Bringing students closer to nature and the world around them!
Summer Maintenance
We are looking for student volunteers and their parents to help maintain the Learning Gardens this summer. Flyers have gone home in the Tuesday folders, but you can also contact Ann Donargo at dougann99@hotmail.com. Thanks!
Garden Designs - 1st - 3rd - 4th grades
Garden Plant Lists - 1st - 3rd - 4th grades
Pictures/Slideshows (future)
Handbook for Grade-level Coordinators
The goal of the Learning Garden project is to bring students closer to nature through gardening that is tied directly to grade-level curricula. Studies show that children work and mature better mentally, physically, and emotionally when exposed to nature, but that more children than ever are disconnected from the outdoors. This project shows students how they can and do directly affect the environment around them.
The primary emphasis of the Learning Garden is enhancing the students’ science curriculum, but the gardens can be used as a resource across all subjects. As the gardens have been created and nurtured, other subjects such as math, social studies, and art have also been integrated into the project. To date, students have created a Butterfly Garden, a Virginia Garden, and a Five Senses Garden.
This project began in the spring of 2006 with a grant from the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia through their Audubon At Home program. They have continued to support this project and other local businesses, the school’s PTA, and students’ families have also provided support through a variety of donations.
The gardens were designed specific to their sites and grade-level themes by local Master Gardeners and horticulturists. Each of the gardens has been created with space to allow students every year to grow annuals started from seed. The gardens have been created and maintained during school hours by the students with supervision from parent volunteers. The students’ efforts have included bed preparation, planting, mulching, and weeding. The teachers use the gardens at other times to bring curriculum to life (e.g., releasing their butterflies, gathering herbs from the colonial garden to use in making sachets on Colonial Day, making observations about plants using their five senses).
The 1st grade Five Senses Garden has been designed to enhance the study of the five senses. Most people think of plants for their appeal to our senses of sight, smell, or taste, but many plants also stimulate our senses of touch and hearing. This garden features a variety of plants with qualities of particular interest to one or more of the senses and will help to develop the students’ abilities in scientific observation. In the fall of 2008, the students started the preparation of their garden bed by layering leaves, newspaper, and mulch on the garden site to kill the grass over the winter. In the spring of 2009, well-aged horse manure was added and the students planted perennials and annuals.
Perennials in this garden include Baptisia/False Indigo, Knockout Rose, Lambs Ear, Chives, Red Hot Poker, Cardoon and Muhly Grass. Annuals include plants such as Lemon Basil, Cotton, Bunny Tails Grass, Celosia, and Radishes that they grow from seed.
The 3rd grade Butterfly Garden was the first garden created by the students and has been designed as a butterfly habitat. Plants have been included to function as either a “host” plant or a “nectar” plant. Host plants provide a place for caterpillars to lay their eggs and nectar plants provide food for both caterpillars and butterflies. The garden contains a variety of perennials and annuals, all of which have been planted by students. Third-grade students use this garden throughout the year, but in particular in the spring at the culmination of their butterfly life-cycle unit when they release butterflies that they have grown in their classroom from caterpillars.
Perennials include Black-eyed Susan, Goldenrod, Aster, Joe-pye Weed, Milkweed, Shasta Daisy, and Coral Bells. Annuals include marigold, sunflower, parsley, and zinnia. The annuals are started from seed, some of which are gathered by the students in the fall.
The 4th grade Virginia Garden has been designed to represent an early colonial garden. There are 4 small quadrants marked off by bricks with 2 center aisles of grass. Two of the small quadrants have plants that colonists would have used for medicinal or culinary uses. The other two quadrants are flower gardens. In the very center of the garden is a sundial. Edging the garden as a whole are the bricks and 40 boxwood plants, all of which came from Mount Vernon, really adding to that colonial feel! Fourth-grade students use this garden in conjunction with both their colonial studies and their study of plants.
Perennials in this garden include rosemary, dianthus, yarrow, sage, peony, iris and daffodils. Annuals include marigold, cockscomb, dill, parsley, pumpkins, lettuce, radishes, and carrots. The annuals are started from seed, some of which are gathered by the students in the fall.
In 2008-09, the school received a 60-gallon rain barrel for use with the Learning Garden project. We held a contest to find the best design to be painted onto the barrel and then-4th grader Alexandra Waniel won the contest with her bright, bold design. The rain barrel was installed in the courtyard over the summer of 2009 and demonstrates how to conserve water by capturing rain water from the roof and using it to water the Learning Garden.
Click here to see the winning design and click here to see the rain barrel installed in the courtyard. (future)
For more information about rain barrels, read this document.
Thanks to Mrs. Lessard and the 2008-09 Student Council Association (SCA) for volunteering to pay for the installation of the rain barrel into the courtyard!
Thank you to the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District for giving us a free rain barrel to use in collecting water from the school roof!
Thank you to Lauren Nowak of Duron Paints and Wallcoverings of Fairfax for her donation of 10 quarts of colored paint for the Rain Barrel Decorating Contest!
Thank you to Steve Pyne of the Wild Bird Center of Burke for his donations in 2007, 2008, and 2009. He has donated 2 bird feeders, 40 pounds of bird seed, and almost 70 bird seed ornaments! Keep your eyes open around the school campus, both in the courtyard and outside of the building, to see these donations and lots more birds.
Thank you to FedEx/Kinko’s of Fairfax for giving us reduced copying and scanning costs for our garden designs!
Thank you to the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia for their grants ($500 in 2006, $100 in 2007, and $250 in 2008) which helped start this project and will help keep it moving forward!
Thank you to Judy Zatsick of the Master Gardeners program for volunteering her time to design the garden plan for the 1st Grade Five Senses Garden!
Thank you to Elaine Tholen of the Master Gardeners program for volunteering her time to design the garden plan for the 3rd Grade Butterfly Garden!
Thank you to Mary Apperson, Clifton parent and horticulturist at Mount Vernon, for volunteering her time to design the garden plan for the 4th Grade Virginia Garden and for helping to obtain many of the supplies and plants for the garden!
Thank you to Dean Norton and his staff at Mount Vernon for their help in gathering and donating supplies for the 4th Grade Virginia Garden!
Thank you to Kip Coretylou of K & K Lawn Maintenance in McLean for his donation of the leaf compost!
Thank you to all the Clifton ES families who have made donations of tools, plants, bird seed, and their time to this project!
Resources (Websites/Books)