Planting Saplings!

Over the last couple of weeks, some of the preschool children have been helping to do some gardening, planting saplings of dog rose, hawthorn, hazel dogwood and crab apple at the front of the nursery which they will be able to observe growing into a hedge over the coming months and years. Izzy and Freddie were so eager to get going, Izzy proudly letting her friends know “You know I always help my mummy and daddy to do helpful things at home!”. One of the most exciting things for them was realising that they had a selection of their own child-sized gardening tools to help dig the holes. Amelie chose a fork to dig a small hole, stopping half way, before saying, “Tilly this is hard work isn’t it” with a smile. Tilly responded, “It’s ok, we can have a break soon and get some energy!”. Izzy started digging with a spade and Freddie challenged himself, “I think I need a grown-ups one because my hands are bigger now”, holding his hands up to show his friends. Once satisfied the holes were deep enough, Amelie asked, “What do we need to do now?” Confidently, Izzy explained, “Remember we need to bury the roots, down, down, underground”. 

After carefully selecting which sapling they each wanted to place in the ground, the children didn’t mind getting their hands muddy, digging down further to make sure the roots were fully covered. Once all the saplings were in the ground, Tilly went along the line counting from 1, all the way to 18 which soon caught the attention of the other children who then counted backward from 18 to 1, all of them clapping when they got to the end of the sapling line. Amelie stood next to the base of one of the saplings and told Freddie, “This is nearly at the top of my leg, and soon when we are bigger, it will be as tall as my shoulders!”. Out on a walk later that afternoon, Freddie was very proud to let some of the other children know that he had helped to plant the saplings, to which Otto replied, “Wow, that’s cool!”. 

Outside in the garden, the children had fun taking part in a letter hunt, searching for some smaller letters which were hidden in some foam. At first, Phoebe, Ollie, and Esmé used their hands to search for the letters until Arlo approached with a magnifying glass to look deeper. Once all the foam had disintegrated, Arlo, Arthur, and Isla were observing which letters they could find, Arthur very quickly called out excitedly, “Arthur” while pointing at the letter A.