Term 4 Week 3: Enviro kids planting capsicum and pea seeds

Eli loves to eat sweet juicy capsicum, so he was really keen to help Liam plant our capsicum seeds into seed trays at lunchtime today. 

We had to do some maths first though! 
We had to count how many spaces there were to plant the seeds in. 
Then we had to count how many seeds there were and work out how many to plant in each space. 
Luckily both Eli and Liam are good at maths! 
They worked out there were 24 spaces (2X12) and that we needed to plant two seed in each of them as the packet said it contained approximately 50 seeds (2X24=48). Great work boys!

Counting the seeds and spaces.

Making holes for the seeds with a pencil!

Planting the seeds.

Holly and Amelia planted pea seeds into the recycled news paper seedling containers that Maddison, Indigo, Rebecca and Ela made before school.

They also used pencils to make their 5cm deep holes.

Great job all of you...

Now we are looking forward to watching the seeds sprout and grow inside our seedling house in Room 7. 

We wonder which will sprout first, the capsicum or the peas...

Here are our tomato seedings in our seedling house. 

They will be big enough to go into the garden soon...

Mr Gillions is going to help us put up a wooden frame up on one of our raised beds 

that we can tie string on for the plants to grow up.

Our potatoes keep growing and GROWING and GROWING!!!

Hopefully we might get some nice new potatoes before the end of term.

Our two surviving strawberry plants are slowly growing too.

We might have to wait until next year before we see any strawberries on them!

Term 4 Week 3: Let the tree planting begin!

Last Friday our fabulous fruit trees finally arrived. 

Here is what we have got to plant:

· A 'Sweet Perfection' peach

· A 'Queen Giant' nectarine

· A 'Fantasia' nectarine

· A 'Pacific Rose' apple

· A 'Trevatt' apricot

· A 'Tomcot' apricot

· A 'Scarlet Ohara' peach

· A 'Royal Gala Dwarf' apple (not very PC I know but...)

· A 'Newhall' orange

· A 'Best Seedless' orange

· A 'Harwood Late' orange

· and 2 'Encore' mandarins

Liam and Bella from Room 7 were the first to help Mr Gilions plant one. They planted the Queen Giant Nectarine outside Room 7. But first they had to did the hole which was really hard work!

So hard in fact, that Mr Gillions had to help!

Next, they put water in the hole to soften the soil.

After that, they put in some nice compost for the fruit tree which is softer than the soil around it and easier for it's roots to grow into.

Bella took the bag off the tree and Mr Gillions helped them to 'tickle the roots' to loosen them up a little bit after growing tightly in the bag for so long.

When they put it in the hole they put a wooden stake next to it to help support it until it is bigger and stronger. Mr Gillions tied the tree to it with some soft stretchy fabric.

Then it was time to fill in the hole!

Next it was Room 9's turn to plant their fruit tree outside their room where Mr Gillions has just cut down the dead kowhai that was there.

The boys enjoyed hammering in the stake!

Once they had finished they put some more nice compost around the base of the tree.

Then they watered it. It needs to be watered daily at first...

Great job boys!

Here is Tyesha with the tree she helped plant in front of Room 8.

Here are some more of our fabulous fruit trees awaiting planting. Mr Gillions will get some more classes to help him plant them next week.

Term 4 Week 2 Beans and fruit trees!

On Wednesday after school Miss Raven, our school Caretaker Mr Gillions, and a special wee helper (Miss Raven's son Matti) got the soil ready and made tee pees from bamboo poles for our bean seedlings to grow up. 

They also transplanted the baby carrot seedings into one of the other raised beds because half of these were knocked over by a soccer ball hitting their container outside Miss Raven's classroom at lunchtime! We hope some of them will survive! Grow carrots grow!

On Thursday before school and at lunchtime Liam, Bella and Leo helped to plant 20 of the the bean seedlings that we grew last term, one at the base of each bamboo pole.

After planting the seedlings and watering them, we watered our seed potatoes and strawberries which are continuing to grow well.

On Friday after school the plants for the Birchwood School and BIrchwood Kindergarten Action Learning Project were delivered. We are really looking forward to planting these in our grounds and watching them grow as we do!

Here are our new fruit trees arriving on the back of the truck.

We are really fortunate that a member of staff has donated an extra $200 so we were able to purchase more fruit trees than we were originally going to be able to buy!

Hopefully each class will help Mr Gillions plant one of these fabulous fruit trees in the next couple of weeks. 

This term at Birchwood School our Social Science Inquiry is called 'We are Family'. 
The big question we are asking is: "How do we make our community special?" 

We hope that by seeing their desire to have more fruit trees at our learning centre realised, by helping choose which type of trees are being planted, by helping plant them and by taking care of them Birchwood students will feel empowered by this Action Learning Project.

With luck, some of these students will one day have children of their own who will attend our learning centres and they will be able to tell them how they helped to plant these fruit trees and make our Birchwood School and Kindergarten community special.

Term 4 Week 1

This week we were so excited to see how much our seeds, potatoes and vegetables in our raised beds had grown during the holidays with all the spring rain and warm weather....

Here are our strawberry plants and carrot seedlings...

Our potatoes have all sprouted too!

These are our tomato seedlings which we are going to keep growing in our seedling house in Miss Raven's classroom until they are big enough to go in the garden...

Here are the bean seeds we planted before the holidays...

We are going to plant a bean tee pee with them as soon as they are big enough! 

On Monday Bella, Thea-Jane and Tyesha came to harvest our kale and make kale chips...

Once we had cut the kale, we checked out our other vegetables. 

Our broccoli is growing nicely...

 Our celery, silverbeet, and beetroot are all ready to be eaten too.

Our garlic is growing nicely as well. It is meant to be harvested on the shorted day of the year which is the 22nd of December. 

We took the kale to the kitchen and rinsed it and ripped it into small pieces.

We sprayed it with olive oil and sprinkled it with a little salt.

Then we put it in the oven at 175 degrees celsius for about ten minutes.

We baked it until it went brown on the edges.

Then we took it out and waited for it to cool.

Once it was cool we tried some. It was yummy! 

Bella, Thea-Jane and Tyesha took a bag home each to share with their families...

Here is a link to the recipe we used for baked kale chips if you want to try and make some at home!

In order to make space for our seedlings, Miss Raven harvested our other vegetables on Thursday.

She put the celery, silverbeet, spinach and beetroot into recycled supermarket bags and offered it to the Enviro Club children who had planted, watered and weeded it. 

Here it all is ready to go home next to the Seaview Block children's lettuces.

This Wednesday Cade, one of our Enviro Club students, started making a wooden box from an old crate his Dad got from his work with our Caretaker Mr Gillions. He is planning to plant the New World 'Little Garden' seedlings that his class is growing in it.

If you are growing New World Little Garden seedlings

at home too, click on this link to go to there webpage for information on how to repot your seedlings and great growing hints and tips. The website also has some fun activities too! 

Enjoy growing your own little garden at home...