Little Garden Fingers (Part One)
Over the last few months we have been reviewing and renovating our outdoor play space to make it even better for our tamariki. We wanted to add more greenery to the area, to enhance the natural feel of being outdoors.
Our tamariki were fully involved in and excited about this process as many of them are avid garden helpers at home! We began with our first planter boxes and two of our kaiako who are passionate about all things gardening brought in some special plants to explore.
Our tamariki crowded around the boxes and took turns smelling and touching each plant. “This smells like pizza”, one child said, as he smelt the basil plant whilst another spent time feeling a plant that was very soft and furry. “This one is called lamb’s ear”, one of our passionate gardeners shared and this drew everyone’s attention! Off to the garden we went, with spades and our plants – ready to give them a new home!
Working together, our little ones made just the right sized holes for the plants to be transferred into. While this was happening, we looked at the roots of the plants and spoke about what these do and why protecting the roots is so important for plants to grow well.
With the plants all snug inside the boxes, we thought we better give them some water as it was a hot day and they might be thirsty! Our tamariki took ownership of this process, taking turns to shower our beautiful new plants with enough water to keep them going!
Each day we noticed our little ones checking and monitoring the growth of the plants they had planted. They showed responsibility by ensuring the plants were watered on a daily basis and our older tamariki reminded our little ones to have gentle hands when touching the plants. From our observations, we could see a real sense of ownership and responsibility developing amongst our tamariki – linking to the Maori concept of kaitiakitanga, meaning guardians of the natural environment.
One afternoon, we brought some of our smaller plants that were still in their pots inside and invited our little ones to extend on their knowledge using the curriculum area of the arts!
With a pencil in hand, our tamariki transferred what they could see in front of them onto paper, as well as drawing additional features as the conversations evolved. The arts provide another way for children to be creative and express their ideas using a different medium. Drawing a 3-dimensional object onto paper is no easy task and requires children to develop an understanding of spatial awareness and how things visually fit together on paper.
The following week, we built another planter box for our play space and this time we asked our tamariki if they wanted to help choose the plants for this. After a unanimous decision, we began planning our trip to the local Mitre 10 to shop for some plants!
Watch this space to see how the trip goes! 😊