By Emma Scallan, Assistant Director, The Crescent Early Learning Centre, Bulletin 9/2023, November

Photo supplied by The Crescent Early Learning Centre

The Craney Grant program is named in honour of Jan Craney, a respected and much-loved former convenor and member of the Blue Wren Subcommittee. In her will Jan left the Subcommittee a bequest to foster biodiversity in our suburb.  The Crescent Early Learning Centre is a beneficiary.

At The Crescent Early Learning Centre the birds and the bees (the chooks and the bee hive) are a buzzing part of learning.

This year we have embarked on a sustainability journey that has included beehive restoration and the children are instrumental in the maintenance and cleaning of the beehive. After clearing out spiderwebs and giving the hive a lovely scrub with some bubbles in the sunshine, we gave the roof of the beehive a light sandpaper to freshen up the space. We talked about homes and hives and coops and spaces we need to live …

As part of our Reconciliation Action Plan we have made a conscious effort to be mindful about the flora selected for the garden and had the children take an active part in learning about the native bees and their importance in the ecosystem. Building gardens and taking an initiative to care for the environment whilst learning about native Australian flora: the children have been ‘busy bees’ in their garden project, spending lots of time tending to the kangaroo paw and bottlebrush. The native bees are often confused with flies and it is always so beautiful to hear the children correcting one another and listening to their explanations about the ‘no stinging bees’.

We are fortunate enough to live in such a beautiful community and have planned to do a walking excursion to the bee habitat along the bay walk as an extension of learning about bees whilst observing the native plants that grow along the water’s edge.