At BestStart Montessori Bethlehem, the older tamariki/children have been caring for and nurturing our vegetable garden by watering and weeding it regularly.
Today, they noticed some of the bean pods on the plants. At first, they thought they might be snow peas. When they opened the pods, they saw the peas were bigger than they expected. They started asking their kaiako/teachers and each other what they could be.
That was a great moment for wondering and learning together! We looked up pictures of the plant on Google Lens and found out these were actually broad beans. No wonder they tasted a bit different when we tried them!
The tamariki noticed they weren't as sweet as the snow peas we had grown before. It was fun watching them use careful fingers to open the pods, trying not to squash them. Every year our tamariki have eaten many different vegetables and fruit from our gardens, and taken them home to share with whānau.
To support this learning, we always have classroom activities available around the life cycle of plants and growing plants directly from seed supports this learning. As part of our local curriculum, we include the values/uara of our rohe's Ngāti Ranginui iwi in our practice.
One of those, kaitiakitanga, is the principle of guardianship for the environment. Caring for ourselves, others and the environment is also a key part of Montessori philosophy and we support pepi and tamariki in this right from our infant classroom, through to our 3-6 classes, supporting growing and refining skills over time.