We are beginning to get our vegetable garden ready for this year's planting.  In preparation for the garden, the three G&T classes met to discuss the garden and to map out the plants and seeds that we will be growing in our garden.  All of the students explored the possibilities of planting within the parameters of our raised beds.  (Three four-by-four raised beds and two four-by-eight raised beds gives us 112 square feet of garden to plant!)  We will try the "Square Foot Gardening" approach this year, dividing our beds into square foot grids (or arrays in math-speak,) and following the s.f.g. plan for plant distribution within the beds.  This is providing for a lot of real-world math problem solving: If we plant three square feet of carrots, and there are 16 carrots per square foot, how many carrots can we plant in all?  How many cubic feet of soil do we need to fill one raised bed?  How many cubic yards is that?  The math possibilities seem endless!  Since we are working collectively with the other G&T classes, (and eventually, with all of the primary grade classes,) this is also a great opportunity for community building.  In the video and photos below you will see students from all three G&T classes, as well as Ms. Scott's pre-K class watching the delivery of our organic 50/50 blend of topsoil and compost to be used in our garden - fifteen cubic yards of it in total! 

Here are two websites the students used to explore the concept of mapping a square foot garden (SFG):
http://www.gardeners.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Gardeners-Site/default/Page-KGPJS
http://vegetableplanner.vegetable-gardening-online.com/