Honey Extraction

The Third Graders have done a lot of honey extraction. Thanks to the Kinney family, we have five bars of honeycomb to harvest this year from their hive near St. Anne's. We tried several methods to separate the honey from the wax comb: crushing with fingers or a spoon and then leaving the pile to drip through a cheesecloth for a couple days in a warm spot.







We also experimented with melting the full comb over low heat and then setting the liquid in a cool spot so the honey and wax would separate. This also worked well, but some people think heating honey, even slightly, takes away many of its intrinsic nutrients and beneficial enzymes. I noticed the heated honey did have a darker color than the crushed honey when we bottled it.

One further note- to the right of the bowl is a queen cell. It is built into the comb you see and is quite a large tunnel to hold the queen larva. These cells usually hang off to the side of a brood comb.

Magical Fairy Walk

The Third Grade Garden looked enchanting for Fairy Walk!

Third Grade Practical Activities

Every week the Third Grade breaks into four groups and enjoys a practical activity led by volunteer parents and me. I oversee the garden rotation of course, and several other parents are in charge of cooking, crafting, and building.

When the Farriers, Cobblers, Millers, or Blacksmiths are with me we usually go to St. Anne's to work in the garden and then pass out garden food to the residents at St. Anne's during their lunch time. However, occasionally we stay on campus to work on the third grade garden space and other campus projects.

Recently the Farriers used their knowledge of measuring and planted garlic at school and radish seeds. The carefully measured the same distance between each garlic clove or radish seed before they planted.

In addition to planting, we did quite a bit of harvesting our fall produce.We had a bumper parsnip crop, and in addition to harvesting the roots, we let several go to seed and now have enough seed to grow for an army. Our apple trees weren't as prodigious as usual, but we still got tasty apples over the September and October months. 

First Grade Fairy Homes

Every year the First Grade welcomes autumn with a celebration of her beauty. Specifically, the first graders build fairy homes for our garden friends. As soon as the First Graders turn their backs, the fairies move in. By the time the children return the following week, the homes have magically disappeared!

 The children use cuttings and found objects from the garden to decorate the homes. Many of them even include tiny furniture.