“We have planted the Kowhai seeds, this was a great learning and writing experience. We did some research into why the seed needed to be rubbed on sandpaper. The activity around find places in the school that have 'beauty' was a winner. Students loved looking around the school and having the time to notice things they had not reallyl seen before. The images they came up with blew me away.”
“The Nature Space kit was an excellent resource to use straight after coming back to school post Lockdown. After giving our local environment time to 'breathe' during lockdown it fitted well to take a closer look at an area within our school environment. I really liked how the Nature Space kit provided so many different directions to go with our inquiry. My class were really interested in the pest trackers and we did a photography component as well where we got some amazing shots.”
“A wonderful resource kit. My students loved exploring the school environment and gardens. They learnt so much about the small creatures that inhabit these areas. I am pleased to say that most of our Kowhai seeds have germinated and are growing really well.”
“I loved this kit! The students loved growing the kowhai trees. Another favourite has been making a tracking tunnel. We have a lot of pests in our nature space and are now working to eradicate these with traps. I am excited to complete the other activities in the kit! Thank you so much!”
“My colleague and I worked together and used the Nature Space Kit as our inquiry from after Lockdown until the end of Term 2. Unfortunately we found the kit and its activities were rather challenging for our Year 3 students. We did, however, identify several places around our school, we planted the Kowhai seeds and did other nature/tree related activities. I have some photographs that I would like to share.”
“I live the possibilities in this kit. The students have loved engaging with and getting to know what’s going on in our natural environment. We are looking forward to working with our property team to have the kowhai planted at school! So meaningful, and the kids can watch them grow for years to come.”
“This kit fit in beautifully with our Reggio-inspired project on 'Be the Change' after lockdown. It gave us time to reassess how vital our nature spaces are. We are still in the process of negotiating some space in our cramped school to do what we want to do with it and take our learning further, but have been able to investigate the area and how the ecosystem there works.
I have a whole class set of kowhai seeds at home with me over the holidays to continue mothering! So far we only have 6 germinated (hopefully they scarified them enough - my students found this hard but great new learning about seeds) but I am hoping for more. We plan on gifting one to our Kowhai team at school also.
Thanks SchoolKit and DoC for another amazing kit. Our children have been very fortunate to take part in this learning - an aspect of their world they often do not pay much attention to. It has sparked some great ideas for further learning and hopefully some further thoughts for our community around eco responsibility.”
“This was an incredible kit, with so many wonderful resources inside! My students loved the opportunity to explore our school's native bush area, and the 'Notice This' signs prompted so many wonderful discussions. The students were really excited to grow their own Kowhai trees, and to top it all off there was the added surprise of finding my Grandfather's poem as a writing prompt in the kit too. We loved collecting samples and then plotting them on the Google Map photos. Thanks DoC and Schoolkit for yet another incredible resource!”
