.

Ok now,

CHECK THIS OUT!!!

Let me take you through the process one more time....

And finally

This was a whirlwind project, but the final effect is amazing.  The pictures don't do it justice.  We could not have pulled it off if it wasn't for Mrs. Camacho, our administrators and the 150 to 200 students that got their hands dirty.  If you live in Palestine, you need to stop by and check it out.  

Dirt Day Part 1, Flor and Katelyn

"Hello, our names are Katelyn Moseley and Flor Cruz. Today we got to skip some of our classes to go shovel some dirt for our garden.We are making a tire garden the art classes were nice enough to paint the tires for us. Its very hard work but we had some help from other students and teachers.We are putting newspaper at the bottom of the tires and filling it up with dirt and horse manure.(gross)We are going to stack them and plant flowers in them.We’re sure its going to look amazingly fantastic."

In all the hub bub, I failed to take a picture of Flor and Katelyn so I pulled this one from our Washington trip.  I'll be sure to get one of these two next time!

We worked our bottoms off!!!  Everybody helped and we got so much done!  I'd say we are just over half way finished.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

They remind me of Easter eggs.

Mrs. Camacho's art classes in action.

Watching paint dry...

A colorful arrangement.

Repurposed seed tray.

Hopefully these will keep the dirt in our tires. 

The 3 R's in action. (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle)

 

We hauled alot of dirt.  These kids never hesitated, they just shoveled, carried and dumped that dirt.  

I wish I had taken a picture while we were all eating lunch.  It was  dead silent.  They wolfed down their food.  That meal was well earned.

The semi finished product.

We had loads of help just when we needed it.  At the end of our work day, a few other classes pitched in.  

The previously mentioned horse manure.  One of the most frequently asked questions:  "Miss, what is this stuff?"  

More great help!

We have one more dirt day then we get to plant!  I don't think I'll have any problem getting this job done.  It's going to be really rewarding for the kids to put the plants in the tires.  We've decided to go with plants from a local nursery.  I hope we have enough, we'll see what we end up with,  we have several packets of seeds too.  I can't wait for you to see the final product!

Angel and Astrid

"Hi, our names are Astrid and Angel. We are in Mrs.McGehee’s 8th grade advisory class and this is the story of our garden. Well we have finished planting most of our vegetables, and have even sold some to our fellow teachers. With the money we raised we were able to buy some strawberries, that will eventually turn into big, fat, red, juicy, delicious strawberries (hopefully). Now let us tell you what we did last week. We went to visit some adorable little kids, at Washington Pre-K Center in Palestine, Texas 75801. They taught us that when you plant you need to first make hole to put the seeds in, and give it a “Love Pat”, and that you also need water and sun. If you want to watch these adorable, cute little kids show us how to plant, you can go to the video posted right under our blog. Thanks for giving us your time.

                    P.S. we took some pictures and edited a video just for you.Hope you like it and do the Mambo as you watch!;D

  

Lovee, 

                 #1 Photographers and Bloggers in Cuba. Jk
                                         -Astrid Sandoval & Angel Khong :)"

Sorry about the awkward angle, we obviously aren't professional camera people.  We will do better next time!

We are just working and our plants are growing!  Thankfully!  We have added a second layer of dirt on one of our potato towers.  The idea is to add dirt as the plants grow instead of digging a big hole and planting the potato.  That way, when the potatoes are ready, you just have to  open up the chicken wire.  Yummy potatoes and no digging!

We now have corn in our garden, as well as tomatoes, jalapenos and the highly anticipated.....strawberries!

This is a sneak peak of our tire project.  We hope to have this completed by Monday.  More to come.

This is one of my favorite clips from our trip to Washington.  My 8th graders are comparing our garden to the Pre-K's garden.  Listen carefully as my kids have a few moments of clarity. 

                               

Washington Garden, Jesus Student Post and What are all the tires for?

Wow! We have tons going on!  As you can tell by the title, this was a full week for our little garden. 

First, we have involved our art classes to create a tire garden.  Each of Mrs. Camacho's art classes walked down the street to Denson's Tire and rolled several tires back to our space.  The plan, you ask.  Paint, stack and fill each tire so that wild flowers and drought resistant species can be planted.  This is an ambitious project, but it's going to expand our planting space and add lots of color. 

All together they hauled and sorted 80 tires.  I wish I had video of the kids rolling the tires down the  hill to the school, it was HILARIOUS! 

Goal #1 for the tire project:  PAINT!  I'm leaving that up to Mrs. Camacho.

Goal #2 for the tire project:  Haul DIRT!  It's gonna take alot of dirt to fill 80 tires, I'm sweating just thinking about it. 

Second,  we visited Wasington Pre-K and ECC.  They have a beautiful garden, and I have to admit, I was a little envious.  I can definitely see what our garden could be in the future.  This brings me to my second student post.  Jesus hesitantly volunteered to blog as we visited so we could have a first hand account as things happened. 

 "Hello my name is Jesus Estrada and I go to Palestine Middle School , So we arrived at Washington School. Mrs. Herrington is giving our class a tour of their garden.The 4 year olds that planted all these plants, Its so cute , They came out side and explained to us what they did and how they planted them, the Maintenance plant a garden every year and the school out grew theirs. The 4 year old kids planted a lot of plants. They planted there seeds on February 12th. They told us that  , Their garden is beautiful , I can not believe how big and how these 4 year olds planted all these plants, it’s so amazing seeing these kids make  garden like that. This is the schools second year making a garden , so they know what they’re doing"



Mrs. Herrington explained all about the Pre-K garden.  They have planted a "soup garden."  As  part of their project, they invite all the parents to the school at the end of the year to enjoy soup made from the harvested veggies.



                                                                   













The Washington Garden consisted of four raised beds built by parent volunteers. The beds were filled with rich soil from the bottom of the Neches River. 


This was one of our many gracious hosts for the after noon.  She explained all about planting and watering.  I was so impressed by the composure of these kids.  They were very well spoken and confidant. 



Each bed was planted and tended by two classes.  They planted corn, sugar snaps, squash, tomatoes, green beans, carrots, cabbage, and potatoes. 

The whole gang.  The big kids and little kids posed together behind the corn.  This was a great opputunity for everyone.  The big kids saw what is possible and the little kids got to show off their work.  I felt like a proud momma.  Love all these kids!

(P.S.  Video to come!)