October and November:  Our Bountiful Fall Harvest


2nd graders use marigolds from the garden to dye placemats

 Native Dyes with 2nd grade

  This fall the Discovery Garden was filled to the brim with cotton, sweet potatoes, and native dye plants. Our 2nd graders learned about Native Americans in October. As part of their unit of study students learned about the ways Native Americans added color to their wardrobes and to their homes.
 Ms. Nevin's class gathered acorns from around the school and then soaked them in a large pot. Acorns contain a substance called tannin. The tannin is released from the acorns when they are soaked in water. The tannin was used to dye clothing as well as leather products.
    Many Native Americans ate acorns as well as used them for dyes. They preferred bitter acorns to sweet ones because they stored better.  Also, charred acorns were used for a drink similar to coffee.
 2nd grade also used crushed black walnuts to dye cloth, just as the Native Americans did so long ago.
   Other dye colors used included madder, blackberry leaves, eucalyptus, and marigolds. Mrs. Leigh Muto lent her time in order for the 2nd grade classes to dye hand sewn placemats to a local Women's Shelter.


4th Grade Colonial Day 

        4th grade students grew and harvested cotton this fall. The first English settlers in America found little or no cotton among the natives. But they soon began to import the fiber from the West Indies, whence came also the plant itself into the congenial soil and climate of the Southern colonies.
      During the colonial period, however, cotton never became the leading crop. Cotton could be grown profitably only where there was an abundant supply of exceedingly cheap labor, and labor in America,  was never and could never be as cheap as in India.
    Colonists first began to weave cotton in the early 1600s. Our 4th grade students learned how to card the cotton grown in the Discovery Garden. They created drop spindles and used them to make yarn. Mrs. Muto took some of the cotton home and used her loom to spin it into the yarn you see above.

1st Grade Peanut Harvest

Yum! 1st graders found a pleasant surprise when they dug up their peanut plants this fall. The 1st graders harvested the peanuts then let them dry for about 3 weeks. After the peanuts dried they used them to make peanut soup in class. The soup recipe was from a cookbook written by George Washinton Carver. Students also used a recipe from Carver to make peanut soap!
   Peanut plants have a long history. Remains of peanut hulls  7,600 years old are were discovered in Peru.