Gardening Club Success

Our community garden has come such a long way, and we are absolutely delighted that we are now in a position to hold bigger and better events for our community. Our first Gardening Club has been a great success,

Gardening Club

Benfieldside Community Garden Gardening Club has been a great success. Every Wednesday we have 15 children coming to our after school club. As part of this they helped with the tasks in the garden. These included laying mulch, planting spring bulbs, collecting leaves and watering the garden. We also had a late bumper crop of lettuces and cabbages for everyone to enjoy. The children love nothing more than getting stuck in and it is a delight to see their gardingi skills advancing over the weeks.

Garden Crafts

Alongside the garden tasks, the children enjoyed their garden craft sessions, where we used the natural surroundings to indore their art and provide resources for their pictures and creations.

New Hoodies and Hats

They all love their Eco Ambassador hoodies, and Building Self-Belief wooly hats, and it was great to see them turn up every week, wearing them with such pride.

Our New Sensory Area

As many of you will have noted we have been in the process of developing a new sensory area for the garden. The children played a pivotal role in helping us design the area, choose the toys and activities they would like now - and would have lived when they were younger. The area now has a fabulous mud kitchen, a sensory wall with loads of fun activities, a new road for the toy cars, and we are using the natural environment to create a series of games. They also helped paint our brilliant bug hotel. Thank you to Councillor Terry Rooney for funding this element of the garden. As soon as it is fully finished, we will hold an official launch.

Hot Food and Treats

Karbon Homes sponsored the programme, and as part of this we provided food and refreshments. The absolute highlight for them all was their hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows. They then had hotdogs and crips, with some sweets hidden around the garden for them to find!

Halloween Event

The culmination of this project was the Halloween Garden Event - it was truly spooktacular, We had over 30 children attend and a fair few parents and carers.  A fabulous time was had by all.  They decorated spooky biscuits, carved their own pumpkins, made Hallowwen masks, and Halloween suncatchers ready for Trick or Treating. There was face painting, balloons and a sweet hunt across the garden, where it was a delight to see the older children helping the toddlers find their fair share of the sweeties!  

Highlights

A particular highlight for me was seeing first hand how much the children loved the new sensory area. I heard a few at the sensory wall, saying 'lets' make a band'. At the mud kitchen a few of them were playing 'restaurants' making chicken nuggets out of leaves! Lovely imaginative play - and not a phone in sight!

Feedback

"It was great fun thank you "

The Garden Club has come to an end for the winter, and the children are already asking when it will be starting again. Our plan is to start it up again in the Spring, when the lighter nights are back!

Thank you to Karbon Homes

Can we say a hige thank you to Karbon Homes for sponsoring this programme out of their community budget, We really appreciate the support and the children got so much out of it - the friendships they developed, the experiences they had and the skills they have learnt will stay with them for a lifetime.