On Friday mornings, Kinder students at Mount Hope Lutheran perform their weekly check-in on the one thousand Red Wiggler compost worms that inhabit our classroom worm bin. This habitat is designed specifically to allow worms to create compost from organic materials. Students eagerly surround the composter, attentive to the quiet and often unseen work taking place within. Will the apple still be there? Did they prefer the cucumbers or the carrots? How long will it take the worms to eat an entire banana?
In a classical Lutheran Kindergarten, science education begins with attention to creation, ever watchful for how creation showcases its Creator. Students are invited to observe, to name, and slowly learn to tend and keep what God has made. In doing so, we join with the Psalmist in proclaiming creation’s great declaration: that God made us and all that sustains us, and that He continues to uphold the world He has created (Psalm 19:1). In this way, learning about the natural world becomes an act of faithful attention to God’s ongoing work in creation.
Vermicomposting offers a small but meaningful way to practice attentiveness to God’s world. The work of worms is slow, hidden, and easily overlooked, yet worms play an important role in maintaining healthy soil. In our classroom, students learn to add food thoughtfully, to check that the habitat remains suitable for living creatures, and to observe carefully before drawing conclusions. Through these simple routines, children practice patience, restraint, and responsibility.
This past Friday, we removed the first batch of finished worm castings, the fertile soil amendment that remains after the worms’ diet of organic scraps, and set them aside for spring seedling plantings. The living worms were gently returned to the habitat, and the castings placed into what the students have named a “worm nursery,” where we now wait to see how many cocoons hatch. In the coming weeks, students will estimate and count the baby worms that emerge and relocate them to the composter. Through this simple work of sorting, waiting and wondering, we are reminded that new life begins quietly and grows unseen.
Through practices such as vermicomposting, kindergarten becomes much more than an introduction to academic subjects. It is a year of gentle formation and habit building, where children learn to attend carefully to the world God has made and to their place within it. In watching worms work quietly beneath the surface, students are reminded that much of God’s sustaining work happens slowly and unseen. These small lessons in patience, care, and responsibility prepare children not only for future learning, but for lives shaped by gratitude, stewardship, and faithful attention to God’s creation.
In Christ,
Mrs. Allred
