The last couple of weeks, my preschoolers have been doing a plant theme and today we read a big book about growing a vegetable garden. As I was asking the children what they knew about growing vegetables, the subject of composting was brought up. So, I decided to look up what we need to make a compost pile and actually have the kids start one of their own using scraps from lunch. I have learned a lot from looking at different websites. The only concern I have is that we have less than 2 months left of school and I am not sure how much decomposition the children will be able to observe in that amount of time. I was thinking of adding earthworms to it, but from what I can find, it sounds like the materials have to begin to decompose before you can add the worms. Thinking this is a great idea, but probably going to be an ongoing process for a while even if I have to work on it over the summer and have it ready for the children for next school year. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Also, I will provide a couple of the useful links I have found.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/compost.cfm
http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-compost-indoors/
Began our compost pile today. We are using a large, clear plastic container that used to have animal crackers in it. So far we have only added spinach leaves and grated carrots from lunch. Keeping it damp, but probably going to add shredded paper soon and then the worms.
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