Back at work
last week and loving it! We had only
half numbers so it was a nice ease back into the swing of kindy. Kindy is the New Zealand pet name for
kindergarten, the latter name which I find so formal and kinda German, really! We borrow so much from other languages! And kindy is so much more child-friendly
too!
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| View from Katikati Kindergarten building, early morning |
We have a
very tight privacy rule when showing photos of children on the Big Wide Web,
because of what some really sick people do with them! So I am unable to share photos of our lovely
sustainable kindergarten in action, but I have some without children, which I
can share. The teachers I work with, all
identified that our brightly coloured, box-like play ground structures were
ageing and needed replacing. The boxes
are manufactured here in New Zealand and a popular addition in most Early
Childhood settings. They are very costly and only have a 5-7 year life span. We wanted something
aesthetically pleasing, that ran along the lines of sustainable. Earlier on, I had attended an adobe workshop at Te Puna Quarry Park and had suggested this to my colleagues as a crazy throw-away idea. To my surprise, they thought it was a grand plan and ran with this idea, and
we started to throw some ideas around.
Boy, did we dream Big! We were
building a play-house, a fountain, an amphitheatre, garden surrounds, structures to challenge
their agility, climbing over, under, through, and to top it all off, the cherry
on top – a pizza oven! We were ever so
enthusiastic! We contacted the “expert”
of adobe building, and he and a mosaic tutor would come down for a week at the end of our January holidays to run a workshop. We then had to advertise the opportunity to
learn the art of adobe building, so our “learners” became our labour
force. Brilliant idea! 6 workshop attendees people signed up. Parents within our kindy community offered
help.
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| Part of the "Great Wall of Katikati", with swings bar in background |
Then came
the reality check. We approached a very
helpful Western Bay of Plenty Council representative, whose job description as
an eco-building advisor, free service, to come and help us measure up and draw the plans for us. A jovial German arrived,
listened to our over enthusiastic ideas, looked at our primitive plans on paper
and clucked his tongue, whilst shaking his head furiously. “This is how it is,” he said. “You have great dreams but great dreams
require much, much more space than you have! Sorry!”
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| Our little Hobbit House, complete with Earth roof |
So we argued
back and forth on the architectural merits of each structure we were to retain
and those we had to drop. The
amphitheatre – too large a structure.
Drop. The fountain – logistically
too tricky to fit in. Drop. The pizza oven – would we use it often
enough, baking Maori bread (Rewena) and pizza to warrant the space? No?
Drop. (Secretly, we all thought
we could add it at a later stage!)
What we were
left with, was the adobe house, the “Great Wall of Katikati” to challenge their
balance skills and agility, and to offer them opportunities for risk
management, a tunnel, and a Billy Goats Gruff bridge. There was a lot of nail-biting as we had to
convince not only our parents of the merits of this crazy idea, but also our
Umbrella organisation. The latter was
most intrigued and as they support our journey of sustainability, gave us the
go-ahead. We then had to collect tonnes
of clay, cement, newspaper, (sand we took from our enormous sandpit), coloured
bottles and mosaic materials. We
literally climbed mountains of challenges, and then we started to doubt
ourselves. Could we really pull
something as large as this project off, successfully? There were no pretty pictures in catalogues to
show us what it would look like.
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| Our new addition sandpit shade from sliding panels of bamboo |
Our tutors
arrived and we rearranged the kindergarten into accommodation for them, requiring
much moving around of furniture to create privacy for each of the make-shift “bedrooms”. Mattresses were borrowed and the end result
was a rather Bohemian-style living space.
We worked like pack-horses every day, taking turns on each of the areas
of labour: cake-mixing in the concrete mixer, mosaicking and building with the adobe
“cake-mix”. A giant brick mould was used
to form the adobe in situ (on site) bricks, which were then sculptured into
rounded organic shapes when slightly malleable, reminding me of loaves of bread.
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| Looking out across the sandpit decking |
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| Our sandpit shade made with renewable resource bamboo, harvested on local builder/craftsman Clive Lee's own land. Renewable forestry Redwood timber shed in background stores all our sand play toys. |
A 7 day
project in our holiday time left us with aching bodies and weary minds. We felt like we had built the Great Wall of
China. We eagerly awaited the first day
back, to see what the children would make of it. Our hearts plummeted when we witnessed our
children excitedly scrambling over, up, under the wall, bumping into one another in
their bid to conquer it. We had several
bruises to nurture that day. We nearly
sobbed that afternoon when the children went home. So much time, energy and hard work for nothing, we lamented. It’s a failure! What can we do? Let’s talk to the children the next day. Next day
arrived, and before we had time to talk to the children, we noticed a natural
set of “wall” courtesies beginning to emerge from the children themselves. We watched as they negotiated, began to take
turns and work co-operatively after their rush to conquer on the first day! Phew!
I think we all nearly cried again, this time from sheer relief and delight!
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| The bridge where many a Billy Goat has had to run for their lives |
Anyway, that
was a long time ago, the structure is 2 and a bit years old, it has weathered
well and the children love it! Accidents
are far and few between, even with newer children arriving and learning to take
responsible risks. It appears like it
has always been there and we can’t imagine kindy life without it! We often have visitors to come and view it. We have since even hosted our own successful workshop,
adding on an extra garden surround. I am
still holding out for that pizza oven………………….
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| The inside of the Hobbit House with decorative alcoves and glass bottle highlights allows for quiet reflective time |
