In the community
Gardening - Term Two
In gardening this term, we are working with the Foundation -2 students. We have been looking at the parts of a plant, especially getting to know flat leaf parsley, which is thriving throughout the school at the moment. We have been having lots of little munches of parsley leaves, as well as feeding it to our new chooks.
In the winter months it is a good time to make compost ready for spring, so we will be looking and thinking about compost making, as well as keeping an eye out for all the fungi popping up in the garden. We have planted our garlic, broadbeans and snowpeas and already have some broccoli ready to harvest, so over the next month will get a chance to nibble some steamed broccoli as well.
Ngoon Godgin to Aviva for providing us with Gardening activities during learning from home.
TPS Enviro News
TPS has new Chickens!
The TPS Enviro Team are happy to announce that we have six new chickens.
From supplying us with fresh, healthy eggs from well-cared-for animals, to giving us great fertilizer for the garden , to providing lively pets—as well as being part of the drive to a local, sustainable food system. The chickens are a lovely addition to the TPS Family.
The Enviro team and families attending working bees at the school have revamped our chook pen. Foundations have been laid to extend the enclosure and we recently purchased a new hen house complete with an automatic door that closes when the chooks go to bed.
Children helped to clean up the chicken enclosure and made signage, a dust bath and a chicken gym!
In March members of the Enviro team and their children went on an adventure to a farm called Abundant Layers in Nar Nar Goon. On the farm we met with some horses and alpacas, ducks, and geese but most importantly we met a lot of chickens!
With over 20 types of chickens at the farm to choose from we set about choosing the breeds that respond well to being cared for by children and have interesting colour, shapes and size. We also wanted chickens that have distinct personalities and features.
With input from TPS families and the farmers advice we choose 6 different breeds that were all around three months old.
The breeds all have fantastic names; Buff Orphington, Wyandotte, Speckled Sussex, Plymouth Rock, Barnevelder and Light Sussex.
Since arriving the chickens have been cared for by a small group of families, this has allowed the chickens to settle into their new home nicely and get used to being picked up.
As the chickens are only young, we are not expecting them to lay any eggs until Winter, at that time eggs will be used in cooking classes with the remainder available through the Enviro team.
A comprehensive Chicken Care plan has been developed. In time the Enviro team will put a call out for more families to be involved in the chicken’s care.
Can you help us name our chickens?
Profiles of each chicken type and personality are available on google forms you can put forward a name for one or all of the chickens.
Once we have collected suggestions from the TPS community we will put the names to a vote.
In the school
