The pupils in Junior and Senior Infants were very lucky to have a horticulturist visit our class recently. Niamh’s Dad Rod spent the morning with the children teaching us all about his work in the Garden Centre. We learned about different plants and flowers, how some plants called annuals complete their full life cycle within one year and others called biennials that take two years to go from seed to full flower. We learned how plants make their own food and how trees and plants provide us with the oxygen we need to live.

With Rod’s help the children took part in an indoor gardening activity by growing flowers from seed.
Each child was given a planting pot, compost and seeds such as nasturtium, sunflower, ‘love in a mist’. After placing the seeds in the pot and covering it with compost they watered their seeds and left them near sunlight to grow. We will monitor the growth of the flower seeds and once germination takes place Rod will return to help us plant the flowers in raised beds around the school yard.

During Aistear we made grass heads, created beautiful crepe paper flowers and set up our very own Garden Centre.