Westbourne Park Primary School

South Australia, Australia

October 29, 2001: Tunia arrived today - at last! We have been waiting for her since we came back from our holidays on October 15th, and at last she is here. She has taken 19 days to reach us - no wonder we were becoming anxious.

She arrived to a very cool spring day, for which she was probably quite grateful after her very long journey. Of course she was pleased to catch up with some of her old friends from last year and meet the new class members as well. She arrived just in time to supervise the planting of our new garden. We have built a small 'no dig' garden just outside our classroom. Everyone in the class helped from building the frame and filling up the box with newspaper, Lucerne hay, straw, and compost. Today we were ready to plant our seedlings of tomatoes, beans, lettuce, zucchini, and marigolds. We also planted some petunias especially for Tunia.

We introduced Tunia to our classroom friend, Grasshopper Green this afternoon, and together they kept an eye on the planting. When Tunia has recovered from jet lag we will take her to revisit some of her favourite places in our school. We are very pleased she has come to see us again.

Above, Tunia is sitting in the 'no-dig' garden before the planting began.

Here is a close-up of Tunia waiting for the planting to begin.

In this photo, Tunia sits with Grasshopper Green.

Tunia rests after the seedlings were planted.

November 6, 2001: Tunia has been busy this past week keeping an eye on our garden. She really feels at home giving instructions to everyone. One day we went to collect aphids from the rose garden to feed our ladybugs and Tunia was a great help. We had an exciting event today when some ladybug eggs hatched out in the class and we were able to look at the new babies using the light-scopes and the magnifying glasses. You can imagine what Tunia thought about that!

Exciting things have been happening in our no-dig garden as we watch the plants grow. Lots of seeds are coming up that we didn't plant. They were in the compost. So we are watching them with great interest. Tunia helps to empty the food scraps each day into the compost and she also keeps an eye on the worm farm.

Something has been digging in our garden and we are wondering if it might be a possum as our garden is just below some tall gum trees - the type possums like to live in!

Today Tunia helped as everyone in the class planted a bean seed in a jar so they could watch it grow. We are turning our classroom into a garden and Tunia thinks this is a great idea!

Tunia is looking at the bean seed with the light scope.

Tunia is sitting on the worm farm watching the garden grow.

Tunia is checking to see if only food scraps have been put in the compost bin.

Tunia helps to set up a jar for growing a bean seed.

Do you remember the playground equipment under the bunya pine tree in last year's photo? Well Tunia did and she wanted to play!

Tunia pointing to the bean seed she planted. Look carefully at the gum leaf and you will be able to see some ladybug eggs.

November 19, 2001: Tunia has been very busy these past few days helping in the garden and also in preparing our room for our Fun Day this week. We have turned our room into a garden full of flowers and Tunia thinks this is great. She offers advice to the class when they do their science observations of their beans and helps with the weeding and watering in our garden. Luckily she remembered to wear her school hat again so as not to get a sunburn.

Tunia has been to Italian lessons, and she's learning to play T-ball. She's been waiting for the lorikeets to return to her favourite tree in our schoolyard, but so far we haven't seen or heard any. She's very happy to be staying with us for the Fun Day, and we have a surprise planned for her too.

Here is Tunia inspecting the broad bean growth.

Tunia's favourite tree in the schoolyard.

Here is another view of our no-dig garden.

Tunia is watching our garden for pests and she is wearing her hat of course!

Tunia is sitting under another gum tree in our yard. Look carefully and you will see her to the left at the bottom of the tree.

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