Little Eyes on Nature

A visit across the Pacific

2012-02-03T16:39:00.000+13:00

Recently I returned from a three week teacher exchange in Arizona, where I visited several pre-k programmes. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I am very grateful for the warm welcome I received at the schools I visited.

Arizona has a very different climate from our lush green wet and windy Wellington in New Zealand. This was especially noticeable in the different outdoor environments that I witnessed. The hot and dry desert climate creates challenges for most schools to establish and maintain a school garden or natural outdoor environment. However, this doesn’t mean it is not possible to create a beautiful, natural garden and outdoor playscape, as the Montessori Center School in Phoenix proved. They have a beautiful outdoor garden where the children and their families can learn and experience nature. It was a real pleasure to visit their beautiful sensory garden, designed to understand and enhance each of the senses - sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. The garden also includes art stations, vegetable gardens, a hummingbird- and butterfly trail and a compass garden. They made good use of plants that grow in their area naturally, including the one plant that thrives in the Arizona desert environment, the cactus.

But it isn’t the climate only that is an obstacle for schools to create more natural outdoor environments. The combination of strict law, regulations and high insurance premiums pushes many schools into creating “soulless” playgrounds with low maintenance plastic toys and meaningless equipment. Combined with, in some cases, an absence of rooms with windows, and I couldn’t help but question what this does to the spirit and soul of the young child.

During early childhood the brain is shaped by our daily experiences, necessary for growth. If we keep our children away from nature, limiting their experiences with the natural world, stifling the development of their biophilia, which is their natural love for the Earth, we will create a generation that suffers from nature deficit disorder, a term introduced by Richard Louv, and biophobia, a fear for the natural world. If that happens, who will be our future Earth Stewards? How can we expect our children to take care of our planet if they themselves have not developed any empathy, nor love, for the Earth they live on. Caring does not come naturally, it needs to be fostered. A lack of exposure to the nature experiences, combined with the rigid learning programmes that are more common in pre-k programmes, and the fear for safety, resulting in less time for free unstructured play and we are raising a generation of children far removed from a connection with the natural world.

"We survive because we can love. And we love because we can empathize."

- Bruce Perry (“Born for Love”)

Bruce Perry, in his book ”Born for Love: Why Empathy is Essential - and Endangered”, writes that three-, four-, and five-year-old children need to have lots of time for unstructured play. They need to explore, to negotiate the rules of made-up games with friends; they need opportunities to practice compromise, negotiation, and sharing. Early childhood is a crucial time of life for the development of empathy.

And empathy is what we need if we want to have healthy relationships, not only with other human beings, but also with the natural world, our home the Earth. What other good way to develop empathy than providing children with authentic, natural environments. Environments that are not over regulated by adult rules and societal priorities, but environments where children learn to manage dangers and risks, and where they can have those lifeshaping experiences that shape not only their brain, but also their soul.

Many of the teachers I talked to would like to introduce more free play and nature into their programmes. As I shared with them our Little Earth programme and environment, they were enthusiastic and hopeful that with initiatives like “Leave no child inside” and the “Let’s go outside’ movement” more support for more outdoor and natural experiences will become available. I hope that one day, soon, their school district and regulating bodies will share their hope and give them their full support.

- Anja

Celebrating the year - beauty and authenticity

2012-01-01T08:22:00.003+13:00

This year, the focus at our preschools has been on providing our children with beauty and as many as authentic experiences as possible. Baking our own bread, collecting eggs from the chickens, harvesting our own fruit, making our own paper, these are just a few of the daily experiences our children have at our preschools. Our beautiful outdoor environment, the ever changing theatre of nature, is the ideal environment where children can be active and concrete learners. It is constantly changing, highly attractive and full of beauty.

A natural environment is as authentic as you can get. We know it is real because it is not a static environment – our garden is ever changing! One day the climbing logs are dry, the next they are wet and slippery; the daffodils are blooming one week and wilting the next; rain falls one morning and clears in the afternoon. There is no ‘turn off’, ‘pause’, or ‘reset’ button like in technology. We do not know exactly what nature will give us. We notice and adapt to changes.

In today’s hurried world, we offer the antidote to the stress and fast pace of our modern lifestyle. Our garden is therapeutic. We see both purposeful activities and time dreaming in the garden as both having value, with no time limits. We believe that deep concentration on any chosen activity lets us discover who we truly are.

“All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, this is when I became myself”.

- Rita Dove

This year we will continue to offer our children beauty and authentic experiences which will create positive, life shaping memories, rich early childhood experiences that previous generations have had – times full of wonder, nature, fun, friendship and timelessness. We hope you will too ! Happy New Year!

- Anja

Join the Christmas Box Challenge!

2011-12-25T09:17:00.000+13:00

- Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold -

- Joseph Chilton Pearce

After you have opened all the presents and eaten the food, give in to the universal urge to Play. Children the world over, and adults alike, need to play whenever they can. Play is in all animals, including us. We are biologically driven to play. So don’t throw out those boxes. Join The Grass Stain Guru in The Christmas Box Challenge!

Have a playful Christmas!

- Anja

Coffee grounds Christmas decorations

2011-12-24T08:10:00.002+13:00

Who doesn’t like coming home to the smell of coffee? Especially after a day of Christmas shopping. We wrote earlier how at our preschools we use coffee grounds in our garden. We also use them to make fossils. Now here is another idea how to use coffee grounds in the lead up to Christmas. Make Christmas decorations!

Use 1 cup of used coffee grounds, 1/2 cup of water, 1 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of salt. Mix the ingredients together and roll out the dough. Use Christmas cookie cutters to make the shape. Make a hole for the ribbon or string before you let them dry. Once dried, decorate them the way you want, we decorated them with glitter.

Once finished, you can put your feet up with a cuppa while the children decorate the tree, with coffee grounds!

Now that will fill up your room with aroma!

- Anja

Letting go - making a mindshift

2011-12-17T10:54:00.000+13:00

We know that for a lot of our tamariki leaving something behind is very difficult. We have seen their discomfort with leaving their clothing, boots, or slippers behind at preschool or when some other treasured possession has been left at home.

One of our tamariki arrived at Little Earth wanting to show us his tiger worms he had found. His mother had commented to him that they wouldn’t be happy staying in the bug catcher for long so maybe he could find a new home for them at preschool. However, after arriving at preschool, our young friend said that he wanted to take them home.

After showing his friends we suggested he could transfer the worms to our worm bin. But no, he had different plans, “I’ll put them in my cubby”, he replied. His friends pointed out to him that the worms didn’t have much dirt in the bug catcher, and where was their food? Our young friend found a quiet space in our window seat and looked at the worms, obviously thinking of all of this.

After a few minutes he came up to us. “My worms are sad now”. “I wonder why they are sad”, we said, and he told us, “They don’t have enough dirt. They don’t have food”. So we asked him, “What would you like to do with them”? He pointed to the worm bin - “In there”.

We all joined watching our friend as he transferred the worms from his bug catcher to the worm bin. We could see he was still feeling anxious about his decision. We were all so impressed by his choice to put the care of the worms ahead of his own feelings of wanting to hold onto a belonging of his.

At our preschools, our goal is to not just offer some activities promoting sustainability but to actually help our children and families make a ‘mind-shift’ into more sustainable thinking. We want the idea of caring for the Earth to be so embedded that conscious choices are made. The decision to offer the worms a more suitable home is such a wonderful example of informed decision making and is a really exciting part of our children’s journey and growth. The Earth really is a great Teacher!

- Anja

Care and compassion, we are all part of the web of life

2011-11-24T06:51:00.000+13:00

"He nohonga ngātahitanga ahau me te taiāo"

- We live as one with our natural world -

Kaitiakitanga is the practice of looking after something, just as Tane, in Maori legends, looks after the forest and Tangaroa and Hinemoa look after the oceans. We have been working with our tamariki to get them to understand that to take responsibility for our environment we need to be caring.

At our preschools we help our children to look after their relationships, not only with the environment, but also with each other, and their place within. Our aim is to bring harmony and well being to all involved. After all, we are all part of the web of life. It is important to explore these relationships, to introduce the children to the concept that everything is connected and inter-related, whanaungatanga and whakapapa. We have a past and a future and our choices and actions make a difference. We show our tamariki how to be respectful to all that is around us, kaitiakitanga, that we are part of a community and act in harmony with nature.

One means of doing so is the garden at both our preschools. The garden provides our children with many opportunities to cultivate their curiosity about nature and gives them a sense of community and responsibility. In the garden, children see and experience how their actions either help or harm the environment. It nurtures their aroha, a feeling of love for the natural world, and of the urge to protect or take care of it, manaaki. These are important values we'd like to instill in our children as our future guardians. Aroha is more than love, it is about compassion for the environment and understanding the environment and our place in that environment, our connection with the natural world. A connection that, according to Richard Louv in his latest book "The Nature Principle" is fundamental to human health, well-being, spirit, and survival.

Respect, care and compassion underlies all we do at Tawa Montessori Preschool and Little Earth. This weekend I will be attending The Natural Phenomena, an outdoor nature education early childhood conference in the "Wild Woods" in New Zealand. I will be presenting a workshop on the interconnectedness and interdependence with the life force of every natural thing and how to introduce our tamariki to care and respect all things and the correct ways to interact with them. We must care for our natural world, be good guardians or kaitiaki.

If you are attending The Natural Phenomena, come and say hello.

- Anja

Touch the Future - Introducing the Nido

2011-11-17T23:00:00.000+13:00

Our youngest people are our stakeholders!

Little Earth is currently developing The Nido, a new parent/infant programme, geared towards sustainable parenting practices, based on a culture of respect.

Last month we opened The Nido room at Little Earth, a special place where parents can come for classes and workshops, to learn and to share knowledge and to connect with other parents. Our philosophy is inspired by the works of Maria Montessori, an Italian educationalist, and guided by research from Joseph Chilton Pearce and Emmi Pikler, pioneers in parent and infant relationships.

The aim of our Nido programme is to tighten the bond between parent and child in their journey of creating a magical childhood, based on respectful relationships and in harmony with nature.

The first 3 years of life is a critical period in a child's life. The young child is constantly learning, absorbing everything in her environment. At the Nido we acknowledge that the young child will develop according to nature’s plan in a culture of respect where they can be a free and equal human being. The Nido classes will explore various topics that deepen the parents’ understanding of their important role as the child’s first teacher.

This weekend I will be attending the 'Heart Dancing Class for Facilitators', a course facilitated by Pennie Brownlee. This course is the first facilitator course in the 'Heart Dance revolution'. It is a dream coming true for Pennie who is a well know early childhood educator facilitator in New Zealand. She has worked tirelessly for nearly forty years educating parents and teachers in respectful parent - infant relationships with the aim to grow communities which have the well-being of children central, communities based on respectful partnerships. I feel privileged to be one of the inaugurate course participants and to be able to spend a whole weekend in the companionship of Pennie and other great people who are passionate about adults - children partnerships.

For those who would like to know more about the 'Heart Dance Revolution', I recommend Pennie's book "Dance with me in the Heart, the adults guide to great infant-parent partnerships". You can also read 'The Partnership Dance', one of her many published articles. Here at Little Earth we are excited about our Nido classes and the prospect of creating a caring compassionate community. If you want to join us at the Nido or want more information visit our website.

- Anja

Akonga, a community of learners

2011-11-12T13:02:00.000+13:00

Recently we achieved the GREEN GOLD Award from Enviroschools. Last week we celebrated our GREEN GOLD Enviroschools achievement with a visit from our sister preschool Tawa Montessori Preschool. Children and families from Tawa Montessori took the train up to Kapiti. After a “Thread the Earth Lightly” candle walk in Nikau Reserve, and our special forest walk song "Ko Te Ngahere", we had a picnic at Little Earth. The Enviroschool team send their Green Gold fairy to congratulate us. The special award and flag was presented to Little Earth by a delegation from the Wellington Regional Council and the Kapiti Coast District Council.

We continue our journey at Little Earth, not only as an Enviroschool but as akonga, a community of learners, children, teachers and parents. While the children are our stakeholders, we, the adults are their mentors and it is important we not only empower and engage our young children, but also enact. We know how our planet is in peril, we know we have to make changes to the way we are living. Here, at Little Earth we want to do something about it. We want to give our children, the stakeholders, the skills and attitudes to grow into global citizens who will act as responsible caretakers. Nature has no reset button.

Little Earth sparkles with GREEN GOLD! You can read more about our GREEN GOLD award on the Kapiti Independent website.

- Anja

New life in our milk bottles

2011-10-12T13:17:00.000+13:00

Our recycled milk bottles at Tawa Montessori have done us well. It’s been nearly a year now since we first put them up. They weathered a hot Summer, a wet Autumn and a cold Winter. Now it is Spring and while the bottles are still in good shape, the plants look a bit sad. Our new planted pansies are getting a hammering from our chickens who love to dust bath in our flower beds. We decide that the milk bottles may be a much better home for our pansies.

Take the milk bottles of the shed wall and fill the bottles with new soil.

Get the pansies out of our garden and plant them in the milk bottles.

Water the plants and put a rod through the handles of the bottles to hang.

Fasten the wooden rod to the shed wall and done, they are ready to flower.

Children love working in the garden. As they plant the flowers, they learn that flowers and plants are delicate and need to be handled with care. They learn about watering, and the properties of dry and wet soil. They can admire the instant colour beauty and observe the insects that visit the flowers. Projects like this are not only a great way to introduce children to gardening, they are also a concrete hands on introduction to sustainability and environmental education.

- Anja

Healthy eating (4), making our own egg spread

2011-10-11T13:43:00.001+13:00

With Spring in full bloom, our chickens at Tawa Montessori Preschool and at Little Earth are laying eggs again. The hen at Tawa Montessori has gone broody, but at Little Earth we thought we can make egg spread for on our bread. This healthy snack is fast and easy to make.

This is how we make our own egg spread:

Ingredients: a dash of salt, two eggs, melted butter.

Boil two eggs and let them cool.

Shell the eggs and mash them in a bowl.

Crunch the shell and feed it to the chickens or worm farm.

Add a dash of salt and melted butter and mix it together.

Yummy, especially with pesto!

Slowly our garden is able to sustain our needs for our food preparation at preschool. The children put a lot of love and care into the garden and animals and they are now enjoying the fruits of their labour. We have noticed that they are more and more connected to the garden and the animals and taking more ownership. “The egg is from our hen,” they will say, “I will feed the chickens now. They will give us more eggs”. We are not only eating healthy, we are also developing a more sustainable and caring community.

- Anja

Links:
- Healthy eating (1), making our own pesto
- Healthy eating (2), making our own lemon honey
- Healthy eating (3), making our own bread
- Healthy eating (4), making our own egg spread

Spring in Aotearoa!

2011-10-07T21:25:00.000+13:00

Spring has arrived in Aotearoa, there is no doubt about it!

The fruit trees are in full blossom,

and the hen has gone broody.

Now the Spring showers are arriving too!

First we try to catch the rain,

but who can resist a puddle?

All we need is a raincoat and a bowl,
and we pour and pour,

and we catch and catch,

and we get wetter and wetter.

Spring, who doesn't like the Spring?

- Anja

Healthy eating (3), making our own bread

2011-10-01T11:29:00.001+13:00

At both Tawa Montessori Preschool and Little Earth we bake our own daily bread. We used to have our freezer stocked with supermarket bread to make our morning and afternoon snack. We noticed there was quite a lot of wasted bread in the compost bowl. Now we have less waste and healthier bread. Our children love to bake and are used to different baking technique. They are independent with the skills associated with baking. Making our own bread is another ritual in our day that contributes towards our sustainable and respectful community.

Here is how we make our daily bread:

Ingredients:

4 cups high grade flour
1 tablespoon yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1.5 ups lukewarm water
1/4 cup oil (we use rice bran oil).

Directions:

- Mix yeast and water and let it stand for a while.
- Combine flour and salt in a bowl.
- Pour the yeast mixture and the oil into the dry ingredients.
- Mix all the ingredients thoroughly and then knead until the dough isn't sticky anymore.
- Cover and let the dough rise (about 45 minutes).
- Knead and then cut the dough into 12 parts.
- Shape the dough into buns.
- Bake at 220 C for 10-15 minutes or until brown.

In the morning, the yeast, oil and water are added to the flour and salt.

Then the mixing begins! Lots and lots of kneading until the mixture is not sticky anymore.

The dough rises in the warm classroom, then the buns are rolled and shaped ready to be cooked. Once the buns have cooled down, we cut them. They are now ready for morning and afternoon tea.

We have noticed how the children enjoy contributing to the morning and afternoon tea. They work with care and attention, wanting to do a great job! We hear comments like “The crust tastes GOOD!” and “I like the bread.” It is a good reminder that we, the adults don’t have to make the bread for the children (serve), but we can help them to do it themselves.

We also learned that having whole wheat grains in our bread is much healthier than white bread so now we bake whole wheat bread every morning. It is yummier and much better for our bodies.

The gift real work brings to a child is independence. Maria Montessori noted that one who is continually ‘served’ instead of being ‘helped’ is deprived of becoming independent, of being truly free.

(The Discovery of the Child, pgs 55, 56, 57)

- Anja

The Natural Phenomena

2011-09-18T19:20:00.000+12:00

See you there!

- Anja

Green Gold for Little Earth Montessori

2011-09-09T11:35:00.000+12:00

On the 9th of September, 2009, we celebrated the opening of Little Earth Montessori preschool. Today, exactly 2 years later, Little Earth achieved the Enviroschools Green Gold Award. We are very proud of this achievement. It recognises our efforts to develop Little Earth into a truly sustainable community.

Enviroschools is run by the Enviroschools Foundation, a charitable national trust that provides leadership, support, and opportunities that empower children and young people to work in intergenerational ways to create healthy, peaceful and resilient communities. The awards scheme is designed to encourage schools to become actively involved in environmental education and to undertake environmental initiatives that will make a real difference in the community. There are three levels of awards, bronze, silver and the prestigious green gold.

Last year Little Earth received the silver award. Our journey didn’t stop there. We continued to strengthen our connection with nature and the environment to create an embedded culture of sustainability and to encourage our children to enact as part of their daily thinking and actions. Today, Little Earth has a whole school approach based on the five Enviroschools guiding principles.

- Respect for the diversity of people and cultures
Integral to to achieving a sustainable environment in New Zealand - one that is fair, peaceful and co-operative and makes the most of our rich cultural traditions.

- Learning for sustainability
Children are engaged in the physical, social, cultural and political aspects of our local and global environment.

- Sustainable communities
Children are part of a sustainable community that acts in ways that nurture people and nature, now and in the future.

- Empowering students
Children are empowered to participate in a genuine way from their own unique and creative perspective.

- Maori perspectives
Maori perspectives and knowledge of the environment enrich the learning process and offer insights unique to the culture, honouring the status of indigenous people in this land.

The four Enviroschools key areas of school life that have an effect on sustainability and the children’s learning are incorporated at Little Earth.

- place, including physical surroundings
- practices, including operational sustainable paractices
- programmes, including a living curriculum
- people and participation, including organisational management.

Achieving the Green Gold award is a huge accomplishment for our preschool. It involves a lot of hard work, commitment, time, resources and, most importantly, support from our community. Our children, our parents and whanau, our teachers, and our management have all worked together and created a community based on a culture of respect for the environment, all living creatures and for each other as well as for themselves.

A team of Enviroschools delegates, teachers, management and parents spend the day to reflect on the journey Little Earth has undertaken. We created a koru to visual represent our journey from humble beginnings at our Tawa Montessori Preschool in 2005 until the Green Gold today, finishing with small koru rippling out as our journey continues. The koru represents the fern frond as it opens, bringing new life to the world. The koru also represents peace and tranquility along with new beginnings.

LITTLE EARTH - GREEN GOLD

We have a living evolving school vision which involves strengthening our connection with nature. The outdoors serves as an extension of the classroom. The Enviroschools Guiding Principles are woven into all aspects of our school life. Caring for our environment is a fundamental value woven throughout our programme, influencing all our decisions and actions. Our children love and appreciate nature, developing an understanding they have shared responsibilities for the environment and humanity. Supported by adults, they make decisions and take action in their community. At Little Earth sustainability is embedded in our daily thinking and actions. There are many examples of changes that show we are making a difference. The vibrant and healthy environment at Little Earth supports our community towards sustainability. “The community come to us and we come to the community.” Maori perspectives enrich our journey. We honour the diversity of people within the community, combining intergenerational wisdom with each other’s unique perspectives.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you, our global network of readers, for all the support, enthusiasm and inspiration we have received over the years. Sharing your ideas and experiences, and giving feedback through blog comments, emails, direct messages, tweets, Facebook and Skype are invaluable. You are all part of the journey.

The Green Gold award is a long term commitment of Little Earth to sustainability. It is not the end, the journey continues.

- Anja

Healthy eating (2), making our own lemon honey

2011-09-07T14:27:00.000+12:00

Tawa Montessori Preschool has several fruit trees growing in their garden. We have an apple tree, a pear tree, a mandarin tree and a lemon tree. Our lemon tree is heavy with lemons. This year we decided to use the lemons to make lemon honey.

This is how we make our own lemon honey.

Ingredients: 50 gm butter, 3 eggs, 1 cup sugar, and a few lemons.

Harvest the lemons.

Wash the lemons.

Squeeze the juice of of the lemons, lots of them.

Use a zester to get the rind of the lemon peel.

Add melted butter and sugar.

Collect some of our chicken eggs.

Add the eggs, the lemon juice and rind and mix and cook in the microwave.

Sweet!

Gardening, cooking, serving and eating, composting— these are truly basic things, but the lessons they could teach are drowned out by the clamor of the media and the insidious temptations of consumerism. Kids today are bombarded with a pop culture which teaches redemption through buying things. School gardens, on the other hand, turn pop culture upside–down. They teach redemption through a deep appreciation for the real, the authentic, and the lasting—for the things money can’t buy—the very things that matter most of all if we are going to lead sane, healthy, and sustainable lives. Kids who learn environmental and nutritional lessons through school gardening—and school cooking and eating—learn how to lead ethical lives. —Alice Waters

- Anja

Alice Waters, “A World of Possibilities,” in Margo
Crabtree ed. The Edible Schoolyard, (Berkeley, Learning in
the Real World, Center for Ecoliteracy, 1999), p. 15.
71 Author’s Interview with Rochelle Davis, Illinois Healthy
School Campaign, July 9, 2004.

Healthy eating (1), making our own pesto

2011-09-01T22:20:00.000+12:00

At Little Earth we have been learning how we can use our garden produce for our daily needs at preschool. We like our morning and afternoon snack, especially with our own Little Earth bread which is made daily by the children. We thought of how we can use our garden greens for our own spread. With so much parsley and coriander in our garden, pesto was the natural answer.

This is how we make our own pesto.

Ingredients: a dash of salt, olive oil, cheese, sunflower seeds and coriander or parsley.

Gather coriander and parsley, sometimes peas, from the garden.

Then wash and stem them.

Feed the stalks to the guinea pigs.

Grate the cheese.

Pound the sunflower seeds.

Then add the oil, leaves, cheese, and a dash of salt.

Pound the ingredients together until the mixture is fine.

Delicious!

By becoming involved in the seasonal cycles of planting, growing, harvesting, and eating and sharing the food grown in our organic garden, the children are appreciating and developing an understanding of the natural world. Engaging our children in practices, projects and ways of working that lead to a more sustainable future helps them to develop an understanding they have a shared responsibility for the environment and humanity and that we all play a part in the web of life.

- Anja

As cute as a button

2011-08-16T13:56:00.000+12:00

For the first time we are having snow at preschool!!! Surreal!

As cute as a button ...

... and they are clever too, balancing objects on their heads!

Snow and children, a perfect match!

- Anja

Coffee grounds fossils

2011-07-31T23:05:00.000+12:00

Yesterday I wrote about the Ground to Ground initiative and the reuse of coffee grounds for compost and gardening. Tonnes of used coffee grounds are discarded each day, filling up our landfills. Coffee grounds are a good source of nitrogen for the compost, garden or worm farm and a natural deterrent for snails and slugs. But coffee grounds can also be used as a natural component to make “play dough” at preschool.

At Little Earth the children are enjoying making their own fossil imprints. We use coffee grounds, collected from BURST Drive-Thru-Cafe.

We mix 1 cup of used coffee grounds, 1/2 cup of water, 1 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of salt together in a large bow.

We roll the mixture out onto a flat surface, over some wax paper. We use a big wooden chopping board.

We use shells, leaves, and even own hands, to make imprints, and allow them to dry overnight.

Our coffee ground fossils look very realistic as they look like real rocks when finished!

We are only just starting to explore the many uses of coffee grounds! What ideas for reusing coffee grounds do you have?

- Anja

Ground to Ground

2011-07-30T22:05:00.000+12:00

Are you one of these people who needs a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, before you can even start thinking of the day ahead of you? Or are you one of the many people who simply enjoy the pleasure of drinking a cuppa while catching up with a friend or relative. Coffee has become one of the most popular beverages in the world with the world coffee consumption said to reach as high as 400 billion coffee cups a year. As a non coffee drinker I have never thought much about “a good cuppa”, let alone think about the tons of coffee grounds that are produced on a daily basis and dumped in the local landfills.

According to the Ground to Ground initiative, approximately 20 grams of coffee grounds remains every time an espresso machine is used, which is then typically thrown into the bin, and ends up in landfill. 20 grams might not seem like a big amount, until you consider that 5000 lattes work out to about 100 kilos of used grounds, 50,000 lattes work out to about 1 tonne. Think about the millions of people who stop into cafes or use an espresso machine at home at least once a day. All those tens of millions of drinks make for many tonnes of landfill each and every day.

At Little Earth we have been learning that plants grow healthy in soil that is rich in nutrients. We also know that nitrogen and carbon are some nutrients that plants need. When we make our compost we put lots of green matter and brown matter to make a yummy dirt for the plants. Coffee grounds have a relatively high nitrogen content, making them an excellent “green” addition to the compost bin and a great offset against high carbon ‘brown’ additions such as leaves, straw, and cardboard. They also happen to act like a slow release fertiliser when put directly into the soil, providing ongoing nitrogen input into the garden. When applied to the soil coffee grounds will deter snails and slugs, while at the same time attract the very beneficial earthworm who just loves coffee!

What better way to reduce the amount of waste in our landfill and keep our garden healthy at the same time then using coffee grounds in our garden? Coffee grounds have been used for compost and gardening for many centuries. Our local coffee shop, BURST Drive-Thru-Café, delivers a bucket full of grounds every week to Little Earth. The children sprinkle the coffee grounds on our veggie patches to ward of the slugs ad snails. The leaves of our cauliflowers and cabbages are amazingly looking healthier, and no longer full of holes. The children also sprinkle coffee around the other plants in the garden and around our native plants up the bank. We also add coffee grounds to our compost and worm farm. It sure is a lot of fun spreading coffee grounds!

You may wonder why our garden smells like coffee sometimes?

We are learning that coffee ground is a good source of
nitrogen for our soil.

We are also learning that coffee grounds keep snails and slugs away.

So now we are adding coffee grounds to our compost and garden.

What a great way to recycle coffee grounds and keep our garden healthy! And it is fun too!

Recycling coffee grounds would have to be one of the easiest ways to make a difference. For more information about used coffee grounds and the Ground to Ground initiative, visit the Ground to Ground website.

Reusing coffee grounds in the garden is just one way of the plenty of usages it can have in a preschool. More creative ideas about using coffee grounds tomorrow.

- Anja

Mud Day, Every Day!

2011-07-23T17:08:00.001+12:00

When attending the NACC World Forum in Nebraska, last October, I listened to Bishnu Bhatta sharing his story about the first Mud day 2010 in his native Nepal. I watched photos of the children in Nepal, joyfully playing, running, and splashing in mud. Bishnu finished his presentation with announcing 29 June 2011 as the first International Mud Day, an initiative to globally connect children with nature.

June is one of the Winter months in New Zealand, and unlike many people think, it is not always warm, sunny and dry in our beautiful country at that time of the year. Indeed, Winter 2011 has been shaping up to be very wet and full of extremes. We have had earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding and snow storms. Most of all, we are having our fair share of mud, glorious mud!

We have been reminded by our tamariki (children) how wondrous this time of year can be. Our children do not view it as cold and miserable like many adults, but as puddly, muddly, squelchy, icy, foggy fun! We have been enjoying the puddles in our garden, and realise how the stepping stones placed in Summer can also be “jumping off into puddle stones”, turning mud patches into mud pools! Indeed, we have been having Mud Day every day for the last few weeks! And in the words of A (4 yrs): "This is actually FUN!"

- Anja

A little tree, with a big spirit

2011-06-20T13:10:00.000+12:00

Last week we had an Enviroschools cluster meeting at Little Earth. This coincided with Mataariki, the Maori New Year. Mataariki is the Maori name for a group of seven stars known as the Pleiades star cluster. Mataariki appears sometime near the end of May, into June and in Maori tradition is thought to determine how successful the harvest crop will be in the coming season. The brighter the stars, the more productive the crop will be! Mataariki is also a time of reflection with whanau (family) and of giving thanks. In short, it is a time of new beginnings.

As a way of giving thanks, Enviroschools donated a tree to Little Earth. In spirit with the Maori tradition a mihi was said before the tree was planted. A mihi is an acknowledgement of the spiritual and physical forces in nature. The mihi we said honoured and acknowledged the family of Rangi (Sky father), Papa (mother Earth) and Tāne (Forest god).

Tēnei au, tēnei au
Ka mihi ki a Rangi
Ka mihi ki a Papa
Ka mihi ki a Tāne
Kia tau, kia tau, kia tau

At our preschools we embrace the heritage of Aotearoa (New Zealand), honouring the original habitants of the land itself. The Maori people, the indigenous people of Aotearoa, have a strong connection with nature. Maori tradition emphasis the need to live as closely as possible with nature, to learn about it, and to understand it. It is their believe that the inter-relatedness of people and all of nature (whanaungatanga) is through the family of Ranginui and Papatuanuku. By showing respect for the ancestors and for generations to come our Little Earth community becomes a part of a much larger relationship, a relationship not only between humans, but between humans and the land.

The little rakau (tree) is a kaponga, a native silver tree fern. It is the first addition to our lizard garden. As part of our outdoor development we are developing a lizard habitat in an area of our garden. There are two kinds of lizards in New Zealand – geckos and skinks. They are endemic and have been in New Zealand for over 80 million years, when we were still part of Gondwana. In order to survive and carry out their daily activities, skinks and geckos have to raise their body temperature by extracting heat from the sun’s rays and from rock surfaces. Their habitats are decreasing due to urbanization and pollution.

At Little Earth we are planning a lizard habitat by using a mix of logs, rocks, shrubs, ground cover plants, and open areas. This project will take time as the shrubs and plants need to grow to create a safe habitat. As is our philosophy at Little Earth, the children are empowered to participate in the daily running and development of their learning environment, and this too will take time. We will start collecting plants and shrubs, logs and rocks and one step at a time add a quiet space to our beautiful outdoor environment. Hopefully this space will become a place where the children will go for solitude and stillness, for observations and connections with the beautiful world of nature. Guarded by Te Manaia, the Maori guardian representing the balance between Sky, Earth and Water, our lizard garden will become a special place in time to come, honoured with a special little tree, and a big spirit.

- Anja

Join the Let's Go Outside Revolution

2011-05-20T23:10:00.000+12:00

Over at my beautiful, kindred, spirited friend Marghanita’s blog I wrote a guest post about the enchantment of childhood and finding your inner core of love. Marghanita is one of those very special people who continue to inspire me on my journey of unplugging children and reconnecting them with nature. With the help of the Little Humbugs, Marghanita has a vision of allowing children freedom to play, explore and discover outside and bringing back nature into their lives.

I admire Marghanita immensely for initiating the Let’s Go Outside Revolution. A movement urgently needed to encourage parents to get back to the fundamentals of raising their children from the heart and inspiring them to embrace the outdoors. Please support Marghanita and the Let’s Go Outside Revolution by visiting their website and joining the Revolution on Facebook.

- Anja

Screen-free week 2011

2011-05-02T19:06:00.000+12:00

At Tawa Montessori Preschool we have a great community of parents who are passionate about the environment our preschoolers live in. This year we are taking part in a screen free week, to be held from the 9th to the 13th of May, organised by one of our parents, Andrea Bubendorfer.

A wealth of research has been carried out on the effects of TV on young children, such as summarised by the American Academy of Pediatrics and by Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood who run international screen free week (coinciding with our school holidays).

We all know that direct experiences are real and meaningful, multisensory and interactive, and that's something we want for our children. So the children in our class came home with cards to put their ideas forward of things we can do instead of watching TV. They know they can run, jump, hide, play with balls, play games, read books. We plan to organise a set of afternoon activities, we're lucky to live close to parks, libraries, bush reserves, the beach. Maybe we'll even take along some rubbish bags & clean up an area as we go. Our children were so proud of themselves recently for cleaning up neighboroughing Kowhai Park (thanks to the two mums who organised this!).

But it's not always possible for children to spend their time at leisure, life goes on with plenty of things that must be done. Although it's easy to forget when they are hungry, tired and cranky, our kids are incredibly capable. At preschool they routinely harvest vegetables, collect eggs and prepare food... These kids even make their own bread and recycle their own paper - I expect they achieve more than I do!

Preschoolers also learn a lot by mimicry and love to be included, so rather than just the absence of entertainment, I'd like to invite all the parents to think about screen free week while they cook dinner. Perhaps your preschooler could peel a carrot or wash broccoli alongside you. Their sense of achievement as they have contributed meaningfully is better than the highest praise.

In the first week of term, I'll put out a handout on a few ideas that preschoolers love, to keep them busy during busy times. Any ideas or input from the preschool community will be gratefully received.

- Andrea Bubendorfer

Garden Snippets

2011-04-30T07:47:00.002+12:00

Reflections and fragments of moments in our preschool garden that nurture our children in the skills and qualities they need to be successful in school and life. Remarkable learning - naturally, in a culture of caring, compassion and courage.

Let me help you!

- reverence, a deep respect for someone or something, an awareness for the awe and wonder of all living things.

At preschool we respect the inhabitants of our garden and protect their environment, giving them a little helping hand when needed.

- Anja

What a Summer in the Garden!

2011-04-14T08:30:00.000+12:00

Nau mai e nga hua e hora nei-
I ahu mai na koe it te poho o Papatuanuku
Mai i nga roimata aroha o Ranginui
Mai i nga hihi o Tananuitera
Tenei te aroha e rere nei
Enei kai

Welcome to the fruits that are spread before us
That have come from the bosom of our Earth Mother
From the tears of love of our sky father
From the energy light rays of the sun
This is the love that flows
This food.

We are very excited with our first harvest Season at Little Earth. Our garden has grown really well. All our efforts in taking care of our plants have paid off and we have had several harvests. In late Spring we harvested our iceberg lettuce and red lettuce and we made sure that everyone had something to take home to share with the family. A few days after our very first harvest, we noticed that we had got heaps of sugar snap peas, so we harvested them, too, and shared them for afternoon tea.

During Summer our garden was full of sunflowers, thriving lavender bushes (and bees) and many other companion plants.

We are now in Autumn in Aotearoa, the season for harvesting, and we are certainly enjoying our garden bounty!

Harvesting is an exciting activity for the children as along with the actual harvesting comes scrubbing, chopping, arranging and serving. The serving brings us together as a community and over the last few weeks we have enjoyed sharing tomatoes, beans, carrots and beetroot.

The abundance of beetroot forced us to be creative and adapt one of our favourite ‘5 cup loaf’ recipes to create a surprising edible loaf enjoyed by children and adults alike. The recipe calls for one cup of each of the following - self raising flour, brown sugar (we use less), milk, coconut - and then one cup of ‘anything’ which was where the beetroot and currants came in! This particular concoction is very high in anti-oxidants, and the 5 cup loaf is an easy, versatile recipe to have on hand.

We really are enjoying our garden’s bounty and we are learning a lot about caring for the living things that produce our food. We take care of them and they take care of us.

Ngahuru, kura kai, kura tangata
Harvest time, wealth of food, the wealth of people.

- Anja