What an amazing start to 2013 in the garden!
Hi everyone. I just wanted to update you all on the wonderful start the year 4’s and 5’s have had in the school’s Kitchen garden. It is always a thrill to welcome the new year 4’s to the program and those new students from both year groups who are new to the school.
The year 4’s did a lot of great listening in their introductory lessons where we discussed the program and its philosophy, the garden rules and requirements and went through the basics on all of the tasks we carry out in the garden. They all managed to plant a seedling, water it in with our beautiful worm tea, feel the worm castings, (I think they were surprised to realise that it didn’t smell gross!) and pick some produce to use in the kitchen, so a great beginning.
It was also great to welcome back the Year 5’s who started the year with some revision of some of the valuable skills and the wealth of information they had learnt last year. I am proud to say they did very well. We hid from the heat in the kitchen and spent the lessons creating our own seed tapes using good old toilet paper and carrot and beetroot seeds. It was a lot of fun. They will be ready for them to plant in the coming weeks.
A special thank you to those parents who came along to the volunteers’ morning and who turned up for their first experience of garden classes. I hope you enjoyed yourselves. There are positions available for all classes except for T4 so it’s not too late to join in the program. It would be most appreciated and makes the classes so much more enjoyable for the kids and the teachers. Please contact the office for the timetable or contact me directly.
Next fortnight we will be mapping the garden out and testing the year 4’s knowledge of vegetables and herbs in an identification exercise, while the year 5’s will get stuck into some serious garden maintenance as summer nears an end.
Thanks to everyone for making it such a great start to the year.
Susie Ormonde
Written by Susie Ormonde; Photo and posted by D. Veary
Canteen