Why caring for a small piece of land matters before age six
The early childhood research on sustainability says something quite simple. Children build their environmental ethic between the ages of three and seven, through repeated, embodied, small acts of care. Not lectures. Not slideshows. Small daily rituals on a particular piece of land, with a particular adult, in a particular season.
If a four-year-old is part of feeding a worm farm twice a week for a year, the worms become real. The cycle becomes real. The choice not to throw away the apple core becomes real. By the time a child of that habit is twelve, recycling is not a chore being asked of them. It is a basic posture toward the world.
This is the long game in early childhood education. The thing you cannot teach in a single school year is exactly the kind of thing a small daily ritual is good at building.
Our yard
Our centre sits in a quiet residential pocket of St Ives, on a leafy stretch of Warrimoo Avenue. Generous yards on either side. Mature gum trees overhead. The kind of street where children still walk home from school.
The yard itself is a long way from a deck. There are mature gum trees over the play space. A real cubby with grass underneath. A sandpit deep enough to do something with. A vegetable garden the children plant out and harvest from. A worm farm by the back door. Native plants the children have learned the names of, and a wattle tree they wait for each spring.
Most days, the children are outside more than they are in. A real outdoor space, not an artificial-grass deck, makes a difference. It is the difference between teaching nature and being in it.
How the children run the worm farm
The worm farm sits on the corner of the play area, by the back fence. Every morning the children bring their morning tea scraps to it. Banana peels. Apple cores. Carrot tops.
Twice a week, two of the older children check the moisture and turn the bedding. They have learned what worms like (most fruit, vegetable scraps, cardboard, tea bags) and what worms don't (citrus, onion, dairy, anything cooked). They have learned that worms eat with their whole body and that they don't like the light.
They are also slowly learning something less obvious: that food doesn't have to leave the property in a bin. That what is left over from morning tea can become, in eight weeks, the soil that grows the next round of cherry tomatoes. The cycle is on display, in a physical form a four-year-old can put their hands in.
First Nations perspectives in our days
Sustainability and First Nations perspectives belong in the same conversation. The longest unbroken tradition of caring for the land we live on belongs to the people who were here before us. We try, in small ways, to honour that.
On Wattle Day, on 1 September, we look at the wattle tree in our yard, learn that it is the floral emblem of Australia, and learn that it has been important to First Nations people for far longer than the rest of us have been here. The bark, the seeds, the gum, all used in different ways, in different seasons, by the people of this country.
We acknowledge country every day. We take part in NAIDOC Week. We are careful about the language we use. We are still learning, like everyone else. We try to do this in a way that a four-year-old can hold, without flattening it or making it precious.
Extending the work at home
Several families ask us how to set up a worm farm at home. Here is the short version.
Buy a tiered worm farm from any garden centre or hardware store. Bunnings has them. So does most local nurseries. Choose a shaded corner of the yard or a balcony. The bedding goes in first, soaked. Then a kilo of worms (composting worms, not earthworms; ask the nursery for tiger or red worms). Then food scraps, in small amounts at first.
The mistakes most families make are easy to fix. Too much food at once leads to fly issues. Too much citrus or onion makes the worms unhappy. Too dry kills them; too wet drowns them. Damp like a wrung-out sponge is the rule. Once a week, lift the lid, check it looks like a damp brownie, top up the food.
Within three months, you will have your first batch of vermicast, a dark, crumbly, earthy compost that goes straight onto the garden. Children love this part. They have seen the apple core go in. They are now seeing the soil come out.
Sustainability the Reggio way: documentation, not lectures
One last note. The Reggio Emilia approach, which shapes our work, has a specific way of teaching ideas like this. Not by lecturing children about the environment. By documenting what the children do and notice, and feeding it back to them.
So when our children check the worm farm, we photograph it. When they spot the wattle in flower, we put the photograph on the wall. When they comment that the soil from the worm bin smells like a forest, we write the quote down and pin it underneath the photograph.
This documentation does several things at once. It tells the children that what they noticed mattered. It builds the language of the work. It helps the next group of children, who arrive next year, to take the project further. Slowly, over years, the practice becomes part of the place.
About our centre
St Ives Chase Kindergarten is a small Reggio-inspired kindergarten on a quiet street in St Ives Chase, with a generous outdoor yard under mature gum trees. Forty children, ages 2.5 to 6. A worm farm by the back door. A vegetable garden the children look after. Open 7am to 6pm.
If sustainability and a real outdoor classroom matter to your family, book a tour. The best way to understand the place is to walk through it.