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Worm Hotel

Make a worm hotel and find out why gardeners love worms!

worms

What you need:

What you do:

Build the hotel. Loosely layer the soil and sand in the jar until it is three-quarters full. Moisten the soil mixture lightly.
Invite some guests. Worms are easy to find after it rains or in a damp part of the garden. Dig up four to six worms and put them in the plastic container with a little soil.
Check them in. Place the worms in the jar and put a few dead leaves and pieces of lettuce over them. Set the paper bag over the jar to block light, but still let in air.
Provide room service. Worms need a little water, but too much will drown them. Water the soil by flicking some drops off your fingers. Every few days, remove any rotting food and add new lettuce, leaves, or potato peelings.

What you talk about:

Worm watching. Before putting a worm in the hotel, have your child run wet fingers softly down the worm's sides. Ask what it feels like. (Your child should discover stiff bristles called setae.) Then put the worm on a piece of dry paper. Listen carefully to the setae scratching as the worm crawls across the paper. Ask your child how the worm crawls. (It uses muscles to shorten its body and then lengthen it.) What do the setae do? (They help the worm move through soil.)
Pay a visit. After a few days, remove the bag. Do you see any tunnels? How have the layers of sand and soil changed? Can your child guess why gardeners love worms? (Worm tunnels help introduce air and water into the soil. Worms also enrich soil by breaking down leaves and grass.)
Let them go. Enrich the soil in your garden by letting the worms go after you finish watching them.

Activity: Susan Goodman