Junior Landcare on Wattle Day

I managed to talk the big one into wearing a sprig of wattle to school today, she even replaced it when the first sprig got lost, middle one rolled his eyes at me.





Nanna came and cared for the little one this afternoon while I went off to do Landcare with the preppies, she even brought home-made poppyseed muffins. We love Nanna! We also got to speak to Nenek (nanna who lives in Jakarta) on Skype this morning, the little one had a great time showing her all her toys and animal collection. What a well loved girl she is - she had Nanna playing games and reading books all afternoon.


Landcare was similar to last week. Two sessions - about 45 minutes each, held outdoors under a beautiful tree by the school vegie patch.  We also used our wonderful ecoshed for the craft activities. So many volunteers today - which is amazingly helpful when you have lots of small kids feeling exhilarated about being outdoors on a beautiful day, they can take a bit of watching!


 


We started our conversation with finding out what the kids knew about bugs.  Did you know that insects like moths can smell from their legs? That there are over 500 types of ladybirds in Australia? - 'species' one small boy chipped in.  There is also an Asian Ladybird that threatens to wipe out our Australian species.  They knew about body parts, metamorphosis and could have talked about bugs all lesson.
How benign does this nasty ladybird look?
 


We read the Very Hungry Caterpillar, the kids joyfully finished all my sentences.


I wore my sprig of wattle with pride and was delighted that my fellow helpers were wearing their own. We talked about Wattle Day, a couple of parents knew about it but none of the kids. We talked about feeling pride in the plants we have around us and caring for nature.  We pointed out the different types of wattle around us. We spoke about Spring and admired all the blossoms, we're looking forward to eating plums from the fruit trees like the Very Hungry Caterpillar.





I brought some cuttings from plants which attract butterflies and passed them around so the kids could sniff and feel them. I explained the activities for the day and we broke in to groups.


Activities today:

1. Plant cuttings from butterfly attracting plants
2. Checkout aquatic minibeasts and garden minibeasts under a magnifying glass
3. Create origami butterflies and hand print butterflies
4. Make ladybirds out of plastic lids
5. Draw caterpillars with chalk
6. Plant a butterfly attracting plant in the fairy garden
7. Decorate the bug hotel - give it a sign

Then we all visited the wetlands and spotted the first tadpoles of spring, the slime in the pond was irresistable and was extracted and flung with sticks with great delight.  Finally the kids grabbed a sprig of wattle each to celebrate the day.

The weather was so kind to us, a butterfly flew by overhead and the day flowed by joyously - a perfect start to Spring.


I was pretty chuffed that Early Australia wanted to use some of my post on their site http://www.earlyplayaustralia.com/ 
and that 

earth sky sea child was also blogging about Wattle Day

Happy Wattle Day 1st September

A touch of sunshine and that unique sweet musky wattle smell.

Everything is covered in a fine dust of yellow at our house, there are wattles out in full bloom all over the place. I have to use the windscreen wipers to see out of my car and the poor spiders can't hide their webs. Golden Dust Wattle, Blackwoods, Black Wattle, Cootamundras, Silver Wattle ...... all showing off their yellow magnificence. Grab yourself a sprig of wattle and wear it with pride today, Wattle Day is indeed a day to celebrate.

  

Wattle Day began September 1st 1910 

on that day the Sydney Morning Herald wrote -

Let the wattle henceforth be a sacred charge to every Australian. Let us foster and protect and cherish it. Let us plant it in all our parks and reserves and pleasure grounds, so that we may make pilgrimages to its groves in blossom time. let us give our schoolchildren wattle plants, and offer annual prizes for the best grown trees, that there may be no Australian who cannot link it with his childish memories....

To the native born Australian the wattle stands for home, country, kindred, sunshine, and love - every instinct that the heart most deeply enshrines.

What wonderful sentiment for the times. for more on the history of Wattle Day follow this link

http://wattleday.com/1stwattleday.php

 I have been involved in many tree planting activities with school children on Wattle Day, it's a great excuse to get outside, appreciate, and care for our environment.  Sadly some schools no longer want to plant wattles due to their pollen and concerns about asthma and hay fever.  I know some people are allergic to its pollen but I think it gets a bad wrap because its pollen is so obvious - not like the sneaky grass pollen that gets me sneezing.  Perhaps there will be Australian children who will not link wattle with their childish memories.... What a shame that more people don't know about Wattle Day. 


This Wattle Day I'll be getting our local school kids outdoors for Junior Landcare, learning about bugs, and I will see if I can get them to wear a golden sprig.

For more information click on the banner below.

Happy Wattle Day. Let me know if you are doing anything to celebrate.