God’s Garden - St Paul’s has a very special inner courtyard that the CDC named as “God’s Garden”. In 2011 the church decided to clean up this area and several groups were invited to plant flowers and other plants. The Boy Scouts and the ladies of the church began the planting. The CDC was also invited to plant some vegetables! What started out as a 4 year old class project has now expanded to the entire center! Every spring, each class plants vegetables and herbs in God’s Garden. The children are learning about responsibility and patience as they water the plants, wait for them to grow and produce a harvest. Tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, watermelon, pumpkin, cucumber, lettuce and herbs are just a few of the things we have planted. We enjoy the fruit of our labor at snack time! Zucchini or pumpkin bread and pancakes are some of our favorites!
Caterpillar Adventure - Every spring we order caterpillars and we watch their amazing transformation to butterflies! We release the butterflies into God’s Garden! In the summer we also have some swallowtail caterpillars that feed on one of our plants in the garden. We have captured a few of those and fed them leaves and watched them spin their cocoon and turn into beautiful swallowtail butterflies! It is exciting to witness the amazing change from caterpillar to butterfly!
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St Paul’s Owls - St Paul’s has become the nesting place for a family of Great Horned Owls. They lay their eggs around December and the owlets hatch around March. This event has offered exciting learning opportunities for our children as they make weekly and sometimes daily trips upstairs to look at the baby owls nesting in the round atrium windows over the doors. It is fun to watch them grow and eventually learn to fly. It is
usually in early April when they begin leaving the nest and we
say goodbye until next year!
usually in early April when they begin leaving the nest and we
say goodbye until next year!
Turtles - We have 2 box turtles in God's Garden! We don't see them too much because they hide in all of the plants, due to the heat. But, one of our families also have some BIG desert tortoises and they bring them to school a couple times of year for the children to see! They love to eat lettuce, strawberries, apples and carrots!
Christmas Around the World - For the past several years we have traveled around the world with the children and learned about special traditions, customs, and holiday foods of other countries! Everyone has a passport and plane tickets and we fly to a different country each day. Each day we go through customs and stamp our passports with stamps of the countries that we visit! We keep track of our travels on a map of the world. This is also a special time when we encourage parents and friends who have a different cultural background to come and share with us their special holiday traditions, food or a craft project. Each day we enjoy a different food and a special activity (game or craft) from each of the countries we visit! Our trip lasts for 2 weeks, Our journey always begins in Bethlehem, Israel, where Jesus was born and it ends in Mexico as we celebrate with Las Posadas and a party with food and a pinata! This is one of the most memorable activities that we do center-wide!