Sustainability @ TPPS 

It has been beautiful weather to start off Sustainability in Term 4. We would love to thank the dedicated helpers who cared for our chickens over the holidays, rain, thunderstorms or shine! It means so much to know we have such a generous and caring school community. We hope you got some nice eggs for breakfast.

In Grade 1 we have been preparing to learn about and grow sunflowers. We hope that there will be some strong sunflower seedlings to take home in pots in a few weeks’ time. Studying sunflowers helps students learn about many aspects of understanding and caring for plants. We will be looking at pollination, soil quality, watering, sunlight and insect friends.

It is very aromatic in Grade 2 Sustainability lately! We have been continuing our investigation into herbs. So far we have discovered rosemary, lavender and oregano. Next week we will plant basil seeds into pots to take home. We have also experimented with growing mint cuttings in a jar of water. Hopefully we can watch roots and new shoots start to grow. 

Grade 3 were on the lookout for Australian parrots this week, and we were thrilled to be visited by a very large flock of rainbow lorikeets flying over our school just at the right moment! In Australia, we are lucky to have 56 different species of parrots ranging from little budgerigars to large black cockatoos. And even better, we can watch lorikeets, cockatoos and other parrots (like the very special Gang Gang cockatoos) from our classroom windows all through the year. The students are creating a fold-out booklet featuring many of our Australian parrots.

Grade 4 students work hard in Sustainability! They are really showing their up-and-coming leadership skills by being responsible for managing the school compost system and looking after the maintenance of the vegetable gardens and chicken coop. It was great to see students taking the initiative to sort out areas that needed extra attention in the garden. On that note, a huge “thank you” to Ms Augello and Mr Van Der Pol for helping to reorganise the garden shed last Friday!