This term, Zayit and Seorah started working on their first project ‘Plants’, and focused on learning related to the big question: ‘What makes a good garden?’
We started our project with an exciting launch week to introduce the topic. We explored the plants within our school and local park, participated in sensory experiences with nature and created art using natural materials. We also began learning songs for our exhibition day and visited a beautiful garden to get inspiration for our own garden project. Throughout the course of the term, we developed our art and design skills as we designed our own gardens for the playground. We visited a plant nursery to choose and buy plants for our garden and grow our own plants from a seed. We also learnt about different types of plants, parts of a plant and plant life cycles which supported us in caring for our new gardens. At the conclusion of our project, we hosted the first-ever ‘Gesher Garden Show’, where we invited our parents and families to visit for an afternoon. This gave us the opportunity to show off our amazing gardens, perform our show, create refreshments with herbs we grew and share our project work.
Teacher’s Reflection
“We think this was a really successful project as the pupils really retained the knowledge, seemed to really enjoy learning about the topic and were invested in maintaining the garden by watering and decorating it with artwork and wood chips. Our favourite thing about this project was our seed planting video and it still brings us to tears every time we watch it as we are so proud of the children’s performances. Next time we would integrate more technology into the project through the children being involved and creating their seesaws, and continuing to develop their feedback cycle. Sharing our Gesher party show with our parents and the school community was a huge highlight of the project and the children were so enthusiastic to share their garden project with everyone.” – Katie McEnallay and Leigh Kennedy
“My favourite thing was the children working together on all of the steps from designing the garden, shopping, preparing and planting and caring for the plants. There was lots of lovely teamwork and opportunities for the children to be involved with support as they needed.” – Leigh Kennedy
Student Reflection
“I thought the project was amazing and really fun. The highlight of the project was going on a trip, going to the gardening shop and when we gave the lady money for the plants. The project taught me how to plant a seed – and I can do teamwork.”
– Poppy
“I thought the project was fun. The highlight of the project was the Gesher Garden Show with mum, dad and my baby sister and going to Church Gardens.”
– Dylan
