Taking tally of their surroundings

Suzie Harrison

Students in Jeanette Shaw’s class weren’t worried about how they

measured up for this lesson. This time, they were paying more

attention to how everything else around them measured up.

Growing grass and learning to use a ruler was the task at hand for

the kindergarten through second-graders in Shaw’s summer school class

held at Thurston Middle School.

Especially interesting to the students was the physical research,

and they weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.

Digging into the soil was 7-year-old Andrew Kemp’s favorite part.

“Last week we planted our grass,” Andrew said. “We first put in

soil and then watered it and then seeds and more soil and then poured

water in and that was it.”

Then came time for the scientific study. They were ready to

measure the grass and see how much it had grown.

Instructional aid Nancy Bauer had brought the potted seeds to her

home for the week before the students were to measure them. She said

they were excited to see the results.

“I brought the pots back yesterday and all of them were thrilled

to have grass,” Bauer said. “They looked and said ‘there’s grass

growing.’ I mother-hened them since Thursday.”

Bauer told the students to hold the ruler down to the soil and

read the number at the top where the grass measured. Each took their

turn and gave their result and placed their findings on a chart next

to their name.

Wyatt Shipp, 4, Maria Montoya, 5, and Andrew’s grass had all grown

to reach 3 inches. Eric Nabor, 6, said his was 2 inches and Natalia

Law, 6, had the same finding. Moorea Howson, 5, was ecstatic hers

shot up to be 4 inches.

“Mine is 3 inches -- there you go big guy,” Roman Cerdas, 5, said

enthusiastically.

Shaw asked the class who had the longest grass and who had the

shortest and reviewed what they learned through the experiment.

“We measured with our ruler, learned how our grass grew,” Andrew

said. “I’d say my grass grew a little bit long.”

The excitement only grew when the students learned they could take

their grass home. Natasha already had a spot for her pot, outside on

the deck.

Shaw asked for a raise of hands to see who knew how to take care

of grass, what they had learned about it.

“It needs water, soil and sun,” Roman replied.

As a bonus the class learned gardening terms during the lesson

such as a hose, hoe, flower, etc. and used sunflower seeds to measure

the related items on a worksheet. Noting in seeds how long each item

was, they found the trowel was seven sunflower seeds long, and with a

ruler it was 1 1/2 inches.

“First measuring with seeds and after that introducing the ruler,

they learned what a ruler does and why we need to measure things,”

Shaw said.

In the end, the students shared stories about their grass complete

will illustrations.

Pointing to her picture Natalia said drew herself rolling on the

grass.

“I like to roll over on the grass, you can come over and roll on

the grass,” Natalia said. “My favorite is rolling over it.”