Harvest Time! As squirrels and critters are busy this October making preparations for their long winter, so to have our Terra Centre Tigers been busy harvesting their warm weather crops from last June and building food stores for winter. This year's fall bounty includes heirloom tomatoes, bell peppers, green beans, miniature Indian popcorn, goose neck gourds, sugar baby pumpkins, mammoth sunflower heads, Virginia peanuts, basil, parsley, sage, oregano, mint, thyme, rosemary, and chives.
Produce Donated to Food for Others. Much of our fall bounty has been consumed in the classrooms (Mrs. Beil's Green Tomato Cake was a hit for a 2nd year in a row!), but we are happy to report that Terra Centre families have made two trips already this year to Food for Others--a local food bank that distributes our extra produce to needy families throughout our community (
http://foodforothers.org/).
Peanut Harvest Fun! Also in October, our 1st graders, the K-1 class, and 4th graders had the opportunity to harvest Virginia peanuts. Few garden experiences are more satisfying than tugging on a big, leafy green peanut plant to reveal a cluster of hidden peanuts pegged below the soil line. Fourth graders coupled this experience with a lesson on the Origins of the Peanut and a trip to see peanut plants at Green Spring Gardens. They can now readily identify peanut pegs and are familiar with the plants history, including its origins in Brazil or Peru (~3,500 years ago), its migration to Europe, Africa, and Asia with the Spanish explorers, and finaly its arrival in Virginia with the African slave trade. Later this year, 1st graders will draw connections between their experience harvesting peanut plants and George Washington Carver, the famous American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor who is credited with developing 105 food recipes involving peanuts, as well as 100 useful products made from peanuts for the home and the farm. Carver recognized the value of the peanut as a cash crop and recommended that it be planted as a rotational crop in the Southeast cotton-growing areas where the boll weevil insect was devastating regional agriculture.
El Jardin de Descubrimento. After serving Discovery Garden salsa to her classes in honor of Spanish Heritage Month (thank you, 2nd grade chefs!), Senora Plante took her Spanish classes to the great outdoors. Students spent time up in the Discovery Garden developing their vegetative Spanish vocabulary (pumpkin, tomato, flower, etc.) and singing fun garden songs. Senora Plante also recorded videos of her classes enjoying a hunt through the garden for her favorite and ever-blue classroom buddy, "Papa Pitufo" (a.k.a., Papa Smurf).
Corn Harvest Did you know that corn and its many chemical derivatives are present in one form or another in most of the foods we consume? Sodas, processed food additives and preservatives, most meats and dairy (feed lot cows, chickens, and pigs all eat...corn!). Maize, or corn as we know it today, would not exist if it weren't for the people of central Mexico who cultivated and developed it nearly 7,000 years ago from a wild grass called teosinte. From this region, the crop migrated south to Peru and north to the Eastern Woodland Native American tribes of North America. When Columbus and other European settlers landed in the New World, corn was a major component of the Native American diet. These explorers brought their new corn discovery back to Europe. Did you know that corn is a human invention, a plant that does not exist naturally in the wild? It can only survive if planted and protected by humans. This month, our 4th graders helped harvest our Native American miniature popcorn crop, which our 2nd graders will "pop" later this year when they study Native American cultures.
The Discovery Garden Farmstand! Those of you who attended Back to School night in mid-September may have noticed our new Discovery Garden Farmstand in the front hall of the school. Mrs. Occhuizzo not only spent her summer dreaming up creative garden learning opportunities and recipes for our kids, but also constructing an entire Farmstand for them. Thank you Mrs. Occhuizzo! Not only do the Terra Centre students, teachers, and parents love this wonderful addition to the main hallway, but the resident crickets in the building also love it! They can be heard chirping merrily from their cozy new perches in the decorative corn stalks.
Produce Donated to Food for Others. Much of our fall bounty has been consumed in the classrooms (Mrs. Beil's Green Tomato Cake was a hit for a 2nd year in a row!), but we are happy to report that Terra Centre families have made two trips already this year to Food for Others--a local food bank that distributes our extra produce to needy families throughout our community (http://foodforothers.org/). 
Peanut Harvest Fun! Also in October, our 1st graders, the K-1 class, and 4th graders had the opportunity to harvest Virginia peanuts. Few garden experiences are more satisfying than tugging on a big, leafy green peanut plant to reveal a cluster of hidden peanuts pegged below the soil line. Fourth graders coupled this experience with a lesson on the Origins of the Peanut and a trip to see peanut plants at Green Spring Gardens. They can now readily identify peanut pegs and are familiar with the plants history, including its origins in Brazil or Peru (~3,500 years ago), its migration to Europe, Africa, and Asia with the Spanish explorers, and finaly its arrival in Virginia with the African slave trade. Later this year, 1st graders will draw connections between their experience harvesting peanut plants and George Washington Carver, the famous American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor who is credited with developing 105 food recipes involving peanuts, as well as 100 useful products made from peanuts for the home and the farm. Carver recognized the value of the peanut as a cash crop and recommended that it be planted as a rotational crop in the Southeast cotton-growing areas where the boll weevil insect was devastating regional agriculture.
El Jardin de Descubrimento. After serving Discovery Garden salsa to her classes in honor of Spanish Heritage Month (thank you, 2nd grade chefs!), Senora Plante took her Spanish classes to the great outdoors. Students spent time up in the Discovery Garden developing their vegetative Spanish vocabulary (pumpkin, tomato, flower, etc.) and singing fun garden songs. Senora Plante also recorded videos of her classes enjoying a hunt through the garden for her favorite and ever-blue classroom buddy, "Papa Pitufo" (a.k.a., Papa Smurf).
Corn Harvest Did you know that corn and its many chemical derivatives are present in one form or another in most of the foods we consume? Sodas, processed food additives and preservatives, most meats and dairy (feed lot cows, chickens, and pigs all eat...corn!). Maize, or corn as we know it today, would not exist if it weren't for the people of central Mexico who cultivated and developed it nearly 7,000 years ago from a wild grass called teosinte. From this region, the crop migrated south to Peru and north to the Eastern Woodland Native American tribes of North America. When Columbus and other European settlers landed in the New World, corn was a major component of the Native American diet. These explorers brought their new corn discovery back to Europe. Did you know that corn is a human invention, a plant that does not exist naturally in the wild? It can only survive if planted and protected by humans. This month, our 4th graders helped harvest our Native American miniature popcorn crop, which our 2nd graders will "pop" later this year when they study Native American cultures.