Composting: Environmental Learning Part 2

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We recently sparked the flame for our passion and interest in environmental learning, and then the children were ready to take action to begin a new focus on reusing and reducing in addition to our recycling efforts. This will be one of multiple posts about how we are integrating our enviornmental learning into our home school.

So many of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s learned how important it is to recycle, and thus, we focus a lot on that and feel that we are doing enough.  But we now know just recycling is not enough.  We also have to increase our efforts to reduce and reuse, and in our house, composting is our first step in reusing.

Building our Composting Schema: A Reading List
We started by building on schema (our knowledge) by reading books together about composting and by creating a how-to based on our learning.


What's Sprouting in My Trash?
by Esther Porter

Composting (Do It Yourself Ecology)
by Buffy Silverman
Compost! by Linda Glaser











Trout are Made of Trees
by April Pully Sayre
Composting: Nature's Recyclers
by Robin Koontz
Compost Stew:
An A to Z Recipe for the Earth
by Mary McKenna Siddals
Tiny Creatures: The World
of Microbes by Nicola Davies











When we learn from nonfiction texts like these, I periodically pause, depending on how old my children are at the time and ask a question like, "What was the main idea of what we just read?  What did we learn about composting?" and the children's answers fill our note taking chart.  Here's our chart from these texts:


Getting Started
Armed with our new learning, it was time to get started.  Here's all we needed to begin composting:

A Compost Bin: You can create a pile that you turn or get a bin, a tumbler, a worm bin, or a bag for composting.  We opted for a tumbler because it was easier for the children and I to introduce oxygen into the waste by turning than by using a shovel, rake, or hoe.  We also live in a suburb and wanted to keep everything well contained.

A Kitchen Compost Container: We have a small container for compost that sits on our I was all anxious about the compost in the container on my counter smelling, but really it's fine!  We take it out almost every day, and it's no big deal.

And that was all! I had a hard time wrapping my head around starting a compost system in my backyard, but it was really simple.  The kids are so excited to watch it transform into compost for our plants and flowers!

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