I view home education as a positive practice to cultivate a hands on type learning that allows our environment to grow along with our children and the natural rythyms of life.
Caring for worms is an easy enough practice to simply leave without needing daily attention like chickens and dogs and cats. Practically a must for a busy homeschooling family with lots of little kids.
Building your Worm Farm
To get started you need some sort of container with a tap/spout/drainage hole to allow excess liquids to flow out. I use a worm farm that can be purchased from local nurseries. Mine was given ;)
Layer several sheets of unwanted newspaper on the bottom, followed by soil/dirt, chuck your worms in, food scraps, dirt and shredded paper/newspaper or a worm blanket. A worm blanket can be anything plant based eg wool or cotton - i used nothing then decided upon recycling 3 cotton shirts. The worms will eventually eat it - less in landfill ;) works for me!! Water it through so it's all wet. Those 3 shirts completely disappeared!!
To feed the worms:
Gather food scraps and place under wet blanket. We have chickens and ducks so I feed the worms juice pulp when we juice our vegetables and tiny scraps. I find the worms are able to process the pulp/smaller pieces faster giving a higher turnover rate. I've heard of others blending it into worm soup..
Appealing huh?! The other animals get the bigger pieces of scraps.
What to feed worms
Worms will happily munch through any plant based food items + cotton, paper & wool. Hold off on the meat and dairy, onion and their peel & citrus. (same as composting). Worms will also chew through manure though I've been told not to give them dog poop as the dogs worming routine will have residue stuff and kill the worms. They like high nitrogen to keep breeding. I've even added in a pile of coffee grounds which I received from a local cafe.
Worm Problems
When a problem occurs give them lime, bugs? Feed them lime, sick? Feed them lime. We stopped off on the side of the road and picked up a few lime stone rocks that got crushed up though that's easy given we live upon a lime pit.
Water
Water the worms every now and then, especially on hot days to make sure their home is kept moist. Some days I'll water mine daily other days I will water them every 3-5 days.
Worm Wees/Waste water
Catch the worm wees and feed it directly onto your garden (or lawn) for a highly nutritious plant meal ;) within a few days our dying chilli plant had a new lease on life and gave us a bush full of chilli's, likewise with the goji berry bush, everything thrives on worm wees.
I used a 10L watering can before discovering your meant to use only a cup or so of water to keep the worms moist, these worms are very forgiving. Either way your worm wees will be highly nutritious.
Vermi-compost.
After a few weeks or months empty the bottom tray, dilute by about 1:10 water and place on plants or amongst your garden bed for a natural home made fertiliser.
Worms and Home Schooling
Caring for worms and watching them turn food wastes into healthy natural fertiliser is enough of a lesson, however if you are keen to teach more google is your friend.
You can include all areas of learning into building a worm farm from Science, Maths, English, Social Studies and even Technology.
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| Isaiah (4), Amalia (2) showing me the worms they found in the garden 2010 |
My children
I have gotten my children to draw pictures of the worms and their home but usually they just want to hold them. We also discuss the benefits of worms in the garden which I then hear children discuss amongst themselves as they search the garden beds for worms.
My children have been interested in worms since they were 2 & 4 years old, digging in the mud and finding big fat healthy worms. We could even call that a sensory learning experience ;)
Given the younger ages of my children I still haven't gone into a deep study of worms but perhaps I will as they grow older.
All of this has been a natural hands on experience, and honestly we prefer it that way ;)
5 Things I am Thankful for:
1. Natural Learning
2. Healthy plants I've produced through worm castings
3. No-waste kitchen
4. Children's interest in my interest
5. Family Projects
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