Fiordland Kindergarten tamariki: Making links between Nature Discovery and Kindergarten

The children have had a glorious imaginative time over the last weeks playing with the autumn leaves, but now they are starting to break down and it is time to put them in the compost. 
Mrs Shaw raked up the leaves into piles for the children to collect. The gardening gloves and tools came out, ready for work. Oscar and Fergus devised a very interesting way to collect the leaves – using the sandpit rakes like salad servers to pick up the leaves in big scoops to put them in the collecting bins. 
There was great team work by the children:

 Delta sheltered Zoe as it was raining when she was picking up the leaves, and it required more team work to carry and empty the leaves into the compost bin. 

Some of the children prepared the bin by taking out some of the already made compost to make room for the new leaves. The children have become very knowledgeable about the compost cycle, relating the benefits of making our own soil to use with our propagation project at Ivon Wilson Park. 
Some of the children then went on to study what was happening in the worm farm.
Fergus: "I was scooping them up and putting them in the rubbish bin. The leaves came form the tree up there I put them in the compost bin they are going to turn into dirt for stuff and making the garden."

Keeley: "I put the leaves in the rubbish bin with my hand and with my gloves. The leaves came form that tree because its autumn and they all fall off, me and Tayne put them in the compost bin to compost. We get dirt for the garden – in the garden at kindy– or at nature discovery for the plants and trees-  it makes them grow."

Post written by Mrs Shaw