YOUNG hands reached to choose vegetable seedlings on Wednesday with the Inverell and District Family Services (IDFS) Little Sprouts Preschool visited BEST Tree Tenders.
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Afterwards, the children made a stop for goldfish at the Inverell Pet Shop to add to their preschool’s aquaponics project.
Little Sprouts nominated supervisor and IDFS educational leader Sharon Youman said the activities promoted sustainable practice in all their areas.
“We have the chooks and the things up in the service and the children are loving gathering their own eggs, and they’ve been doing cooking with their own eggs they’ve gathered,” she said.
“This is our next step to go in conjunction with that; we want to see them being able to harvest out of their own gardens.”
Tree Tenders employee Pene Brown squatted before the group of tiny gardeners and explained they must be careful with the little plants fragile roots and showed them different plants and herbs they might enjoy.
The little shoppers picked out punnets and buried their noses in flowers.
Sharon said they encouraged children to become part of the community through interaction.
Little Sprouts has been open since August 23.
IDFS took ownership of the location and applied for approval to open the new centre when the former private Platypus Day Care closed earlier this year.
Sharon said the redesign of the centre is rich in fresh, natural materials with a focus on recycling.
It’s it a huge emphasis for us,” she said.
“Then embedding it into our little people, so that hopefully they’ll go off and continue that natural theme, to protect what we have and using natural resources.”