The children at Acre Woods Pymble have been working together to create a garden. The children across all the rooms have been involved with the planting and watering of the garden, and will be continuing to take care of their special plants. The children are excitedly watching for signs that our fruit and vegetables are growing and are looking forward to cooking with them when they are ready to eat.
It all started with the preschool room. The children had been discussing healthy eating and healthy food choices during February and together had created a fruit tree on their wall. It was observed that the preschool children were very interested in where fruit comes from, so we decided to create a garden.
Strawberries, mint and carrots were chosen for the garden. The preschoolers all sat together to discuss these plants. They talked about how they thought that strawberries were yummy and healthy! They also used their sense of smell to explore the mint. The children were all eager to tell us that plants need water and sun to grow. They then looked at the gardening equipment and put their gloves on ready to plant.
Then with shovel in hand, they went out to the garden and dug some holes in the soil for their plants. They decided to do a row of strawberries, a row of mint, and then a row of carrots.
Meanwhile indoors the Nursery room and Toddler room children were participating in activities with their teachers. The children then saw the Preschoolers in the outdoor area and showed an immediate interest in what they were doing. The teachers in these rooms explained that we were creating a garden. As the children were showing great enthusiasm for what was happening outside, the teachers thought this would be a fantastic opportunity for the children throughout the whole centre to work on this project.
The babies were given watering cans and taken outside to help. They eagerly watered the garden, using two hands to tip the water over the plants. They looked at the images of the plants on the growing instructions next to each one and were able to identify the strawberries and the carrots, pointing and using words to tell us what they were.
The toddler room came out to assist in mulching the garden. They eagerly took handfuls of mulch and spread it over the garden. They also located the images of the plants in the garden and talked about the fruit and vegetables that were growing.
All the children at Acre Woods Pymble will be working together to care for our beautiful garden. They will be watering the garden everyday, watching and measuring as the plants grow. Each day they search to see if any fruit or vegetables have appeared, making guesses about when they will arrive. We are all looking forward to the next phase of our garden project when we get to sample the food! We are also in the process of creating a second garden; our children are all currently researching and brainstorming the different things we could grow.
How has the garden learning experience linked to the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) Outcomes:
EYLF Outcome 1.2: Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience and sense of agency
EYLF Outcome 2.4: Children become socially responsible and show respect for the environment
EYLF Outcome 3.2: Children take increasing responsibility for their own health and physical well-being
EYLF Outcome 4.2: Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesizing, researching and investigating
EYLF Outcome 4.3: Children adapt what they have learnt from one context to another
EYLF Outcome 5.1: Children interact verbally and non-verbally with each other for a range of purposes.
