Learning About Composting Worms - Raising Lifelong Learners

We’ve been interested in ecology and simple things we can do to make the world better for a long time. And with Logan’s love of all things creepy-crawly, it was easy to pull together a worm study, while doing a good thing for our yard. I try to instill a value of God’s creation in my kids. We do what we can to take care of the environment, even if it’s just our own backyard.

So, the kids and I decided to get dirty, and invite some new, wiggly friends to live with us.

At our old house we had a large compost bin in the yard, and left the new owners piles of wonderful, rich compost to use in our old flower beds. This time, we decided to try our hand at vermicomposting instead of traditional composting because it takes less time to see results, and it’s much more fun {and meaningful} for the kids.

Originally, we’d planned to build a worm bin as it’s pretty easy to do {you can check out this post for a great step by step tutorial}, but in the end, we decided to buy a three-tray “Worm Factory” composter because we had an Amazon gift certificate and it was on sale… and the price was worth the saved time and the ease of waiting for the UPS man to deliver it to my door. {Sometimes, a mom has to do what’s easiest…}

We ordered our red wiggler composting worms from Amazon, too, and they arrived a few days before the Worm Factory. We took the wait time as an opportunity to observe the wrigglers in a big plastic jug. My preschooler loved watching them and declared the worms “super cute.”

Once the Worm Factory came, the kids joined forces to put it together and put those little guys to work earning their keep.

It was a lot of fun to put the bedding and food together to give our worms a healthy home. The kids mushed dirt and ripped up newspaper together to achieve the right amount of moisture, and then added in a layer of vegetable scraps to give the worms some yummy food to munch.

We learned all about what the worms need to survive.

In addition to our main worm bin, we pulled a few out to keep in a small container for a week or so. The kids want some time to observe them, handle them, and make scientific observations about the worms. They are recording their observations about the worms, their habits, and their needs in a little printable journal I created to help them organize their thinking. I left extra pages in the book so they could add in whatever they wanted to. My creative 7 year old is spinning a story about “The Wonder Worm,” while my artistic 5 year old is drawing picture after picture about her worm.

It looks like we’ll have creepy-crawly worms in our kitchen for awhile…

If you want to observe worms with your little one, you can download and print a copy of our journal for free. Enjoy!