Newsletter: Term 4, Week 2

Chooks
A massive big thank you to the Cox family for taking such wonderful care of our 5 girls (chooks) at their house during the holidays. The girls have come back looking fat and happy and are laying lots of fresh eggs.

If you would like to have this opportunity over Christmas holidays please contact Miss Scanlon or Rhonda Frensch

Lambs
An equally big thanks to all of the wonderful families who kindly volunteered a day or two to come and visit and look after the lambs during the holidays. This enabled us to keep them at school. Their holidays were spent walking the school, playing and getting lots of pats. The support and help of these families is crucial to the continuation of the animals staying at Hornsby heights and we are very grateful. Daisy and Rosie too havegrown and are now enjoying time in the portable pen and visits from different classes each day.

Fence

If you have visited the school you may notice that a new fence has been installed around the Eco Garden Bush Tucker Garden. This fence has been a long term project. Students in Years 3-4 over the past 18 months have done drawings during Interest Group time on Friday. These drawings have been transferred onto fence palings and painted. It is a wonderful display of student art work. A big thanks to Greg Robinson and John's Paint and
Hardware (Hornsby) for the donation of the paint. The colour range was amazing and assisted greatly in the transferring of student drawing as similar to their original as possible.

Meeting
The next Eco Garden meeting will be held on Wednesday 16th November in Miss Scanlon's classroom from
7pm.

New Lambs - Daisy & Rosie

Kohlrabi

Harvested some very juicy, crunchy kohlrabi from the garden and tasting this new veggie (with some loving it and others not!)

 

Tabouli in pita pockets with Year 1/2

Cake Stall

On Saturday 2nd July we hosted the Cake Stall for the Election. A big thank you, to everybody who baked and helped on the day!

Banana Smoothies with Kindy

Made today banana smoothies/milkshakes with bananas harvested from the school eco garden. They were delicious, with our bananas having a lot more flavour than store bought ones!

Newsletter: Term 2, Week 8

Growing Family
Our very own raised lamb, Chanel, from 2015 has recently become a Mum, giving birth to a cute baby boy lamb last week. It is so exciting to see our lambs go off and live happy lives on the farm.

Chickens
We are once again looking for volunteers who would like to have our girls for the upcoming holidays. If you are available and interested please contact Rhonda French. The girls come completely self-sufficient with fencing, home and food. As good layers, you will get abundant supply of fresh eggs every day!

Cake Stall
Eco Garden will be hosting the Cake Stall at the Election on the 2nd July. We will be sending home plates this Friday and asking for ‘fresh, home baked’ goodies that can be sold at the Cake Stall. Information on donating baked goods will come home with the plates. We will be looking for volunteers to assist with pricing and sorting cakes on Friday afternoon and selling cakes on Saturday morning.

Next Meeting
The Eco Garden committee meets once a month and is an opportunity for parents to hear what is involved, how they can help out and make suggestions for the future. If you would like to attend you are welcome at any time. Our next meeting is this Wednesday, 15th June, in K/1S classroom at 7pm.

Newsletter Term 2, Week 6

Bunnings
A massive big thank you to all of the people who supported our Bunnings BBQ by coming along and buying a sausage but especially to the people who donated an hour or two of their time to help cook sausages and serve the many hungry people. It was a big day raising $1092.26 towards our school Eco Garden. If you missed out this time we will be having another BBQ fundraiser on the 6th August.

Cake Stall– Election Day
The Eco Garden will be having a cake stall at the Election on the 2nd July. They will be sending home cake plates and instructions for drop off closer to the time. Cake boxes of different sizes will be available if that suits. If you are able to make something yummy and homemade that we can sell to support the gardens and animals please watch out for more information. We appreciate the support.

Plants
We have recently purchased some new finger limes for the garden. They are a great addition to any salad or nice as a tangy treat! Follow the steps in the Bush Tucker garden to try one out.

Meeting
The Eco Garden Committee meets the third Wednesday of every month at 7:00pm. Feel free to come along at any time.

Pestosaurus for the whole school

 

 roasting sunflower seeds

 Thank you, Year 6 for helping!

Newsletter Term 1, Week 8

2016 in the garden has started with great plans and exciting opportunities ahead. Several classes have already had the opportunity to cook and plant. K/1S beans are growing wildly. A garden full of basil is hoped to become a large range of cooking and eating opportunities. Our “girls” have settled in well and are slowly making their way through the long grass in their pen.

Once again the hardworking efforts of the parent, staff and student bodies have been vital in bringing the gardens to where they are today. From garden tidy up, feeding the compost, planting and harvesting, minding the chooks on the weekend the Eco Garden of HHPS is a combined community effort.

Next Meeting
The Eco Garden committee meets once a month and is an opportunity for parents to hear what is involved, how they can help out and make suggestions for the future. If you would like to attend you are welcome at any time. Our next meeting is this Wednesday, 16th March, in K/1S classroom at 7pm. This will be our AGM.

Working Bee
This Saturday, 19th March, from 9am there will be a working bee to conduct a general tidy up around the gardens, build a new raised garden bed, and perform some needed maintenance on the chook pen. If you have skills, tools or just a general hard working attitude please come along and help out – even for a short while! Many hands do make light work.

Planting
We will be preparing the garden with its winter crops and replanting the garden beds on the 31st March and 1st April. If you would like to come and help for the day or when your child’s class will be planting please contact Briony Scanlan or Rhonda French.

Animals
We are once again hoping to have some baby lambs but at this stage our current supplier doesn’t have any stock. We are looking into other options but if you know anyone who has sheep/ lambs and would be happy for us to raise some for them please contact the school. All animals are returned to the farm and looked after!
Coco and Chanel are happily ploughing through the fields in Dubbo where they have found their new home. They will soon be joined by another ex-student - Lola.
In the meantime feel free to visit the chooky girls and give them a pat – they are hand raised!

If you wish to know more or be involved in anyway please contact the school.

Summer crop

 Year K/1S planting beans

 Burst of flavour from the native finger limes in the bushtucker garden

The fig tree recovered remarkably well after an attack of scale insects last year

Year 1/2S used up the last of the spinach, parsley & spring onions for a spinach dip. The garden beds will be replanted with winter veg in a couple of weeks.

Newsletter Term 1, Week 4

Chooks
Over the holidays our little baby chicks raised by 4A 2015 grew into big chooks. A big thank you to the families who looked after them. All in all we ended up with 9 chooks. Unfortunately, 4 of them were roosters and have been returned to the farm so as to save our neighbours. We now have 5 beautiful remaining girls; Dusty, Spot, Ginger, Snowy and Mohawk Millie. Feel free to drop by the pen and say hello. They love a pat! Our girls love to have weekend visitors and spend time in their yard on the weekends. If you are able to visit the school twice a day on the weekend, once per term, please contact Briony Scanlan so you can be added to the Chook Minding roster.

Mini Working Bees
Our gardens are looking fabulous after a fantastic clean up last Friday. Each month on the second Friday happy volunteers meet in the garden from 2:30pm to do some general maintenance and tidying in the gardens. If you are able to turn up early please come along and help out.

Meetings
The Eco Garden Committee is comprised of teachers and parents, as well as a student committee. The adults meet monthly, on the third Wednesday to discuss finances; purchase of animal feeds and plants, organise cooking days for the students and when needed help out in the gardens. If this sounds interesting to you or you would like to find out more please contact Rhonda French. Our next meeting is Wednesday 17th February at 7pm in K/1S classroom (next to the Canteen). Feel free to drop in and join the team.

Getting Involved
The Eco Garden is a central part of our school and a whole community venture. If you are interested in helping with cooking, attending meetings or just being kept up to date with events please contact Rhonda French or Briony Scanlan.