During the summer of 2023, students spent the summer beautifying and 'pollinating' our garden. Our main focuses for this summer was planting, learning, and creating. 

Planting: Each student got their hands dirty this summer! They all started off by weeding and creating the garden beds. They dug holes and helped plant each of the perennial and annual plants in the garden. They learned how far apart to plant each one, and saw just how hard it was to dig deep holes! We made sure to have plenty of nectar sources for the butterflies and the bees, plenty of Milkweed for the Monarchs, and even parsley for the Swallowtails. 

Learning: Wings and Wonder Butterfly Garden is a wonderful opportunity for students to learn about the Monarch Butterfly in their natural habitat. How lucky are we that we have our own outdoor classroom?! We learned how to look for different kinds of eggs (ladybugs, Monarchs, Swallowtails, etc.). They are all now Milkweed experts and can spot the plant from a mile away. We collected Monarch caterpillars to hand-raise and safely release, we watched ladybugs munch on all of the little aphids, we saw baby praying mantis hatch out of its egg sack, and we saw a Swallowtail butterfly lay eggs on the parsley plants we planted. 

Creating: This summer we focused on three main art projects. The first one was a nature mosaic project, where we took paint swatches and created pictures using the cut up paint swatch pieces. We also painted and sealed river rocks to look like ladybugs. When you are out venturing around the garden, look around and see how many ladybug rocks you can find! Our third and final art project was to create a sign to be placed in our garden. The students painted different words on wood pieces. Check it out in our garden!