This week’s activity

Planting crocus bulbs

As some of you may be aware, we are supported by the team from Eynsford in Bloom in looking after our allotment garden at the front of the building.  The team visited this week and gave the garden a good tidy-up ready for the growing season.  Whilst we mainly focus on growing fruit and vegetables, we also like the garden to look cheerful as well as providing habitats for local wildlife.

The Eynsford in Bloom team kindly donated some crocus bulbs for the children to plant near the large planter to cheer this area up.  It has become a bit of a walk-way but we want to make this area look more attractive.  The children decided this was a good place to plant our crocus bulbs.  The teacher took a small group of children to help with the digging of the holes and the planting of the bulbs.  They first of all had to find our tools, which are kept in our shed.  When the teacher asked what we might keep in our shed, some of the answers were scooters, flowers and toys.  All good things to store in a shed. However, when the door was opened, they found gardening tools – forks, trowels, spades, compost and gloves.  The teacher explained that different tools are used for different jobs. Once they had found the correct tools and put on their gardening gloves – they discussed why these are different to the gloves they wear to keep their hands warm – they began to dig small holes, one for each bulb.  Many of the children are knowledgeable about what plants need to grow and thrive; saying water, sun and soil.  It was interesting for them to learn that, even though it is still winter, some plants can be planted at this time of year, even though there isn’t very much sun and it is still very cold.

Once they had planted the bulbs, they made labels to help everyone identify where they have been planted so that they don’t get trodden on.  As the children were making the labels, the teacher asked them to think about what colours the flowers might be when they grow.  One child said “Yellow. No rainbow. No golden!” He then asked “can we grow these ones?” Another child commented “we can’t pick them up can we because it’ll go down”.  A third child said “There’ll be 1,2,3,4,5”.

We look forward to seeing the green shoots over the coming weeks.

There are photos on our Facebook page and website, www.anthonyroperpreschool.co.uk.

Thank you.

The Pre-school Team