Hi joycegriffin,good luck on you new adventure,i also am new to this, waiting for my worm to arrive as we speek.Do you have paper in the worm bin also?This is a fun thing to do and so good for our environment,my bin is in the kitchen.Keep us posted as to how thing are going, i think you sound like a great teacher.Keep it up,just1more

Good job with the kids and good choice just doing it on your own. If you want to see a cool picture for the kids, check the link of the two tailed African Night crawler I found in one of my bins. Just click on the picture for a bigger image.

Here is a link that might be useful: Vermies.com

I get excited with YA! As a Master Gardener PRO Organics I was asked to help three Kindergarten classes in a Private School start their own worm bins. What fun we had. I was later given a thank you gift of A Worms Diary and a page of cartoon wormies that each kid had signed.I will treasure the gift and the memories.Keep teaching it!
Worms Wule the World!LOL

I started a worm bin for 3rd graders. I put the Rubbermaid bin outside near the lunch court, and the kids who were interested could put their lunch scraps in it. You are definitely having fun with your box; your enthusiasm is contagious!

There is just something so interesting about seeing how food scraps decompose, at least some of us find it so. When I did it, it was part of our food chain lesson: sun, producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, third level consumer, scavenger, decomposer.

I'm so excited for you! I taught school for 10 years before having my daughter and so wish I would have known about vermiculture back then. It is really an great way to teach about eco systems and how they work. Good luck!

The worm bin is still going strong. We're adding about a pound of scraps every other week. It's amazing how fast it disappears. The kids are amazed with the process. We can see see lots of castings beginning to appear. It amazes me that there is absolutely no smell whatsoever.

We had one incident where the bin got very wet in the corner where we fed the worms on Friday before we left. The scraps were wetter items like tomatoes and cucumbers. We mixed some of the bedding down into the "goo" and within a day or two all had been righted.

It amazes me how much the kids love the worms. If it was up to them, I think they'd have their hands in the box looking at the worms every day. They're settling for Fridays, when we check the bin to see if we need to add more food.

I have no idea how long the whole composting process will take. I'm hoping to be able to harvest at least some castings by the end of May so that the kids can use some compost tea in the butterfly garden the principal is getting planted in our courtyard. We planted seeds the other day to donate to the school's garden.

Well...gotta go to bed. Happy composting.

Joyce

Way to go! You are teaching those kids life lessons through composting.

I previously lived in SC, became a Master Composter, and taught composting in an inner city middle school. Just when I wondered if my efforts had been wasted all those years, I saw a former student in the mall. He told me that composting had begun a love of gardening for him, and he now has his own landscape business.

Keep up your marvelous work.

Joyce, I am also a teacher and have tried the worm bin. I bought this book and found it quite useful.

Here is a link that might be useful: activity book link