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Plant Carnival Day
As part of our Holiday Programme here at BestStart Kelvin Grove, we planned a fun filled Plant Carnival Day.
We chose the Plant theme for our Carnival Day because we are have some Kaiako who are very passionate about gardening and teaching kaitiakitanga (looking after and protecting the environment). Our Tōtara-Preschool tamariki have been learning all about the Māori Atua. The little Atua signs, sitting alongside the plants signified the importance we place on the different aspects of our environment and reflect our commitment to a Te Ao Māori world view. The Māori Atua; Paptūānuku, Te Rā, Tāne, Tāwhirimātia, Ranginui and Haumia-tiketike are a critical part of our day to day gardening experiences within Tōtara and the children are beginning to understand their significance in meaningful ways.
In the lead up to Plant Carnival Day, our tamariki did a whole lot of planting so we had lots ready to offer on the day. Getting prepared also saw the tamariki doing the beautifully neat handwriting on the labels that gave our plants that x - factor and again demonstrated some of the the active involvement of our children within these hands on learning experiences. For our tamariki attending that day, we dressed up in green, did some planting, has face painting, and even took some tamariki on a van trip to the Esplanade for a bush walk.
For our community, we took the tamariki for a walk to drop flyers into the letterboxes in our neighbourhood. We invited them to come and swap a plant or buy a plant for a gold coin donation. We raised over $140 which we are putting towards having visitors to come and celebrate Children's Day on the 6th of March. In keeping with the plant theme, our visitors will be using puppets to tell a story about how things grow, something for us to be excited about!
Plant Carnival Day provided an awesome opporutnity for us to live our vision; "At one with child, whānau and community". Our whānau were so invested because their chidlren had excitedly shared their seeds and gardening stories. We have had a few parents post photos on Storypark to show us that there seeds have sprouted already!