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Kids to give moms living cups of love

A Mother's Day project is pretty and practical and yields more lessons than, say, a clay ashtray/jewelry holder.

By PAUL SWIDER
Published May 4, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - After 31 years teaching elementary school, Donna Kostreva is running out of ideas to help her students create gifts for Mother's Day.

With the school curriculum tightly focused and time a premium, she was thankful when a parent came up with a suggestion that could also become part of a lesson.

"This is a good thing," she said of her Sexton Elementary School fourth-graders using donated crocus bulbs and other clippings to create mug gardens as gifts for their moms.

The children got the bulbs from Keep Pinellas Beautiful and planted them in foam cups on the outside windowsill of their classroom at 1997 54th Ave. N.

It soon became apparent that the bulbs wouldn't sprout in time, so Kostreva suggested they bring in clippings of plants from home. Now the students have a host of flowers, trees, vegetables and other tiny plants decorating their view.

"It's so nice to look out the window and see green," said 10-year-old Darien Heath, echoing his teacher's sentiments. "And we get to get dirty."

The project turned more scientific when the students loosed some ladybugs on their cup garden, only to learn that, absent pests to eat, the ladybugs flew off to better dining. Along with thank-yous to Keep Pinellas Beautiful, the students are writing stories from the ladybugs' point of view.

Then the students got hold of some eggs from praying mantises and let the hatchlings explore the plantings. Some of the mantises died or left, but a few remain to be handled and examined, as well as named. Curiosity is rampant as the students ponder where the eggs and the ladybugs came from.

"You're not supposed to ask that until fifth grade," 10-year-old Whitney Essman said to one of her classmates.

John Sabo, whose son, Anthony Beach, is in Kostreva's class, started the project by collecting the bulbs. He will also help find coffee mugs to turn the plants into gift planters.

"I give away plants all the time," said Sabo, an avid gardener and classroom volunteer. "Whenever I buy a plant, it usually dies, but when somebody gives me something, I take extra care of it and it lives."

The children are happy to have something they participated in to give to their moms.

"My mom loves plants and stuff," said Breanna Brown, 10. "It's a lot of fun to have our own garden." Kostreva enjoys the children's enthusiasm but is also glad to have another year's Mother's Day behind her.

"It's fun to make things, but it's hard to incorporate them into classwork," she said. "But this way they also get to take home a piece of their classroom."

[Last modified May 4, 2005, 00:57:19]