Dirty summer learning

Teaching Pre K-8, May 2001 by Laminack, Lester

When school is out, prepare a spot in your yard or prepare a planter indoors to create a flower garden.

This can be a family project, or something special for one child.

Seed selection. Visit a local nursery or garden shop and read seed packages with your child. Together, select flowers that are suitable for your area's weather conditions. Narrow the selection down to a few, and begin thinking about color, size, necessary amount of light, etc.

Garden design. When you bring your purchased seeds home, make a plan for how you want the finished garden to look, then plant the seeds according to the directions on the packaging.

Get growing. Use a calendar and a notebook to plot out your expectations for the garden. When should you be seeing sprouts, leaves, mature plants and blooms? Use your notebook to log the progress of your garden. Mark your calendar with your expectations and note the actual happenings in your notebook.

Green pictures. Take photographs of your plants in each new phase, and when they bloom you'll have all the material for your own personal garden story, complete with factual information and illustrations.

Endless possibilities. A bonus of a summer garden is that you and your child will spend time talking about the needs of a plant. You'll be able to graph the progress and discuss the differences between your predictions and what actually happens. You can measure growth in inches and/or centimeters. And, of course, there's the bonus of nurturing something from seed to blossom, knowing that this bit of beauty exists because you cared.

SAVING FOR COLLEGE

If you're trying to save money to pay your child's (or children's) eventual college tuition, there's a new book and website that offer suggestions and strategies. The Best Way to Save for College - A Complete Guide to Section 529 Plans and www.savingforcol lege.com are authored by Pittsford, NY accountant Joseph F. Hurley.

These sources provide a guide to the state-sponsored savings programs known as Section 529 plans. They are named for a section of the Internal Revenue Service tax code.

These plans come in two basic varieties. One is a pre-paid tuition plan in which parents lock in the current tuition rate and pay it in a lump sum or in installments. The second variety provides flexible savings plans that enable parents to save money in special accounts.

For more details on state-sponsored Section 529 programs, see www.collegesavings.org - a website which is run by the National Association of State Treasurers in Lexington, KY.