Mapping it Out! Connaught Students Learn the Importance of Space and Companion Planting

Early in the morning on April 10^th, the students at Connaught Public School were excited to welcome Growing Up Organic back to their school and begin planning for their school garden. The morning began with a discussion in the grade 5 classroom about what was successful in the garden last season and what the students wished to create with their harvest this year. Lasagna is on the menu! 

Once the class came up with a list of vegetables and herbs, it was time to plan out a map of the garden. The students learned about “companion planting” as a gardening technique and were eager to find ways of placing certain vegetables together that would help each other grow. By working together, the grade 5 classroom created a beautiful map of their vegetable garden.

The grade 3 students were just as enthusiastic about planning out their vegetable garden. Just to make sure the students understood how important it is for plants to have space, a fun experiment was conducted. The students pretended to be the seed of their favourite vegetable by curling up into a ball on the classroom carpet. They started to “grow” as they were given water, sunlight, and nutrients from the soil. As they stretched out their roots, stems, and leaves, they quickly realized that their vegetables were too close together and were running out of SPACE! With the lesson learned, it didn't take long for the grade 3 students to come up with an equally beautiful and well thought out vegetable garden.

 With two detailed maps for their garden beds, the students at Connaught are looking forward to implementing their plans so they can get into the garden and start growing their vegetables!