Rain Gardening!

Happy Spring! April Fools! Goodness sakes--where is the beautiful Spring weather that Minnesota is known for? I am glad to see that the snow has pretty much melted from this morning.

I have some great news to share with families:
On April 8, specialists from the Maplewood Nature Center will be coming to do a three hour intensive course on watersheds and rain gardens. I am so excited for this course because it will help further support our study on plant environments. On May 21, we will be going to the Maplewood Nature Center to help them build a rain garden. In between, we will be doing a study of Minnesota native plants, and rain garden design in the hopes of designing Footprints' OWN rain garden just east of the school near the pond. We will be doing landscape design and scaled map drawings of how we want our garden to look. We would need to collaborate with the city of Woodbury during the "digging and planting" process.

For those of you who are not familiar with rain gardens and their environmental benefits, please explore this link to learn more about them. We will be calculating the cost, how big the garden should be, what kinds of plants we should grow, how much extra soil we need, necessary equipment, etc. I will keep you posted on this exciting science unit.

Tomorrow is our all school assembly at 9:10 a.m. All families are invited to attend. Tomorrow evening from 6:30-8:30 is the Footbridge sponsored Family Game Night. Come enjoy games, popcorn and fun with Footprints families and friends. Please note that on Tuesday, April 7 from 5:30-7:30 all Footprints families are invited to join potential incoming Saint Andrews families for a family dinner and open house event. This evening will be an opportunity for Saint Andrews families to meet us and to have a chance to tour the school and ask current families about FPA life. I would love to have student helpers volunteer to help give tours and welcome the families! Let me know if you are interested.

Homework: Science vocabulary test tomorrow!