Ms. Baez's class (K02), along with Ms. Patricia, of the NYC Parks department and Ms. Diane, our Community senior volunteer, celebrated Earth Day by beautifying our kindergarten yard! This project started back in September when students were studying, "Our Community". They started planting flower bulbs all over the sidewalk beds from Broadway on 160th Street to Amsterdam Avenue and 159th Street. Our scholars learned to dig with shovels up to 4 inches! They measured with rulers! They learned to face the roots down to help the bulbs grow correctly. It took many planting g sessions, working around the weather to complete this planting project.
Our young environmentalists couldn't wait to see the school surrounded by beautiful flowers. Amelia D. told Ms. Baez, " It's going to be like walking through a garden every day, on our way to school!" The Giving Tree, a book by Shel Silvertein helped students learn about the important relationship between people and plants, we depend on each other. Now that Spring has come, our scholars are seeing their flowers bloom. They are also reporting the damages of the garbage and animals that are destroying some of the plant beds. Mrs. Diane recently visited Ms. Baez's students to find out what could could be done to improve the growth of our plants. Students Adam B. and Eli S. shared that we could build a metal fence or a metal gate! Ms. Diane and The Parks Restoration agreed to use the idea. But would use recycled wood instead of metal! to use recycled wood!
To celebrate Earth Day, class K02 painted an " Earth day" banner to let everyone know we care about our Earth and we would Celebrate with our plants and trees in our kindergarten backyard! The scholars enjoyed cleaning up the kindergarten yard together, so they could give the newly planted tree and our future plants a clean shelter. Students sang songs, blew bubbles, used wind pinwheels, and even explored worms and snails! After some digging and cleaning, Liam said "I love playing with Earth balls!".
When asked about this successful project, Ms. Baez said, "what my students got out of this planting project and Earth celebration is that we, the scholars of our community, can problem solve together and come up with good ideas. By communicating our ideas and working hard together, we can make the changes that we feel are most important. Our Earth is too important and we can all help make it better". Congratulations to Ms. Baez and the girls and boys of class K02.
