Spring, Meeting 3 and a Field Trip

Did you ever play in dirt as kid?  Well, I did.  My Mother made sure I was allowed too, especially when she was outside doing gardening.  I think that it gave me a certain level of appreciation for the outdoors, and especially for gardening.  The part about thinking worms are cool, well, I have no clue where that one came from (y'all who know me, know that I'm a little odd some days).

Today's meeting was about two things- using resources wisely and the financial literacy leaves.  Clover seemed like the perfect flower friend to visit since Earth day is Sunday (April 22).  We read her story from the guide book and then asked what are other ways we can use resources wisely.  We got some good answers too!  It played right in to our activity- making soda can pots.  We cut off the tops of used soda cans and finished it off with some tape.  The girls got the dirt in, but did not plant the seeds (because I forgot them!).  I did remember to bring the seeds to our field trip on Saturday though.  We continued talking about the importance of recycling, turning off lights and water and not wasting what we have.  We also talked about the importance of plants and how they too help the environment.  That was a little over their heads, but they kind of got it.

Next up was working on our financial literacy leaves.  Money counts is something our girls had done in school, to a certain extent.  If you read the material on the leaf, you'll see that a good part of it is learning the basics about money.  They all knew the coins and dollar bills, but 5s and 10s were a little new to them (it's also why we told our parents for our field trip to only send $1-2).  We did some more review and went over the questions and problems in the worksheet.  It went over well.  From there, we began work on our Making Choices leaf.  We started by deciding what snack/meal we wanted to make next week.  We gave our girls several options (all options that required no heat sources), and much to our surprise, they choose spring rolls!  Their shopping list included carrots, bean sprouts, green onion, avocado, tamarind, cilantro, rice paper, rice noodles, cashews and a few other things I have surely forgotten.  I know you're all thinking, how are they going to afford it?  Simple- we looked up general prices online so they knew how much they could afford, and the divvied up the shopping list amongst those attending to make it fair.

Our last tid bit for our meeting was part 2 of our super duper top secret project.  I cannot wait to tell you all what we've been working on!!!  And, the best part, this project is so awesome, yet cost almost nothing!

As for our field trip, it went over very well!  The people at the farmers market were very welcoming and even went out of their way for us.  One very awesome vendor even gave the girls a spice mix for free!  That saved them a few bucks of course, but was extremely nice too.  Unfortunately, we were not able to find tamarind at the farmers market, so that I will have to venture out to the store to get.  If I can't find it, we will be able to use lime juice and brown sugar as a substitute in our sauce next week.