Annabel Langbein Visits Awatere Playcentre

Awatere Playcentre took part in the 2013 Tui School Garden Challenge, where pre-schools, primary schools and intermediates were tasked with growing and maintaining a garden on school grounds. Almost 600 schools from across New Zealand registered to take part in the TSGC, and their achievements in the garden were nothing short of amazing.

Seddon has been affected by a spate of earthquakes, and gardening has been a positive focus for the children during this challenging time. Schools were invited to blog about their experience in the garden during the TSGC and here is an excerpt from Awatere’s first blog:

We finally received our pack on Friday 16th August - just in time for the 6.6 quake.at 2.31pm. Our centre is fine- beyond a few areas of mess and damage to easily replaceable things. However Awatere Playcentre has some families who have been badly affected by the earthquakes with badly damaged/ uninhabitable homes, water supply issues and so forth. Basics such as doing the washing or getting a hot shower are luxuries for some. Many of our tamariki/children are frightened, not wanting to be away from mum for more than a second, more tearful than normal or just angry and hurting from things they don't understand and can't control. We're hoping that by working together, outside in the gardens lots (the aftershocks are often not noticeable when we're outside), planting seeds and watching them grow and bear fruit or flower will provide comfort and hope to our children and families. Beautiful and happy times will come again - we just need to sow the seeds.

Awatere Playcentre used gardening as a positive activity to help the children deal with the earthquakes, undertaking a variety of activities in the garden: raising plants from seeds, growing potatoes, making bird feeders, growing a herb garden and using a worm farm.

Refer to their blogs for more information on how they progressed during the TSGC.