Marshwood Montessori Preschool enhances outdoor programme
Preserving wonder through their backyard garden and connecting children to nature
The Marshwood Montessori preschool team is currently focusing on further enhancing their outdoor programme. They are focusing on providing children with the abundance of diverse nature experiences in their daily life as part of the curriculum.
What better place to start than their very own backyard which is huge and unique to Marshwood Montessori.
The discoveries they will make together and the direction they take with the learning and teaching process as their journey of enquiry continues collab oratively with the children. This connection with nature becomes their identities as learners.
Research shows that when we connect with the world around us early in our lives, we learn to value it in our adult lives. What we care about we protect! At Marshwood they persevere to instil this love of learning of the natural world around us and give the children a purpose to contribute positively to protect Papatūānuku (Mother Earth).
The children’s recent discovery of a caterpillar and a chrysalis found in the garden allowed the the opportunity to represent their understanding through artistic illustrations depicting each stage of the caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. They talked about the colours, shapes, symmetry and patterns they could see during each stage and used this knowledge to help illustrate their learning. Through these holistic interactions with the natural environment around them, children are able to develop a strong sense of belonging to
Mauri (life force).
Marshwood Montessori’s literacy connection for the start of this inquiry was reading one of their favourite stories – The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The children were able to observe the changes of the chrysalis, turning from green to black. They were also lucky enough to observe the butterfly emerge from the chrysalis last week – this took a couple of hours!
After reading this story the children and tutors had a discussion about the life cycle of a butterfly. They played a game to reinforce the four stages in the butterfly’s life cycle. The staff have created the life cycle and it is available for the children on the Preschool’s cultural life shelf which they can revisit at any time.
Some children’s comments captured include:
Ori: ‘‘Monarch butterflies eat poisonous plants so they grow up to be toxic. But not to humans. They are only dangerous to birds and they vomit them out if they eat them.’’
Teddy: ‘‘The orange wings of Monarch butterflies have white spots to trick predators, they have
poison in them. I learned this from ‘Wild Cracks’.’’
Matthew: ‘‘Why does the caterpillar have so many stripes?’’
Ridaan: ‘‘The butterflies spots and the caterpillars strips are camouflage.’’
Below are some of the parents’ reactions to the outdoor programme:
’’How amazing is this??!!! Love that they get to experience
this wonderful transformation first hand.’’
’’I love that the kids have a safe space to adventure and explore while learning how to value the world around us’’
To book a tour of Marshwood Montessori’s education programme, visit www. marshwoodmontessori.com or email marshwoodm@gmail.com. Phone 09 521 5288.