Under the warm rays of Tamanuitera| the sun the tamariki| children at Springlands Kindergarten gather together ready for their weekly hikoi| walk to McKendry Park. A place that they have become very familiar with and comfortable to explore, discover and play. As they pass through the kura| school grounds they wave and say hello to past students before arriving at the large open space. The park is spotted with multiple plum trees and a gentle stream running down one side.
Identify
Recognising the importance of connecting with nature and the benefits it offers, the kaiako at Springlands Kindergarten decided that they wanted to find a way to integrate more of this into their programme.
They identified...
Read More We’ll be revisiting the Enviroschools Journey with a virtual trip down the Wairau Awa. Your Envirogroup will reflect on what point they are at in their journey and together we will talk about how you could share your achievements sustainably.
RSVP to Angela by Fri 4 November
Please note she has a new email address – angela@wenties.nz...
Read More Outdoor Classroom Day is a global movement to make time outdoors part of every child’s day. On two days of action each year, teachers take children outdoors to play and learn. All year round, the Outdoor Classroom Day community campaigns for more time outdoors every day....
Read More When we started out on our Enviroschool journey in 2013, it started out with wanting tamariki | children and whānau | families to have a sense of belonging here at Renwick Kindergarten. We never envisioned what we would learn, create and change along the way. Our decision to weave the Enviroschools guiding principles into the fabric of our Kindergarten saw us gain Bronze in June 2014; Silver in December 2016 and GreenGold in February 2019.
Bringing in water to water the trees Identifying the current situation:
As part of our mission towards Silver, our practice and thinking evolved. From promoting sustainability within our own Kindergarten, our eyes looked towards the horizon to...
Read More The students at Richmond View School became Botanists this term as they explored the classification of native plants on the Taylor Awa.
People have always given names to things that they see, including plants and animals. So, of course most of us turn to names as the first form of classification. It was a scientist, Linnaeus, that first developed a hierarchal naming structure (of 7 parts no less). This conveyed information about what a living thing was and also its closest relatives. Earlier this term, if you happened to be walking your dog down the Taylor Awa, you may have come across Richmond View School students studying the Tui to Town plantings. Their inquiry for...
Read More The tamariki at Picton Kindergarten have been learning all about Wētā. This evolved through their exploration of te ngahere and how to care for the native flora and fauna through pest control.
It began when one of the tamariki discovered a wētā family in her woodshed. She recognised it as one of our native insects and sent in photos to Kindergarten for everyone to see. Jo, then bought in a real live wētā from her home and they made a habitat for it. This lead to learning about what they like to eat, where they live, how many eggs they lay as well as what predators endanger them. When the tamariki learnt that cats, dogs and hedgehogs endanger wētā, they...
Read More Fairhall School's native garden entrance has a makeover
Fairhall School has a meandering native garden created to grow beside a stream space that only has water in it for part of the year. It has a bridge over this space and is an area the school highly values. Over the years it has been added to and this time it was the native garden entrance that got a makeover. One of the senior classes and their teacher has been busy doing some planning and work to the entrance. They recently overhauled the Marlborough Rock Daisy garden at the entrance to the garden/ngahere. As part of this space they have created a bark mountain to...
Read More Take a look at our list of ways that your students could take action towards sustainability this term.
Click here to view on our Padlet...
Read More Te Rūma Rātā and te Rūma Pōhutukawa - kaitiaki of birds and habitats at Fairhall School
Whare wētā At the beginning of the year te Rūma Rātā and te Rūma Pohutukawa made a kaitiaki pledge to be guardians of birds and habitats at Fairhall School. We first set out to learn in particular about New Zealand birds, lizards and wētā so this could help inform how we could make a difference to their habitats around our school and local community. We also worked with local environmental educators and our Enviroschools facilitator to deepen our understanding of the native bush that is in our ngahere and what plantings might encourage more wildlife to...
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