Garden Field Trip

This may have been my favorite field trip from that first year.  Looking back, it was very likely completely unnecessary.  We didn't earn another Petal and while it reinforced a bunch of things from the Journey it wasn't needed in our already busy schedule.  That being said it was awesome and I'm so glad we went.  The grounds at Green Spring Gardens are beautiful.  The day was gorgeous and the tour guide spectacular.

We only had about half our girls show up (there were a few last minute emergencies) but the girls that went had a great time.  We also created a worm composting bin and the worms are still, miraculously, alive in my garage.

Green Springs Gardens Field Trip

Early May

Green Spring Garden Horticulture Center

Goals and Badges:

As I said, this wasn't a field trip that we needed for anything.  Technically, it would have been part of their Bumble Bee patch for the Garden Journey, but they had already earned that.  We did read the 5th chapter from the Journey Book.   It also fed into our last two petals, "Use Resources Wisely" and "Make the World a Better Place" as well.  

*******

                10:30am       Drop off/gathering

                10:45           Drive to Green Spring Garden

                11:30           Arrive 

                11:45           Lunch and read from Journey Book

                 12:30          Tour/activity

                 2:00            Pack up to head home

                 3:00           Arrive back at my house

*******

Hand Out for this field trip

Email about Field Trip:

The Sunday May 5 Trip to Spring Gardens will start at my house at 10:30 (that’s 30 minutes earlier than previously announced.  It’s a long drive and we want to make sure we get there on time.)  We plan to be back around 3:15, but leave me a number to text you when we get home and you won’t have to wait in my driveway.

Like the last field trip please bring/remember:

1. Be in full Daisy uniform
2. Wear sneakers, we’ll be out in the grounds
3. Bring/wear a light coat or jacket, we’ll be outside a lot
4. Bring a packed lunch for before the tour. 
5. Bring a water bottle instead of a drink box or pouch, big enough to last the whole trip. It can have any drink, doesn't have to be water.
6. Give them breakfast before, lunch will be between 12 and 12:30.
7. Bring a backpack to keep your lunch and jacket in. The girls are responsible for carrying their own stuff. The chaperones will no longer carry bags and jackets!

K____ will send out a message with the permission slip attached.  Try to have it for Friday.  Thanks.  

Gathering

I'm sure we had a Gathering Activity, we always did, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was.  Oh well.  I do remember the drive being a bit of a hike and making a few wrong turns on the way.

Lunch and Story Time

When we arrived we were immediately impressed by the Gardens.  We walked around a bit until we found a set of picnic tables behind the Horticulture Center where we were to meet our tour guide.  Everyone had a packed lunchbox and water bottle.  We had the girls eat while my co-leader read them chapter 5 in the Journey Book.  It was about worm composting so that was apropos.

Chapter 5

Their picnic

After lunch, we let the kids play in the garden until our tour guide arrived.

View of Horticulture Center from the back.

Garden Program

We had a lovely woman, who was very good with with this age group, as a tour guide.  First, she taught the girls all about worm composting and we made our own composting bin to take home.  She then had a recycling game to help teach the girls about what to feed the worms and what to recycle.  Finally, she took us on a long walk through the woods, around the pond, and over the grounds.

Garden and patio we worked in.

Worm Composting

I'm far from a worm composting expert, but as I understand it, we made the simplest form of a compost bin.  Considering I still have it, alive and functioning, in my garage a year later with minimal effort on my part I can definitely recommend this method.  It's easily something you can do in the backyard, alone, or with your troop.

Supplies for composting:

1. A medium size plastic container with a lid and air holes drilled in about 2 inches from the top.

2. Red wiggler worms (earthworms from the backyard will not work.) You can order them from amazon or get them from a friend who composts.

3.  Wet newspaper.

4.  Organic material for food.

5.  Dirt.

( This is where you would most likely get a whole lot more detail if this wasn't a year later, but I'll do my best. ) Our tour guide had the girls soak and wring out newspaper, then tear it into shreds to lay down a layer of bedding in the container.  The container was placed under a table so the sun didn't dry it out.

Preparing the newspaper

Looking in the "parent" worm bin in the shade

Then our guide added dirt and the girls mixed it all up.

Adding dirt

Mixing

Then came handfuls of her already created compost from the "parent bin," along with the worms.  We were surprised at how good all the girls were with handling the worms.  It was pretty cool. 

Each of the girls with a red wiggler

Red wiggler worm

After that, the girls added old veggies and another layer of bedding then we sealed the bin up and took it home.  See the afterword for the wormery today.  

Here's a good website that has more accurate info than me:  

http://www.planetnatural.com/composting-101/vermicomposting/

Recycling game

I could tell our tour guide understood little girls by her next activity.  She had two of the moms stand at the end of a long walkway in the garden, one carrying a recycling bin and one a "compost bin."  On the other end was a pile of various toy foods and recyclables.  The object of the game was for the girls to run the toys to the other end of the garden to sort the pile.  There were some trick foods, like meats and things (plastic of course), that they were supposed to leave behind.

Moms doing their part

Girls enjoying the recycling game

Objects they sorted

Walk around the grounds

The last thing we did was take a hike around the grounds.  Our tour guide took us down a path, through the woods, around the pond, and through the flower gardens, talking to the girls about the various flowers and wildlife along the way.

Start of the tour

Creek in the woods

Geese by the pond

Turtles in the pond

Goslings

Pond

The final stretch back across the lawn to the Horticulture Center

Enjoying the day

Afterword:  Worm Compost 14 months later.

These worms have lived on a shelf in my garage for 14 months.  I'm amazed that they are still alive.  I didn't touch them for almost three months in the middle of the winter (and it was a terrible winter), partially because of forgetfulness and partially because I didn't want to let the cold air in.  I think they survived because the composting keeps it warmer in the bin and because without food they went into a kind of hibernation.

Wormery in my garage

Inside of the bin after 14 months

As I'm writing this I'm inspired to actually harvest the worm casings for the first time.  It was supposed to be done 6 months after the bin was started, but that would have been December and that wasn't happening.   I did scoop out some castings and mix it with dirt in April when the troop was doing some planting, but didn't do a full harvest until now.

According to the directions I found on the website I listed, I pulled out the partially digested food and pushed the rest to one side.

Worms and casings to the left

I poured out the liquid fertilizer "worm juice" into a bowl and used it to water my pumpkins.  

"worm juice" that got poured on my pumpkins 

Worm

Worm again

Then I put new bedding and food on the clean side.  I didn't have a lot of rotten veggies so most of the food I added was weeds from my flower beds.

Set up to lure the worms out of the casings to harvest easier

Now back on the shelf for two weeks and hopefully all the worms will have moved to the clean side of the wormery.

Two weeks Later:

In the next two weeks, we added some strawberry tops and banana peals to the food side of the bin.  When it was time to harvest it was looking pretty gross.  Lots of worm casings.  Neither of my kids would come near it.  There's an unpleasant smell but it is very mild.  

Bin after opening two weeks later (yuck!)

I got out a pair of garden gloves and scooped out the casings, trying my best to keep as many worms as I could out of the fertilizer.  I was shocked at how many worms there were.  I'd say a minimum of  50, but there could have been as many as 100.  I don't think we started with more than 10.  

Harvested casings

After I filled up a sand bucket (it took maybe ten minutes) I still had casings left in the bin but they were so packed with worms it was hard to separate any more out, so I just spread the remains back over the bottom of the bin and added more food.

Cleaned out bin, with worms and new food.

Then came a nice thick layer of new "bedding" (aka wet newspaper).  There was a good chance I wouldn't be doing much more with these little guys for the next month or more.  And then the bin went back on the shelf in the garage.

New bedding

The casings I brought to the backyard.  After the big garden from last year we decided to plant a simple pumpkin patch, but we did have a few hitchhiker tomato plants grow on their own from last years squashed tomatoes.

Pumpkins and tomatoes ready for fertilizer

The fertilizer would have probably done more good at planting, but it was too late so I packed it around the roots,

Fertilizer added

then watered the garden.  

"Before" Garden

And done.  For now.  :)

SWAPs Interlude V

These next two SWAPs weren't actually girl made, though they certainly could be.  The first set were my SWAPs to give out to my unit when I volunteered at camp.   The unit name was the "Forest Fairies" and my camp nickname is Shrinky Dink.   The second SWAP was something I made with my five year-old son (let's face it was mostly me, though my daughter helped) for "Myths and Legends" camp so he would have a few to swap if he wanted to and wouldn't feel left out.

Shrinky Dink Fairy SWAP

My camp nickname has been Shrinky Dink since last year and I knew as soon as I volunteered for the week I wanted to do a shrinky dink SWAP.  I found the shrinky dink paper and thought it would be fairly simple.  I was wrong.

The original plan was to print fairy pictures onto the paper, cut them out and make charms.  Easy-peasy, right?  Well, it turns out you need specialized shrink paper to print using an inkjet, otherwise it smears and runs and makes a mess.  My poor daughter was helping and almost wound up in tears when she accidentally smudged half a page as she tried to cut out the pictures for me.  I read sanding the paper would help.  It didn't.   I was able to get a few really nice ones by printing them, quickly sprinkling them with embossing sand, letting them dry overnight, then baking them.  But even then, less then half turned out nice (the ink starts to bead right out of the printer) wasting the printer ink, the shrink paper, and the embossing sand.  None of which are cheap.

The few printed ones that worked

The majority looked like this.

My daughter recycled, using the duds as purses for her SWAPS

The instructions that came with the shrink paper recommended using stamps and/or permanent ink markers, so this SWAP was born and, hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes.  The stamp ink can smear (though not nearly as badly) so you need to blot carefully and give it time to dry between steps.   Sharpies work great with very little smudge potential.  My daughter did try colored pencils but that didn't work all.

This would be a very fun project for girls as young as Brownies.  The only problem is they have to be very careful not to smudge and there is drying time between steps.

Final SWAP

Supplies

1.  White shrink paper

2.  Sandpaper block

3.  Fairy stamps (I have the Melissa and Doug Fairy Set)

4.  Ink pads

5.  Sharpies

6.  Scissors and holes punch (mine was flower shaped)

7.  Artist's safety pins

8.  Beads

Stamp set on Amazon

Stamps and ink pads

Sanding block I use

Artist Safety Pins from Oriental Trading

Metallic pony beads that I used from Oriental Trading.  

Steps

1.   Sand the shrink paper.  Very important to prevent smudging if you have glossy paper.

2.   Measure the width of your stamps and cut into strips (this prevents smudging from leaning on adjacent images when coloring them in.)

3.  Stamp a row.

4.  Carefully blot the row on a piece of scrap paper.

5.  Once done stamping let dry for several hours or overnight.

6.  Color in stamps with sharpies and let dry for at least an hour.

7.  Carefully blot again.

8.  Cut out shapes and punch a hole in corner.

9.  Write date and/or name on back with sharpie and let dry at least an hour.

10.  Preheat oven to 325.

11.  Place pieces on baking sheet, word side down.  The sharpie is less likely to come off on the pan.  I use a sheet of parchment paper to protect my cookie pan.

12.  Bake for 2-5 minutes, until all pieces lie flat.

13.  Cool for about ten minutes.

14.  Place Shrinky Dink Charm and bead on safety pin.  I used "artistic safety pins" from Oriental Trading, but regular large safety pins will work.  

Finished SWAPS.  (They are actually much more detailed in person.)

I also made myself a Shrinky Dink Necklace to wear at camp.  Fairies on one side of the shrinky dink and letters spelling out "Shrinky Dink" on the other.

Shooting Star SWAP

For those of you not familiar with Girl Scout Day Camps, they are 100% volunteer run.  Because of this they have units for the boys and preschool children of the volunteers. (Also volunteers' kids are usually free or close to free.  A great deal if you have a lot of kids).  

My five year-old son attended two camps this summer, one my husband volunteered at and one I volunteered at.   Sometimes, they mingle with girls at swap time and sometimes they don't, but I wanted him to have a few just in case.  I sent him with 15.  My daughter generally goes with 30-50.  She once went with 70 and came home with 20, so too many.

I chose these little stars because even my craft hating son likes to melt pony beads and all he had to do is throw beads in the mold and watch them melt.  Stars for a "Myths and Legends" camp is a bit of a stretch but all the constellations are based on myths and written in the stars, right?

Supplies

1.  Silicon star molds

2.  Pony beads of different colors and types (translucent, opaque, pearl etc.)

3.  Scissors 

4.  Oven

5.  Gold card stock with message

6.  Glue gun

7.  Safety pins (gold if available)

Steps

1.  Mix three different types/colors of beads on the bottom of the molds so they are just covering the bottom.  (If the kids throw in more that's fine too).

2.  Preheat the oven to 425.  You may want to bake it in the toaster oven outside.  We did the first batch inside, but the fumes from the beads kept setting off the fire alarms.

3.  Bake for 15-20 minutes until just melted.

4.  Using a pointed scissor, swirl the star.  You will only be able to swirl two before the scissor heats up and sticks to the beads.  I recommend either having multiple scissors handy or doing them in batches.

5.  Bake another 5 minutes or until smooth. (In you are swirling in batches bake 5 minutes in between).  

6.  Allow to cool (about 10 minutes) and the stars should pop right out.

7.  Print message on gold cardstock and cut out to make a shooting star trail.

8.  Glue gun tag to back of star and add a safety pin.

9. Done!