The end of a fantastic year!
Kia ora whānau
Well what a year it’s been - the kids of St Thomas More have certainly been up to lots of fun activities both in & out of the classroom. With us, they’ve looked at garden design, visited gardens in our community, got stuck into their own school gardens, created planting plans, learnt about worm farming & hosted a ‘garden to plate cafe’ evening - to name a few!
The support of our community this year also meant that STM was awarded $5000 to enable the continuation of this kaupapa in the school! This was absolutely fantastic & will be exciting to see what unfolds with this financial backing in 2020 :)
Garden design was a big part of the children’s learning this year. Understanding what different plants need and ensuring that how we plant reflects this is key. They learnt the importance of thinking about where the sun travels across the sky, both in summer & winter, and also learnt tricks for getting the most out of a space.
Working in small groups, they used the knowledge they’d gained (and a planting calendar) to create a planting plan for their gardens.
Two top students were then selected to critique the plans with me to come up with a winning design for our gardens. To ensure we chose the best design, we judged them against some key criteria; including plant spacing, awareness of sun’s positioning, space maximisation & usage of companion planting. Check out the winning teams design!
The kids hosted a cafe evening for their whānau using food they’d grown in their gardens too! And although there was a little bit of parent apprehension to start with, that was quickly dismissed as the students served up some absolutely delicious dishes. Was a delight to see (and taste!). Well done tamariki o Kina!
Our Matapihi flora & fauna field trip was a wonderful way to end the year. Our whānau joined us as the kids learnt all about our native plant & bird species. They discovered some fun facts about the biodiversity here in the bay, learnt about species identification & conducted their own species counts!
I must say a massive THANK YOU to all the amazing whānau that came along to support us on the day. Your encouragement & enthusiasm for the kaupapa was great to see - and I’m sure the kids fed off that too. Was a fantastic experience for all :)
The students took their new found knowledge back into the classroom too! Following their curiosities, they went on to research particular species that interested them. Was great to see the enthusiasm in the class and some of the presentations of their findings.
When they learnt about some of the threats facing our native wildlife, many were keen on getting involved to help them thrive again too!
It’s been an absolute pleasure and a blessing to work with such an enthusiastic bunch of kids & supportive whānau this year at St Thomas More Catholic School! I will certainly cherish all the wonderful memories made. And although I’m sad that it’s the end of this chapter, I’m also excited by what the future holds for these tamariki and our community.
Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas & New Year with friends & family and I wish you all the very best for your futures :)
Arohanui me ngā mihi mahana
Jake Andersen