Bean Seeds

Bean Seeds

27 August 2018

This month, Nurtured at Home distributed a pack of bean seeds to all or Educators. Many of our Homebased Educators have a producing vegetable garden, and our tamariki can be involved in the preparation, planting, nurturing, and cultivating process.  As bean seeds are quick and easy to grow, children can watch the process unfold over a few weeks as the seed grows.

To complement the planting of bean seeds, our Educators also received a plant diary so that they may document the process with children in care, writing what they did and drawing pictures and/or taking photos of the process to create a book. This will be a lovely resource for children to revisit, retell, and review how their bean seed is growing.

We can support children to learn about the natural environment and how it produces food for us if we take care and nurture it.  By being actively involved in the process of germinating, planting, nurturing, and harvesting food, children gain a sense of belonging and learn about the importance of taking care of their natural environment - kaitiakitanga.  This process is embedded within many different cultures celebrating the diverse range of food around the world.  Time then spent celebrating together and enjoying fresh home-grown food encourages children to think about where food comes from, how we can nurture our environment, how we nourish our bodies so that we may be healthy and physically active, and how food brings people together as they share meals.