2011 Starts with a Bean Feast!!!

Another year, and the new Green team for 2011 kicked off with a bean harvest and feast! Our beans had grown well over the holidays thanks to Emily Rose, Hazel and their Mum who kindly kept up the watering. Everything is looking great!

Last Friday some of the senior school Green teamers, picked and then cooked up the beans for a feast at lunch time. We compared the taste of raw and cooked beans, and there were fans of both!

Green Team membership in the Senior school has rocketed to 64!!!! The Junior school has yet to sign up, however numbers are expected to be just as high. That would mean over half the school is now part of the Green Team! Fantastic!

So... this will mean a new way of managing our projects, and will probably involve each class taking turns to help out in particular areas, and on certain projects. This is going to be a wonderful year with so many children involved.

Room 1 Update

Children from Room 1 with their rapidly growing plants.

These pots of bean and sunflower seedlings will go home with them this week.

Seed Sowing Frenzy in Room 1

Room 1 have been learning all about the 'ee' sound and last Friday morning as part of this learning, the children sowed some sunflower and bean seeds in containers. Each child had to fill their container with the special soil mix and make 6 holes for their seeds. The seeds were popped into the holes, watered, and in the last week all the children have been watching with great interest as the seeds germinate and begin to grow. Very exciting!! The children plan to plant some of the sunflowers around the school, and take the beans to grow at home.

Flower Garden Update

Here are some recent photos of the rose garden. Can you spot the A and the S. The scent is divine.

Friday was leek and potato soup day! Members of the Green team harvested leeks at morning tea time and then chopped them along with potatoes. This was all saute’d together in butter. (It smelt devine!, and set off the smoke detector-ooops!)
Next chicken stock and water were added and the whole thing left to simmer away until all the veges were cooked through. Once cooked and cooled a little, the soup was whizzed up until smooth.
Later in the day the Green team from each class got to sample the brew! Delicious was pretty much the unanimous response! Other comments included ‘Hey, my Nana makes this!’ ‘This is like Dads Samoan soup!’ “This is the best soup ever!”
So leeks and potatoes are definitely going into the garden for this summer!

Farewell to Mrs Teear

This afternoon Amanda Teear was farewelled at a full school assembly. Mrs Teear had taught at Addington for almost 7 years and said that they were the best teaching years of her life!

Te Tipuranga, Whanau Kowhai, Room 10, and the Green Team all paid tribute to the wonderful contributions she had made to life at Addington school. It was through Mrs Teear's original efforts to get funding that the Green Team has been able to get up off the ground and achieve so much to date. Ms Heath thanked Mrs Teear for being such a great teaching practitioner, collegue and friend.

We will all miss her sense of fun and fantastic contributions to teaching at our school and wish her all the very best for the future.

Rose Garden Carpet of Colour

A huge thank you to Graham Wood for giving up his time to help the Green team plant out 406 alyssum plants over the last two days. Graham had the children working like a well oiled machine, trowels flying, and the plants were in the ground in no time. The children were so enthusiastic. It all looks amazing.

John Moore, one of our wonderful Lions helpers, joined Graham yesterday and they continued with weeding around the roses. John has offered to help us plan where to put some of the native trees we have recently received. Thank you guys, the Green team really appreciate your enthusiasm and hard work!