Many of you have plans in place, and are preparing for Harvest Parties in your classrooms. If you are still looking for ideas, don?t forget to take a look at our website for Harvest Month activities. Check out the activity ideas for scarecrows and pumpkins and recipes for sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and green tomatoes. And, of course, harvest activities can continue into November.

When it's a sweet potato! If you are looking for another chance to harvest, we have sweet potatoes ready to come out of the ground. Part of your activity can be comparing the sweet potato to a white or yellow potato leading to the discovery that a sweet potato is not a potato. You can find information about sweet potatoes on the "Sweet Potato Patch" link. Contact Jody if you want to harvest.

If you haven?t had a chance, collect some seeds for a fun winter indoor project. Granny?s Garden School shares seeds we collect from the garden with other school garden programs. There are many seeds waiting to be collected. The students can keep a few for their home gardens, and donate others for use in the seed sharing project. Let the seeds dry now for packaging in January or February. More information is available on the website about this activity.

A trail walk is a great place to talk about seasonal changes with first graders, what is happening to plant processes and leaves with fourth graders, which trees are native with second graders, fungus decomposing all kinds of dead material with third graders, tree and leaf identification using a dichotomous key with fourth graders, and mold spores spreading from fungus and meeting up with moss on trees to make lichens for another twist on seed dispersal for plants without seeds.