The twisty trees!

Today at Ivon Wilson park the evidence of the change of the season was everywhere.
It was cold and crisp this morning, everyone was rugged up warm in jackets and hats.
The tamariki found some wild blackberries during their explorations. We collected a bowl of them to bring back for lunch and we even brought some back to kindergarten for the other children to try.

Over the weekend we have had a lot of storms. We saw a lot of evidence of these storms when we visited The Pines today. We met our first surprise on the path. A large tree had been knocked over by the wind, completely blocking our way forward. We couldn't go through it, we had to either crawl under it or climb over it.

When we eventually made it to The Pines we were met with a lot of devastation. The storm had uprooted some trees, knocked some down and contorted others, there was even a tree shaped like a rainbow. What a powerful reminder of the strength of mother nature. The tamariki had a lot to say about the changes to The Pines. The first comment was made by Elliot, he summed up all of our thoughts when he said, "It's like a different country!" The other children soon added their own opinions: "The trees have fallen down."  "The thunder and the wind blowed the trees down." "I think a big storm (happened)."  "I think thunder or lightening or maybe dinosaur escaped." "I think someone might have curved it (the rainbow tree)"  "It's like a wee rainbow." "Maybe an aeroplane or helicopter crashed?"    Judy asked some of the children why they thought the rainbow tree was in the rainbow shape. Here are some of their thoughts: "The branches are hooked up with it so it stays curved." The tree is blown down, by the wind."

The blown down trees made a great provocation for our children to discuss. There was a lot of climbing over and under the fallen logs and some more discoveries were found, but we stayed on the edge of the plantation so that we could keep safe.

 

The heavy rain had helped some toadstools to emerge from the damp ground for the children to find. Some of our children reacted to seeing the toadstools by trying to kick them over. Although they are very poisonous, we explained to the tamariki that as visitors to this natural world, it is not our right to kick things over, just because they are poisonous. Instead we appreciated the beauty of the toadstools and if we touched them, we made sure we washed our hands afterwards.



We then found some other interesting fungus in the ground. This fungus had lots of little ants crawling through it, further affirmation that everything in the park has a purpose and is part of it's eco-system.

To finish of a fun morning of discoveries one of our wonderful parent helpers hoisted the children up the tree in a swing. What a great way to view the park as the birds see it, from up high.



Here are some more pictures of the things that we got up to today at The Pines. A big thank you to John, Judy and Adrian for helping us with our exploring.

Post written by Tash