Spring Garden

WILD ANIMALS lurk through the fourth-grade language arts curriculum of teacher Erica Guenther at Spring Garden Elementary in Hampstead.Intrigued by what they learn about protecting endangered animal species, the pupils typically chooses to fund venues of animal research and conservation. This year, they decided to aid the Siberian tiger and Florida manatee.They sold $220 worth of homemade cupcakes and brownies during a school function. The highlight to the year occurred recently when about 20 pupils visited Dr. Ben Beck, associate director of the National Zoo in Washington, to present a check for $100.

Even before the robins arrive, the first swelling buds of lilac announce the advent of spring. Soon brown branches are haloed in pale green. Then lacy clusters of flowers appear, their ruffled heads nodding and bowing in the breeze like elegant Victorian ladies, wafting perfume over fences, through alleyways and across broad, greening lawns.Lilac is the scent of Grandmother's house, the pleasure of protected childhood, the fragrant connection with a well-loved past."Lilacs are the smell of spring," says Barbara Parker, owner of Home Farm Perennial Nursery in Worton, Kent County.

THE GARDEN PARTY, or annual school carnival, happens at Spring Garden Elementary School on Saturday. Children of elementary school age will enjoy skill games and crafts from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m, plus door prizes, cake walk, silent auction and book fair.The school PTA sponsors the event.Children can make and take bead necklaces and name bracelets, have faces painted and receive nonpermanent color hair spray.Crafts made by parents and children of the school will be sold. The annual bake sale will be held.

WHAT DO KIDS enjoy doing? Attend a second-grade hobby show, and you'll be surprised at the intensity 7- and 8-year-olds show for special interests.The hobby show at Spring Garden Elementary took place a week ago. The hobby show at Hampstead Elementary will be at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. May 27.Visitors usually follow a trail through classrooms where children display their hobby atop their desks.Each child writes a couple of paragraphs about his or her hobby and why it is enjoyable.Some Spring Garden students dwell on history.

FAMILY GAMES AND food tuned to the tastes of pre-school through fifth-grade children are the highlights of activities during the sixth annual PTA Garden Party, to be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in the gym of Spring Garden Elementary.Carnival-style games at 25 cents per ticket are designed for all ages. Pizza, hot dogs, lemon sticks, pretzels, snowballs, soda and baked goods will be available.Children's crafts will include making bead necklaces and name bracelets. This year, face painting has been expanded to the full face, if desired.

LOCAL RESIDENTS who want to know what's hot in home gardening should plan to listen to presentations by Lisa Spence of the Carroll County Cooperative Extension Service.Spence will discuss such things as choosing native perennial plants, timing lawn care and safely managing insects and diseases. Environmental well-being is of primary concern.The courses, which will encourage residents to improve their environment, will coincide with a stream-restoration project under way in the community.Several waterways in the Roberts Field development fall within the Gunpowder watershed that spreads over Carroll, Baltimore and Harford counties and York County, Pa.A small stream in the development will be restored to a natural channel.

BEFORE THE Pride of Baltimore II eased out of the Inner Harbor last weekend for a yearlong voyage to Asia, about 60 fifth-graders from Spring Garden Elementary sang a tribute of Chesapeake Bay sea chanteys to the crew.They accompanied folk-pop artist Pat O'Brennan, the Chesapeake Troubadour, who has recorded three albums of songs about the estuary, during departure ceremonies for the beloved Baltimore vessel.The children and the folk singer were invited to sing songs of Maryland's bay sailors.

The all-time favorite sandwich of school lunches, peanut butter, sends children such as Andrew Graff, 6, into an allergic reaction so severe that it can swell shut eyelids and airways.Peanuts and peanut butter have become an increasingly frequent food allergy that has doctors at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions immersed in studying the ubiquitous legumes, and parents such as Christine Graff of Hampstead struggling to keep them away from their school-age children.The anecdotal evidence at Andrew's school, Spring Garden Elementary in Hampstead, reflects the nationwide increase in peanut allergies.

Bulbs are the backbone of the spring garden. From the earliest snow crocus peeking shyly out from under a mulch of leaves on a late February afternoon to the luminous beauty of a Darwin tulip like 'Blushing Lady,' it is a rare property that does not celebrate the end of winter by looking forward to crocuses, daffodils and tulips.But why stop there?A wealth of other, lesser-known flowers also exist to populate the springtime. The astonishing variety of bulbs, corms and rhizomes can lend additional personality and pizazz to your garden, as well as an extended blooming season.

WHEN THE national anthem is sung at Oriole Park next Wednesday you can be sure most of Hampstead will be listening. That's because the entire fifth grade at Spring Garden Elementary School will be singing.The children will sing a preview at 5 p.m. today to open a meeting of the county Board of Education and again at 7 p.m. tomorrow at a Spring Garden PTA meeting. Both performances are open to the public.Choral arts teacher Ida Lea Rubin has combined the musical talents of 150 students with their passion for the Orioles.