Some students recollections about Ararira Spring Primary's recent plant out day. Thank you to Eric, Daniel, Sophia, Lajoon and Zac for sharing.

Planting Day

One hot Canterbury day, Kaunuku were at a plant out day in Tai Tapu. It was not an ordinary school day. We were going to plant some trees 🌲. The trees were native to New Zealand. We planted the trees along the Halswell River.

We did a lot of stuff but my favourite was planting trees and I thought that we should do it again although the work was backbreaking.

My friend and I planted three trees but I think we planted a lot more than just three. We had to have a little plant, dig a square, and then put the plant in it. Then put some nutrient stuff in it, and then we put the coconut base on it, and then we got two stakes and then we got this folding thing and then we put it over the top of the two stakes, and then we got the other two stakes and then hammered them in. I think I broke my back but still, it was a lot of fun yay.

Then we listened to a story about a river that was polluted. We had a bucket and some people had a container that was filled with dirt or bubbles or oil.

After lunch, we went to another activity where we were told why bugs were so important to the environment. There was a table that was full of bugs that looked amazing. Mike Bowie told us all about them. I think after that we had to go to this bug search we caught a whole bunch of bugs 🦗 including the hoverfly

species Allograpta ropalus (which is an important flower pollinator).

We also went on a tree treasure hunt. I can’t remember exactly what trees there were but I think we got almost all of them, except for the lancewood.

I hope we do another planting day somewhere in the next year 2021 so I hope you enjoy this writing - by mostly Eric, with help from Daniel, Sophia, Lajoon, and Zac.