Sustainability Program with Straw Bale Gardening in Melbourne

Educational Programs

NURSERY - TODDLER - PREKINDER - KINDER

Early Childhood Learning

Sustainability Programs

About the Sustainability Programs

Introducing BaleGrow’s sustainability program as a resource support option in early childhood education.

We have programs for Nursery, Toddler, Pre-Kinder and Kinder rooms to create sustainability engagement across the whole centre.

By introducing straw bale gardening, worm farming and the Reduce, Reuse Recycle ethos, we can provide early childhood service providers with an engaging and educational experience for the children and educators. Centres can choose from programs, according to their budget and centre’s requirements.

We intend to assist educators by providing them with the tools, method and support to meet their intended outcomes. While delivering a creative, energetic and educational experience for the children that is ongoing once the incursion is complete.

The increasing workload for early childhood educators, sometimes makes it challenging to maintain annual flower gardens, veggie patches and worm farms. Some educators have expressed concerns about not having the experience to successfully achieve the intended sustainability outcome. Nor the time to gather new and engaging learning experiences for the children.

Our sustainability program is designed to provide a complete and simple solution to assist staff in all the above areas.

WINNER
COMMUNITY EDUCATOR

Balegrow is so excited to be the winner of the EEV Environment Education Awards – Community Educator.

Educator Feedback

This year, we utilised the flowers from the bales to create beautiful bouquets for the children, families, and the community centre. The vegetables harvested from the bales were used to prepare salads for the children to promote healthy eating habits. The flowers from the bale garden attracted numerous butterflies, which enhanced our children's learning about the butterfly life cycle

Educator

Learnt so much about gardening and sustainability

We had our BaleGrow program this year with Tracey, it was absolutely amazing, the children and I learnt so much about gardening and sustainability. It also supports our learning in healthy eating, we were so excited to see the children harvest the lettuces from the garden, making the salad together and eat them in the kinder room. Thank you BaleGrow, thank you Tracey.

Lulu, Aspire Early learning Centre

Educator

Amazing sustainability incursion

Just wanted to share an amazing sustainability incursion by Bale Grow that I had today with my 4-year-old kinder group. Tracey was amazing with the children. She had fantastic resources that kept the children engaged and the content of the program was fun and interesting. All the children were able to get their hands dirty with planting and got a secret seed bag to take home which was lovely. The incursion allows for a long project to be introduced if wanting too. Highly recommend Tracey and Bale Grow

Jacqui, Guardian ELC

Educator

Highly recommended incursion

Could not recommend this incursion highly enough!! Never in all my years have I witnessed someone SO engaging and entertaining with the ability to keep the children interested to the very end and completely involved and enthusiastic. I was blown away! Definitely something to look in to for your centre if you’re in Victoria

Samantha W

Educator

We were fortunate to have Tracey from Bale Grow come and visit us in March. She was able to adapt the program to suit the children’s needs and attention spans. The program has been an ongoing project for the year and the children have learnt so much about planting and growing fruits, vegetables and herbs which have then been picked and used in cooking experiences throughout the year. It has also allowed us to talk about sustainability and extend upon our recycling through great ideas and resources Tracey provided us with. The reminders about what to plant and when and reminders to fertilise were a great resource and we enjoyed our surprise visits from Tracey to see how our bales were going. Overall a great program and one I would highly recommend.

Nicole, Cranbourne

Educator

The children loved the BaleGrow incursion. Tracey was very enthusiastic and had all of the children totally engaged. The bale gardens have been a great asset to our outdoor area and have been very productive veggie gardens. It’s the incursion that just keeps giving! It has been a great addition to our sustainability program.

Sally, Featherbrook Kindergarten

Educator

We have absolutely loved having BaleGrow as part of our Kindergarten program throughout 2018 and look forward to continuing this in 2019. We found Tracey so helpful, fun and enthusiastic, constantly checking in with our team and sending tips and reminders. Our children have learnt so much about sustainable practices and caring for our gardens! Thank you Tracey.

Evans Park, Cranbourne

Educator

Happy Gardening!

More Kinder Fun...

WINNER – COMMUNITY EDUCATOR

Balegrow winner of the EEV Environment Education Awards

BaleGrow

Straw bale gardening