Evernews

Obviously Mother’s Day is a meaningful day for most children. In the early years our mums are often the centre of the world as we know it and our love for them is unconditional. However, days like these are often celebrated in early education settings simply with a handprint card or another token gift. Whilst these are lovely for mums to receive, and often fun activities for the children to participate in, they are not always the best way for us to achieve meaningful educational outcomes.

This year Miss Smith, at our Clovelly campus, decided to reinvent the traditional Mother’s Day gift with the children based on their interest in our preschool veggie patch. They looked at the herbs we had growing in the garden and discussed with the children about how these herbs can be used to add flavour to all kinds of foods. She agreed with the children that we would use our herbs to flavour olive oil as gifts for our mums for Mother’s Day.

Over a number of weeks the children harvested, smelled and tasted various herbs and decided which type of herb they would like to dry to add to their olive oil. They discussed how these herbs grow, what they can be used for, and drew their own representations of these on a label for the olive oil. They prepared the oils themselves and infused them with their chosen flavour over a number of weeks. This week they also extended on their knowledge of how herbs can be used by baking their very own herbed sourdough to go with their olive oil.

As a result of this experience the children have extended their knowledge of the natural world and where our food comes from. We have had parents let us know that their children have been able to point out bush rosemary on coastal walks and have already had wonderful feedback about what the children have learned through this extended activity.

This is an excellent example of how our Everlearn educators are constantly questioning the status quo of how children best engage in their learning and how they build and implement experiences that reflect the children’s interests over an extended period of time.

We wish all our wonderful mums a very happy Mother’s Day this weekend and sincerely thank you for everything you do for us.

For more information about our approach to early education at Everlearn click here…