Early Childhood Gardening

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  • 1.  great ECE garden activity

    Posted 09-18-2022 11:54:00 AM
    Hello Everyone,
    About a year ago I asked this group for advice on how to keep caterpillars safe but still allow the children to see them. 
    Someone shared a resource for a zipepered habitat thing. I bout it and when the caterpillars showed up on the fennel we had planted, we pust it to use.
    We raised 11 swallowtailcaterpillars and released then 2 or 3 at a time.
    The children nibbled on fennel fronds. Later, fennel seeds. We fed fennel to our bunny. The timing worked out perfectly for the last swallotails to be released at our graduation.
    Plant fennel!
    get one of these habiatas (amazon,sorry)
    Attaching pictures.

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    Nina Moench
    DIG Childhood Center
    LOS ANGELES CA
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  • 2.  RE: great ECE garden activity

    Posted 09-19-2022 09:09:00 AM
    So glad you shared this update, Nina! Did you have to secure the "tent" in any way so it wouldn't move around? Just looked it up on Amazon and a lot of the pictures show potted plants sitting inside it. Also found the original thread from last fall where @Rob Terry recommended this product (RestCloud butterfly habitats) and included a really helpful description of how their school garden used these. Thanks, Rob! Here's the link to that thread.  

    For anyone wanting to avoid Amazon, I found this similar product from Gardener's Supply​ (schools can get a discount). You could probably also just search for "mesh butterfly habitat" or something similar to find other retailers carrying something like this!

    Has anyone else used this?

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    Amelia Dupuis
    Kids Garden Community Manager
    KidsGardening
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