Budding Gardners

Gardening has been a keen interest lately with our tamariki and each day we enjoy gardening opportunities in one way or another. With a very kind donation from New World Howick ,Iris and Ari went down with Haley and Iris' Mum to the Supermarket to collect two big boxes of the 'Little Garden' seeds. Many of the children were very familiar with these seed pots and shared stories from what they have been growing at home. The tamariki have been learning about the different stages of growing plants from sowing the seeds, watering the plants and re potting the plants into the garden. It is great to see so many keen helpers taking the initiative to fill the watering cans from the water pump on their own to care for our plants. With the excitement of the broad beans at harvest stage, it has been neat to taste some of our produce. We have a variety of plants for the garden including herbs, vegetable and flowers. This variety allows the tamariki to learn that some plants provide us with nutritious fruits and vegetables, herb plants have strong flavours and  we enjoy smelling the different herbs and of course flowers give us so many different beautiful colours and fragrances to enjoy too. The tamariki often enjoy picking some of the flowers to make mini bouquets for their friends and whanau too. Lots of new language is forming from our gardening opportunity as we learn words associated with gardening and learn the names of the flowers and plants. We are learning that plants needs water and sun to grow and that the bees help to pollinate and grow the plants too.   This is a wonderful ongoing experience that we can enjoy all year.