LATEST STORIES

Spring is in the air and insects are everywhere!

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We are proud to share our home of the brave community Garden! At BestStart Powell Rd Kindy we have vegetable planter boxes in our car park, which our tamariki and kaiako are kaitiaki (guardians of). These vegetables and herbs are available for our wider community thus supporting and sharing aroha with others. We have so many whānau who love to come and see whats in our garden.

Recently at home of the brave we joined Para Kore (a Māori sustainability organisation), as part of our wananga we received a pāmu noke/ worm farm to help our vegetables grow better and bigger, and to learn to dispose of our food scraps! Tamariki have learnt that our noke (worms) are good for the garden, that they like dark places and what they like to eat. We have been collecting our food scrapes – and a big learning from our noke ‘no oranges please!’

Our pāmu noke has sparked off the natural curiosity of our tamariki and started an investigation about ngāngara (insects) and our kaiako have fostered this interest by providing activities which extend their learning. We have had snail races with our snails being named Anna and Elsa (Yes, Frozen is still popular!). Tamariki have created some beautiful mahi toi /art work making some colourful caterpillars. Armed with containers and magnifying glasses they have gone on “Spider Hunts”. They have become brave, and curious intrepid insect hunters.

Our tamariki have discovered that ngāngara like to live on plants, so as kaitiaki for our ngāngāra we have created new homes for them by planting more flowers around our kindy. At Home of the Brave tamariki are learning about kaitiakitanga by treating the ngāngara gently and letting them go back to their homes. Tamariki are taking ownership and caring for their flowers by making sure they have been watered, such wonderful learnings for our curious learners.

At Home of the Brave tamariki are developing their natural curiosity, exploring and asking questions about their natural world around them. They are developing an appreciation of the taonga/treasures that papatūānuku bestows upon us. We are excited about where this journey of learning will take us. I wonder what’s next for the home of the brave explorers?