Sparkle and Shimmers Day!!

A memory garden and poppies for Anzac!!

Lest we forget........  Remembering our ANZAC'S!!

A special time of remembrance at Uxbridge as we plant a memory garden of poppies and decorate our wall for all those who fought and died in the war.  

Making our Anzac poppies we used red and black collage material

Our poppy kit arrived by Courier just in time for Anzac Day.  The kit came with instructions, little pots, seeds and soil.  They are just like the little New World gardens we have planted before, so we knew exactly what to do.

Everyone had their own little pot to decorate

Wolf chose to colour his green

Evan really wanted to add red star stickers, his favourite colour!

Carefully pouring in the water

Such concentration

Hugh add some seeds and then places his name stick in

Once our little poppies start to grow we will re-plant them in our garden.  We will make sure we give them lots of love, sunshine and water.

Our wall of remembrance - displaying our poppies

Making our Bug Hotel!!

At Uxbridge we have an ongoing interest in living things and life cycles. To encourage this we decided to build a bug hotel to attract insects to our playground. Nikki's (Me) Dad came into help as he had been assembling the Necessary materials for us. We had talked about some of the things that bugs liked like warm dry things, wood and natural things and sure enough they were all here. There were pine cones, twigs, hollow bamboo, straw and dried branches as well as wooden boxes to put them all in. We had pictures to show us how other people had built their bug hotels and we discussed them as we decided which order to put our materials in. We started with a layer of straw followed by pine cones, twigs, bamboo and finally the branches. We all had to use our patience as there were lots of helpers but only one or two people could add stuff at a time due to space. We also had to be very careful to put the things in neatly and tightly or else they would fall out. Finally our bug hotels were ready to go. We have put them in our garden and will be watching closely to see which guests will arrive.

Jaxon takes a look at the pictures of other Bug Houses and passes it around the table.  We then begin to make a plan....

In goes some leaves

And a little straw....

Faye adds some sticks

Our finished product - The Bug Hotel

Making the bug hotel was a great experience for our Tamariki. By making the Hotel themselves they gain a sense of ownership over it adding to their sense of responsibility and caring for the creatures that may come to live there. Making things for the centre themselves builds their sense of belonging. In talking about what the bugs may want in the hotel and why they are sharing and building on their working theories. As they had to take turns while participating in this experience they are building their social skills not only by waiting but also by realising that if they put in all of one type of material themselves there would be none left for others. As the hotel is a permanent fixture in the garden Tamariki will be able to revisit it time and time again.

Children's Voice when talking about our bug hotel:

What did we use to make our bug hotel?

Benjamin - Wood and leaves

Noah - We put lots of tree things in it

Gabriel - Stuff, um tree and branch and pinecone.  That's my favourite - tree, I love tree.

Shaan - A stick

Gabriel - We make a box, there is a big one and a small one.

What bugs might come and visit our hotel?

Noah - Crickets, maybe a spider?

Shaan - A cockroach

Noah - A tiny ant, a ladybug, a special moth like rainbow colour.

Katelyn - A butterfly, a unicorn.

What can we name our Hotel?

Gabriel - A home

Benjamin - A deck bug hotel.

Finding our first guest, watching and waiting for more to arrive........

Jaxon finds a spider and captures it in a container

He is eager to see if the spider might like to check into the bug hotel 

The spider is rather small, where has he gone?  The boys get the magnifying glasses to take a closer look

Not too close though!!

"Can't see" says Dexter as he bends down a little lower

Watching and waiting for new guests to arrive

And what have we found Sienna?  It's a caterpillar!!  

Haley ever so carefully moves him into the bug hotel

"Hey, I see it" says Wolf

Planting!!

Autumn is the time to prepare for the coming winter and one of things that we needed to do at Uxbridge was to plant our winter vegetable garden. The first thing we needed to do was to prepare the soil by removing any weeds and digging it over. The we planted our new seedlings. We had chosen sprouting Broccoli, Rainbow silverbeet, celery, kale and a mini brassica mix. We chose plants that were compact as we don't have a lot of space and a mixture of plants that were slow growing so that the children could watch them develop and fast growing so that we didn't have to wait too long to do some harvesting. We also chose plants such as the celery, silverbeet, and kale that had edible leaves so that the children can pick and taste as the plants grow. 

Participating in the care of our centre gives our Tamariki a sense of belonging and ownership. Watching something that you have planted grow is an enormously satisfying experience and we hope that we will also be able to harvest cook and eat our vegetables. Te Whariki emphasises the importance of Tamariki having a sense of responsibility  for the living world and knowledge of how to care for it.  Learning how to prepare the soil plant plants and care for a garden contributes to this learning. Working together on a project like this is also great for learning social skills such as sharing, negotiating and turn taking and the natural conversation that occurs as you work contributes to language development.

Preparing for our new Winter Garden!!

Making Green Tomato Chutney!!

It was time to turn the garden over and prepare it for some new planting. We only had tomato plants left in the garden with lots of green tomatoes, so the children picked them all off and collected them in bowl. We explained to the children that these tomatoes would not ripen now as the seasons and weather were changing but we didn't want these lovely green tomatoes that we had grown with love to go to waste so we decided to make some Green tomato pickle. The children washed and chopped the tomatoes. They whizzed up some onion and measured the apple cider vinegar, spices and mustard, they even helped to crush whole cloves in the mortar and pestle. All of the ingredients had such strong smells, so it was neat to be able to put this sense to such great use through this process. Some of the children really liked the strong smells and flavours while others screwed up their face. Once all of the ingredients were prepared we put them in a pot on the stove and waited for it to simmer and reduce down. Some of the children were really keen to try our lovely pickle once it was ready to eat. We served the pickle on crackers with a slice of cheese. Several children loved the flavour we had created while others were not so sure about it. All of the teachers certainly enjoyed the yummy pickle! Our lovely garden is teaching us to keep ourselves healthy through food and nutrition as we use up all of our produce. I can’t wait for our new vegetables and herbs to grow and see what we can make next.