Post by Susie Hobart, 5th grade teacher:

 

We need your help on Monday, May 13th at 3:30. Read on for an update...

Led by our volunteer contractor (Tim Connor) and volunteer architect (Tom Hirsch) on Saturday, May 4th,  we measured and squared the structure for our pavlion, dug five foot holes, set the 300 pound poles, braced the structure and put up one of the 500 pound headers. Sunday, May 5th,  four dads, one gym teacher, one mom and one friendly lawyer put the last header up, up, up. (Phew!)

Monday, Lycon arrived and poured  concrete around the footings, and our architect's grandaughters smoothed the tops.(Funded by the LOWES Foundation)

Next step - Monday, May 13th,  after school around 3:30 we hope to put up the rafters and if really lucky, screw down the tongue and groove plywood roof sheathing. WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Next we will construct frames around the posts  30" from the ground and have Lycon come back and pour colored concrete in the framing, giving our footings above ground stability. If we are really lucky, Brandon Lincoln will arrive and lay the roofing. If not that day, soon.

Once the pavilion is constructed, our very  own art teacher, Mr. Vang, will install the hundreds of 3 x 3 inch nature based clay tiles made by our very own k-5 artists from the top of the concrete to the top of the structure. (Funded by the Madison Arts Council) Our 4/5th graders will be installing a rain garden between the school and the pavilion to take advantage of the runoff and create a bird friendly habitat.(Funded by National Forestry Foundation)

A wonderful volunteer, Dean, is working with students to build 4 eight foot cedar picnic tables (funded by Willy St)  that will serve as seating in the pavilion. Our friend, Mr. Richard, a retired art teacher, has helped some of our budding artists paint nature murals on the bench seats. Under the pavilion will also be our garden kitchen i.e. a stainless steel table and sink from Kessenichs. (Funded by GHC and the Dane County/ City of Madison Health Department.)

Our new garden beds are up! And thanks to James Kudzin's carpentry and our GROW grant, and Vesna's earth leveling, we now have twelve beds. Two for strawberries, one a Hmong demonstration bed, one a sensory garden and eight for eight of our classrooms. Our K-1st graders planted seeds in science, and now the older students get to transplant them.Moms, Vesna, Zivile and Melissa are all helping classes plant the beds.

We are working to clear the buckthorn, honeysuckles and garlic mustard from the woods. Students are creating walking paths and sitting areas. We are hoping to create a meditative walking path through the woods on our UW Health sponsored Wellness Day, June 10th.

A small group of interested north siders are investigating the purchase of the wetlands adjacent to the school. It could provide a wonderful educational ecosystem for students.

Did you notice that our bushes adjacent to the parking lot are disappearing? We will be replacing the scraggly bushes with edible bushes...service berries and a variety of raspberries.

We are so fortunate to have so many volunteers and parties willing to help us financially. Our friends at the WI Environmental Education Board and Keith Warnke of the DNR were the catalysts last summer.

The plans for the pavilion are in the office windows and garden area plans posted upstairs. Stop and see them. Better yet, come on back around the school, and see what is going on in our exciting OUTDOOR CLASSROOM. Feel free to pull some garlic mustard or stir the compost bins. And if you can, please join us this Monday or at our next pavilion work day.

Going Out on a Limb...again!

On Sunday, November ^11th from 1-4, Lake View Elementary School, located on the corner of Sherman and Tennyson, will continue its mammoth commitment to becoming a school with a strong environmental education focus. The community is invited to a hands-on workday to help restore the 100+old oak savanna that covers much of Lake View’s playgrounds and the deciduous woodlands that frame the north edge of the school grounds.

Bring your energy and we'll provide the work gloves and invasive species to develop your muscles! Our October work days were washed out by the rain, but we managed to clear a large chunk of the upper woodlands. Third time is a charm, so join us and help make our woods "A Great Place for Learning!"

Out on a Limb rain date

Due to forecasted awful thunderstorms for Saturday, we will play it safe for all and postpone our work day to Sunday, October 14---the next day.

Lake View is going Out on a Limb to restore its predominant native oak woodlands with the goal of expanding our school environment beyond our brick walls.

Sunday 9 to 12 and 1 to 4 (pizza at noon)
Bring work gloves and loppers if you have them.
Lake View is located at 1802 Tennyson Lane Madison WI

For more information, email or contact Susie Hobart shobart@madison.k12.wi.us or 608.239.7258.

PS Good news. Wet ground will make pulling honeysuckle and young invasives easier.

"Going out on a Limb" Work Day

Mark your calendars for Lake View Elementary School's "Going out on a Limb" work day!
Saturday, October 13, 9 a.m to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Lake View Elementary school is at 1802 Tennyson Lane in . It's three blocks north of N. Sherman Ave. & Northport Drive on the corner of Sherman Ave. & Tennyson

Help restore the largest white oak habitat in north Madison, and nurture a rare seedling colony of these beautiful, slow-growing trees. We will be removing invasive plants and shrubs from our 100+ year old woodlands, which feature a wide variety of oaks in addition to white, repurposing materials for use in our environmental education/garden program and laying the floor for our outdoor classroom structure.

Join the fun and excitement as Lake View goes "out on a limb"  beyond our built environment using our local natural environment to learn about agriculture, history, culture, forestry,  geography and animal habitats.

This project is funded in part by the Wisconsin Environmental Education Board, Williamson Street Grocery Cooperative, True Value Hardware, Jungs Nursery and local contributors, and with the assistance of the Urban Tree Alliance, Inc.

For more information, email shobart@madison.k12.wi.us

Second-graders harvest salad greens

Mrs. Bazan's second-grade class harvested a bumper crop of mixed lettuces, spinach and radishes. With kid scissors, they snipped bunches of leaves, being careful not to pull out the roots, so that the plants could grow more leaves for another day's snack.

The kids also pulled every radish with a juicy red, pink or white root bulging out of the soil. The rest they left for another day.

Vesna Kovach, mother of Mrs. Bazan's student Ulysses and a longtime garden volunteer, led the effort. The kids carried the harvest back to their classroom, where they all took turns helping Vesna wash and spin the lettuce and spinach. Kids also twisted free the radishes from their bitter leaves -- which went into the compost -- and carefully washed them.

Each student piled his or her plate high with lettuces and spinach, and a few opted for a radish, too. As luck would have it, today was healthy snack day, and crisp cucumbers added to the green feast.

The students picked enough greens for four additional classrooms -- the rest of the second grade, and two more classrooms besides. Mrs. Bazan and Vesna distributed the leafy treasure to the other classrooms.

One teacher, Miss Thousand, noted that the lettuces were sweeter than that tasted at the second-grade field trip to Troy Gardens just the day before. The farmers there said the lettuce was on the bitter side because the weather had been so dry lately.

The conclusion is that 4G gardeners are keeping the lettuce happy with sufficiently frequent watering!

First-ever kid harvest!

For the first time in 4G history, students harvested a crop from the garden for a class-time snack!

Parents Melissa Mooney, Joanne Keane, Zivile Kudzin and Vesna Kovach helped a group of upperclass members snip lettuce and spinach and pluck some juicy radishes.

The kids took bags of freshly harvested greens indoors, where Zivile's handy salad spinner was used to rinse and dry them.

Students made short work of the delicious salad!

Garden receives award from Whole Foods

The  Great Green Growing Garden has been awarded a $100 gift card from the Whole Kids Foundation, a project of Whole Foods Market. Three thousand applications were submitted nationwide for the grants.

Thanks to parents Jim Porter for spearheading the the grant-writing project last fall and Wendy Gasch for her assistance.

Jim Porter, president of the Lake View PTA, was one of the original parents to get the garden project started. In 2009, he and his two sons broke the first ground at the site of what would become the 4G garden.

Wendy Gasch is new to Lake View, as her child started kindergarten this academic year. She is a horticulturalist who worked for several years at Olbrich Gardens and now runs an independent business with her husband.

In the award notification reproduced below, local Whole Foods staff shared some extremely complimentary words about our garden!

Date: May 3, 2012
From: Amanda Jahnke Sauer
RE: Whole Foods Market Madison School Garden Project

Hello Jim and the Great Green Growing Garden team

Thank you so much for applying for the Whole Foods Market School Garden Project.

Although we were not able to grant your school with the full $500 donation this year, we would be delighted to offer a $100 gift card to go towards seedlings, fruit bushes, supplies or anything else we might be able to offer at our store. 

Our Floral Specialist, Jessie, is cc’d. Please feel free to reach out to her directly with any questions on what we carry that might be of interest for your project. The gift card is ready and waiting up at our Customer Service Desk whenever you’re ready.

Let me just say that our review committee was incredibly impressed by your garden and all you’re doing to bring healthy snacks and eating education to your school!

Thanks so much for all that you do.

All our best for another great season,

Amanda

One potato per child -- and strawberries, too

Green Team gardeners each brought in one potato from home to plant in one of our newest garden beds. Parent Zivile Kudzin let the One Potato Per Child planting, which took place after the kids got back from the school-wide excursion to Warner Park for the annual Youth Service Day tree planting and Earth Day park clean-up.

Zivile also brought in some purple seed potatoes. Parent Vesna Kovach sent in some Russian Banana Finger potatoes and some strawberry plants from her home garden.

In addition to the potato bed, the children planted the new strawberry bed, a mix of the established strawberry plants and several rootlings purchased at Jung's garden store.

Garden planted!

Forget about the freezing nights! Warm weather is coming sooner or later, and it's time to plant spring crops at the Lake View Elementary School 4G: the Great Green Growing Garden!

Parents Zivile Kudzin, Melissa Mooney and Vesna Kovach came to work with the students of the Green Garden Team.

We planted peas, spinach, purple and pink radishes and lettuces as our early spring crop.

Nhabee Her, on the Lake View faculty, is leading the very first 4G Jicama Project. He's been growing and enjoying jicama for several years and is sharing his expertise with the school. Jicama is a favorite vegetable in the cuisines of South Asia.

We built dogwood trellises for the peas. Wendy Gasch brought the lovely dogwood branches from a project she worked on earlier this month. She also donated a sack of organic fertilizer.

The kids worked hard putting down landscape fabric and, over that, wood chips to make an attractive space around and between the raised beds. They literally moved a mountain during this workday: a mountain of wood chips that the school district delivered a few days ago, all the way from the parking lot to its garden destination, one wheelbarrow full at a time. A lot of good, hard work!

Rained-out planting

Planting was scheduled for this morning, before the kids got out at 11:30 for Spring Break. Our plans were thwarted starting around 3 a.m. when lightning split the skies and the rain clouds poured forth upon us, continuing all day.

Better luck in a week or so, when the kids get back in April!

A clean sweep for spring

Cleanup day was AWESOME! About 20 Green Team kids came out and worked the garden with the most enthusiasm, focus and sustained drive I have seen in any group of kids yet! The garden project just keeps getting better and better. Thanks, Susie, for leading this great group!

Three parents were able to attend -- me, Zivile Kudzin and Melissa Mooney. For nearly two hours, we led the kids, who came out in two shifts or about 10 each, in cleaning up the beds from debris like rocks and acorns, raking leaves and filling the beds with the pile of finished compost that was beside it. We mixed in a sack of organic fertilizer and leveled it all off.

The first thing we all did, though, was eat up all the spinach that had sprung up this spring from the seeds we'd planted last fall. :) After that impromptu snack time we got to work!

Trip to Wisconsin Gold Harvest

It's not exactly related to the 4G garden, but it does relate to green and growing edible things at Lake View: We took a trip out to the Wisconsin Gold Harvest farm to buy popcorn directly from the wonderful farm family that grows it. Early in 2011, we transitioned from food-service popcorn packs laden with colors, flavors and assorted artificial ingredients to locally grown popcorn popped only with pure, expeller-pressed, sustainably grown, coconut oil from family farms in the Philipines and pure salt.

The farmers, Colleen and Carl, gave us a warm and gracious welcome. We toured the farm and the popcorn storage and packaging facilities, met the dogs, saw the harvesting equipment, and even received gifts for both children -- home-grown pumpkins in time for Halloween. We drove home happy with 100 pounds of popcorn, enough for two Popcorn Days at Lake View!

Fall garden cleanup and prep

Parent volunteers and lots of Green Teamers came out to work on the garden. Out with the old, in with the new! We pulled out all the scraggly old tomato plants and still-lush pepper plants that didn't yield much this year, but sure did look great.

The students worked very hard moving tons of earth into the brand-new beds that parents built a few weekends ago. Now we have a total of EIGHT raised beds!

Lush growth at the 4G

First summer for 4G

Lake View Fun Fair

Visitors to Lake View's annual Fun Fair could also stroll around our brand-new garden!

Seeding pickup

Community Groundworks at Troy Gardens was kind enough to donate tons of seedlings to us. We drove out and picked them up one sunny day in May. Nathan Larson, the education director, met us at the Kids' Garden. Lake View students who came along got to meet some friendly chickens as a dividend.

Lots of planting!

We got lots of planting done today at the Great Green Growing Garden.

Five Green Team Members came out in the afternoon and toiled for two hours under the warm sun. They were Mai Jai (someone please post the correct spelling!), Ethan, Devon, Lily and Lydia. Parent volunteers Vesna Kovach and Melissa Mooney were there, and so was teaching assistant Heather Reimer.

We got so much done, it was amazing! We finished building the square foot grids on the two remaining beds.

We caged the 12 tomato plants that Zivile and Vesna planted earlier this week.

We planted the 6 tomato plants and 6 sweet pepper plants that Melissa and Chris Mooney grew and donated from their home greenhouse and seedling operation.

We planted 12 squares of salad mixture.

We planted one square foot each of cimarron lettuce, radishes, basil, parsley, carrots -- and a square that didn't get labeled and I'm not sure what, if anything is in it but a blank craft stick sign!

Then we watered. And the kids went back into class.

Planting fun!

Planting Tomatoes

Mark Voss from Voss Organics donated a baker's dozen organic tomato plants to our garden!

Accompanied by her kids, Zivile and I planted them this afternoon.

First we plotted out the square foot system on two of the new raised beds. We placed eye screws at one foot intervals along the perimeter of the beds. Then we strung kitchen twine through the eyes to create the 1' grid that is at the heart of the square foot method.

After we planted the tomatoes, Zivile mulched them with straw she had brought.

Then we got to water them with the hose that Iris brought and installed along the side of the building.

It was the inaugural planting and watering of the brand-new beds!