Forest Community: worm compost

Thinking about other types of communities

After a very successful worm hunt in the forest the children brought back their findings in preparation for our project - building a worm compost.

A teacher led discussion on what worms do and how they help us spurred on the children's thinking and discussion. Worms are a part of the forests community and the work they do is very important; eating decomposing material and turning it into rich compost which helps new plants grow. Many gardeners and landscapers use worm compost to grow beautiful gardens.

the first layer is shredded paper

drawing the diagram

We watched a Youtube video of a boy giving instructions on how to build a worm compost. The children followed the direction and drew a diagram of the steps they took. It so happened that the Earth group is learning about where food comes from and was preparing a salad and had food scraps for our compost! At lunch the Wind Group invited all the children to add today's lunch scraps to the bucket.

Now for the worms to do their work! Turning the bucket of fruit and vegetable scraps into rich compost for our planter boxes outside! Over the coming weeks we will check the worms progress and record our observations of what is happening inside the bucket!

adding worms to the compost bucket