As part of our Allegiance to Nature at Greenspring Montessori School, our faculty and staff organized a special Earth Day event for our children and families. Our Toddler, Children’s House, Elementary, and Adolescent classes took on various projects around our campus including planting stations, nature-based story walks, and nature scavenger hunts. Many classes also worked to restore natural spaces on campus and make improvements to their outdoor environments. In addition, there are many beautiful books on display in the library on Earth Day, Spring, Gardening, and more!
After school it began to rain, but many families still joined in to help spruce up the campus grounds. We would like to extend a special thanks to all of our families who volunteered to help make this event a success! If you would like to support any of our current outdoor projects by volunteering or donating supplies, please reach out to us here.
It was beautiful to see everyone coming together for this purposeful community event! Take a look below to see photos and more details about the projects at each level.
Toddlers
Our Toddlers visited the planting station in the morning to prepare small seedlings to bring home. They also worked together to spruce up their outdoor environments and plant zinnias in the garden bed outside of Monocacy House.
Children’s House
In preparation for Earth Day, our Children’s House classrooms hosted a week of waste-free lunches. The Children’s House Guides read stories about how waste impacts the environment and what we can do to help. The students then took a closer look at the waste the classes generated during a typical lunch. Together they talked about how waste impacts people, animals, and our environment. In addition to their waste-free lunch efforts, the children also weighed their compost collectively to see how they are helping to remove waste from landfills just by the small step we each take when we compost our food scraps.
Our Children’s House team was inspired to take on this initiative after learning more about the Roots & Shoots Program by Jane Goodall. To learn more about our Children’s House Roots & Shoots lessons, please click here.
“People are so overwhelmed by the magnitude of our folly that they feel helpless. They sink into apathy and despair, lose hope, and so do nothing. We must find ways to help people understand that each one of us has a role to play, no matter how small. Every day we make some impact on the planet. And the cumulative effect of millions of small ethical actions will truly make a difference.”
– Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope
Elementary & Adolescents
Our Elementary children sowed vegetable and flower seeds in their outdoor gardens.They are also preparing to extend their garden area in order to grow wine plants including gourds, pumpkins, squash, and watermelon.
Our Adolescents tended to the rain garden they designed and planted on campus last spring, mending the deer fencing, wedding, and adding new plants.
Families
We also celebrated Earth Day with our families at our Spring Grounds Day. 37 volunteers came out to give back to our school by helping to beautify and maintain the Greenspring campus. Parents, grandparents, and children helped with everything from weeding and planting to window washing and fence staining. Thank you to everyone who came out to join us!
Thank you for your support as we celebrate Earth Day and help inspire the future generation of stewards for our planet.
“Hope is contagious Your actions inspire others.”
– Jane Goodall
