After taking part in the regional Enviroschools ECE teacher Hui in May 2025, pouako from Ruahine Linton Kindergarten left with a goodie bags filled with ideas and projects – one being how to create a Lizard Garden. This sparked curiosity in their tamariki and there has been an ongoing interest to create one ever since.
At Ruahine Linton Kindergarten one of our priorities for learning is to “connect with, explore and cater for the natural world”….. it helps us to understand that we are all kaitiaki of the taiao, and how creating a lizard garden is providing a fabulous opportunity to do that.
Tamariki have been keen to join in, offering ideas and drawing talents, adding to the design of the lizard garden plan. Tamariki have also been doing a bit of research about lizards and what they need.
Tamariki adding to the design of the lizard garden plan
These lucky lizards have:
“a big log, and a drink pool next to a tube, rocks and spaces to hide and some kawakawa. They also have a Minecraft drip and a pipe leading to their pool” – tamariki
Very interesting!
To continue to support this engagement and interest, pouakao have added different resources and researched a little more. The Auckland green lizard is one of our favourites. There have been a lot of opportunities to work with friends, share ideas, listen to others, problem solve and develop some rather interesting solutions to tricky problems. Tamariki have been taking their learnings home, telling their whānau all about the lizard garden as they develop working theories about the world. There has been a lot of exploring, researching, remembering, reasoning and problem solving in this ongoing lizard garden project.
What will happen when we actually take these ideas outside? This will be a perfect way to pull all the great ideas into action.
Look at this fabulous lizard garden! After weeks of planning…. researching…. chatting about and playing with the lizard garden map, we have put it all into action and made a rather wonderful 3-dimensional space for any lizards that might be passing by to live in. We referred to our research to find places for them to hide under and in…. and transported it all up to the hill in the ngāhere.
Look at this fabulous lizard garden!
This project has captured tamariki interest and imagination. It has been an opportunity for tamariki to transfer planning and problem-solving skills, working together with others as part of a bigger group project and develop a 3-dimensional building from a plan that the group had all been a part of. This was a meaningful and authentic project. Te Whāriki, our Early Learning Curriculum, tells us that this is the most powerful type of learning with tamariki taking ownership.
Print