Term 1 – Curiosity and Enthusiasm

Term 1 at Paengaroa School our tamariki got stuck into the garden with curiosity and enthusiasm. We kicked off by exploring what had grown over summer, harvesting tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peaches, apples and digging up potatoes to take home. We stocked up our Pātaka Kai and talked about how our garden can feed our community.

An important topic we covered this term was learning about pollination. We used our zucchini plants as an example to show the difference between male and female flowers; and how pollinators like bees help move pollen from one to the other to help the plant grow fruit. Tamariki explored the garden to spot other flowering plants and watched closely for insect visitors. These hands-on moments made a tricky topic easy to understand. We then made tasty zucchini fritters, connecting the science to something delicious we could eat – straight from our own garden.

We also explored the life of seeds and the parts of a seed. We used the sunflower seed as an example, feeling the hard seed coat, peeling it and finding the little seed inside, we then ate them.  We walked around the garden spotting plants like calendula and lettuce going to seed. We mixed up our own seed-raising mix from pumice sand, compost and coconut coir and got stuck into planning and planting our winter garden. This was a great time to talk about the importance of crop rotation and regeneration of soil.

As the seasons shifted, we welcomed Autumn with leaf art. We also had some fluffy visitors; chickens that Tess had brought to the garden from home, as oxalis control. The students had a great time feeding the chickens oxalis, and we talked about how animals and gardens are connected. 

We enjoyed collecting seeds from lettuce, cornflowers, sunflowers, beans, tomatoes, our glass gem corn and marrows.

We picked our pumpkins and learned how to tell when they’re ready to pick by checking if the closest tendril had dried off. We pulled out summer crops, collected feijoas, planted peas, and planted a green crop bed of mustard after the potatoes (which helps to cleanse the soil of disease). We even made wildflower seed bombs while learning how seeds travel in nature.

It’s been a fun, hands-on term full of growing, harvesting, seed saving, and learning how our garden connects to the cycles of nature.

Curiosity and Growth at Paengaroa School

Paengaroa School joined our PiPS family in Term 4, 2024. Paengaroa already had community gardens set up at the school, but they hadn’t been used in quite a while and were overgrown with weeds.

With a new outdoor classroom shelter having been built, it was time to introduce the tamaraki to the new PiPS programme. For this first term we have been introducing all the children of Paengaroa School to the garden with the five junior classrooms one week and the five senior classrooms the alternative weeks.

We have covered so much this term and had such a lovely transformation in the garden, here are some of our highlights below:

The garden beds were really overgrown so we all needed to get stuck in and weed, the kids were so curious and loved finding different insects in the garden.

Learning about seed germination, and what plants need to grow. We started by making some seed raising mix with equal parts coconut coir, sieved compost and fine pumice sand. The kids said it was like mixing a big cake. It was special to all hold different seeds and remember that this seed is a baby that will grow into food for us, but first needs some love, care and attention. We planted a big variety of seeds.

We planted strawberries and learnt about roots and how to dig a hole deep enough so that all the roots are covered and happy in their new home.

 Planting potatoes was a hit, first the kids had to work together to add compost to the garden. Look at the growth below of room 6’s row of potatoes they planted.

 Transplanting our seedlings to grow into bigger plants before we planted them in the garden.

The only thing growing in the garden when we first started this term was a lot of rhubarb so we harvested it, talked about NOT eating the leaf, and the kiddies had turns cutting it up and cooking it. We ate it with a bit of crumble topping and the kids whipped some cream. For most children this was something new, and there was lots of adventurous kiddies trying something different.

Bruce, the principal, and caretaker Glen helped build a bean arch and the tamariki enjoyed planting bean seeds and watching them grow up the arch.

Planting out all our baby seedlings was a much-anticipated job as we checked in on the growth each week as they grew from seed.

Learning how to care for our plants once they are in the garden was also an important job, learning about the different minerals plants need and how we can help them with fertilising. We made our own weed tea for fertiliser, and it got pretty stinky!

Built and painted a pataka kai and made labels for the garden.

We did a range of other jobs from cardboarding and mulching around our fruit trees and paths. Learning about companion planting, what is in our soil and how to look after it, and also made a scarecrow called Kevin.

We all had a fun term; the Tamariki are excited to come back after the holidays to see what the garden will look like. We finished the year making our favourite vegetable decoration with the junior classrooms too!