In the month of June, the children focused on the concept ‘Our Green Garden’ to learn more about the gardens that we have in our centre. The N2 and K1 children had the opportunity to explore the garden through hands-on discovery and authentic learning experiences.
The children were firstly engaged in observing the different things that can be found in the garden. They were encouraged to evaluate the current conditions of the garden by drawing out their observations of the garden on recording sheets. They also identified how they felt about the garden by colouring or drawing out the emotion faces. Thereafter, the children shared their observations and findings with the rest of the class and brainstormed ways to enhance the conditions and appearance of the garden.
Based on their observations of the garden, the children also discovered that some of the plants were not growing well in the garden. They demonstrated their interest in learning more about how plants grow as well as the different parts of plants and their functions.
In one of the activities, the children learnt how plants take up water through the roots through the ‘Rainbow Root System’ experiment. During the experiment, the children mixed food colouring with water and placed a few stalks of carnation in the cups. The following day, they were able to observe the changes seen in the flowers and shared their thoughts on it.
Additionally, after looking at the types of plants that were available in the garden, the children shared their interest in growing a wider variety of plants in the garden. They discussed and shared on the different types of plants they wished to see in the garden.
In this activity, the children were given the opportunity to create their own mini-gardens using planter boxes, soil and a wide variety of seeds. They also discussed about the life cycle of a plant and talked about what they should do once the seeds start to sprout. This activity thus allowed the children to learn the process of planting and how to care for their own community garden.
The children also expressed their interest in learning more about the growth of plants. They thus learnt about the life cycle of a plant through a craft activity.
They drew what happens in each life cycle stage and labelled them accordingly. They then shared about their crafts by describing each of the stages, and discussed what the plants need in order to grow.
Lastly, the children were quick to discover an issue whilst looking back on their observations of the garden. They realised that some plants were not receiving enough sunlight due to the tall HDB flats nearby. They thus attempted to address this issue by learning more about share tolerant plants through educational resources.
Through reading the brochure, the children were able to identify shade-tolerant plants such as pandan leaves, chin chow, sand ginger etc. They learnt that these shade-tolerant plants are able to photosynthesise and grow in shady places such as woodland floors.
With the new knowledge gained, the children are now excited to refurbish the garden and plant different types of plants in the next few stages.
