Sustainability in a family day care setting is not something that requires you to go over board, however it is something that we often overlook, or don't think about until someone asks the question 'How are sustainability practices embedded in your service?', and then get all stressed and worried about what we are doing, or if we are doing enough, or what we can do better or do more of. Well I have written this blog post to help guide you to not over think sustainability in your service, but instead embed it through simple activities and engaging experiences.
In our service, Rachel’s Home Child Care, we are strong believers of looking after our environment through our sustainability practices! Therefore, sustainability practices are embedded into the service and the children are engaged daily with these practices without the need for paperwork. This blog, includes the current practices being observed, and our plan to improve our sustainability practices over the next 12-18 months, and will be updated regularly to allow for further sustainability development of our service.
This blog outlines:
- How I incorporate children into the sustainability aspect of our service?
- How sustainability is embedded and implemented into the service?
- What I plan to do in the future to create a more sustainable home and service
How we incorporate sustainability into Rachel’s Home Child Care as a practice embedded into the service rather than a tokenistic activity:
· Collecting recyclables for craft activities such as boxes, cheese containers, fruit containers etc. We also request that parents assist us with donating these items.
· Being sensible with purchasing new equipment, Op shops and buy swap sell pages have some great stuff and if it wasn’t worth purchasing it wouldn’t be purchased. Furniture is purchased with multiple purposes, for example bookshelves can be used as tables, and tables can be used to present many different activities.
· Composting and reusing uneaten food or drink. Some left over foods can be composted, others can be fed collected for the neighbours chooks (while we wait to get our own)
· Practicing appropriate rubbish disposal procedures. Rubbish, recycling, collecting cans and bottles to return, composting, chooks, worm farm etc. Encouraging children to dispose of rubbish and waste in an appropriate manner with the use of pictures on the bins/disposal containers.
· We don’t use the lights, air-conditioner/heater unnecessarily and make full use of natural light coming through windows and instil the use of open doors and the great cross ventilation through the house. Unused appliances are turned off.
· Getting children to help us with designing, working and eating products from our edible garden. As part of this we go on excursions to bunnings and local nursery to get plants and other things for the garden, we also make use of growing foods from our scraps.
· Using single use washers which are washed weekly and soaked before washing instead of using paper towel, cutting down on rubbish landing in landfill. – we had 1000 washer donated to us by my brother in law’s dry cleaning business, Excellent Laundry in Sydney. These are washed after every use. When a washer, towel, sheet that is used in a hotel gets any sort of damage or stain to it, it can no longer be used. So instead of throwing 1000 out, we received them to use in the service for drying hands.
· Use less paper and more electronic paperwork
· Garage sale and disposing/donating of resources we no longer use
· All children are provided with individual beds and linen/sleeping bags to cut down on washing. The sleeping bags are kept separate in stuff bags when in use and washed at the end of each week.
· Dryer used minimally
· Regular mulching of gardens and using water crystals to absorb water decreases the water used on the garden
· Children given recycled paper to use
· Parents provide cardboard tubes and boxes from work to use for craft and other activities
· Not replacing resources for the sake of replacing. Getting children to think about how we can get new/2nd hand equipment and resources without having to constantly spend money.
· Purchased a blower for hard outdoor surfaces to blow the scrap off them instead of hosing.
· Most Chemicals and cleaning products used are all biodegradable and environmentally friendly, cleaning cloths are all from Norwex (you can get here)
· Several books have been purchased and read frequently which look at the impact of humans and the damage we do to our environment, this includes Billie, the Lorax, 10 things I can do to help my world, what a waste and more.
· Many resources purchased off buy swap sell, sustainable resources purchased from
various online retailers, or purchased with various uses and age groups in mind. Purchasing Grapat and Grimms, resources have longevity in mind and wooden hand mand resources,
· Children all have drink bottles with their names on them rather than using a jug they can play with as well as help themselves to water when they want it. Rachel fills their drink bottles as needed.
· At the end of every week or fortnight left over vegetables are turned into vegetable stock paste, tomato paste, tomato sauce, chutneys or jams, which can then be sold to local community and funds are collected for establishing the service
· Water play containers are emptied into the garden
· Water/taps turned off when not in use
· Re-purposing damaged or broken resources
· Left overs from lunch are sent to work the next day with Greg for lunch or frozen for another day. Left overs that have been on children’s plates, are scraped together and stored away from children in an recycled paint bucket which is then given to our neighbour for his chickens at the end of each day.
· When planting new season crops, we grow from our scraps, drying out seeds from capsicum, tomatoes etc to germinate the following season.
· Using berry containers from the shops as green houses to geminate seeds before planting in the veggie patch
· Implementation of an annual working bee/Christmas party to create new resources and bring together our community.
· Requesting from local businesses donated spare parts such as poly pipe, timber, tiles, tyres, soil, sand, bark chip, plants and more.
· Expired first aid equipment (bandages etc) are moved to various resource boxes such as dress ups, doctors kits, vet kit etc some used for craft activities and other donated to School of Veterinary Science Clinical Studies Centre, UQ Gatton campus Building 8179, Outer Ring Road, Gatton, Qld 4343.
What I plan to do in the future to create a more sustainable home and service:
· Building a chook shed, hatching chickens and then Feeding the chickens scraps from the service, encouraging families to bring scraps from home also that can be composted or fed to chickens. In return the chooks give us lots of yummy eggs. The chooks have been a great learning experience as we hatched them ourselves, when we have too many eggs, we send eggs home with families or sell at the gate. We have also had others ask if they can buy chickens from us adding to the increase of funds coming back to there service, increasing the financial stability of our service.
· Building a compost heap for scraps not appropriate for chickens
· Building a worm farm
· Building a lean to shed at the side gate for selling fresh produce, eggs, herbs, jams and chutneys etc. funds from this can then be used to then increase production.
· Getting cow manure from local dairies to use on the garden
· Building a veranda which will protect the windows in the play room from direct sunlight, decreasing the pressure put on the air conditioner and heater and increasing their running ability and improving power consumption
Hopefully this post has helped you as an educator to think about what you are already doing
and what else you could be doing with simple small changes. If this post has helped you think about your services sustainability or even your household think about its sustainability, I would love to hear from you!
National Quality Standard:
Quality Area 3: Physical Environment
Concept: 3.2 Use – the service environment is inclusive, promotes competence and supports exploration and play based learning.
Sub concept: 3.2.3 Environmentally Responsible – the service cares for the environment and supports children to become environmentally responsible.
Early Years Learning Framework:
· Principles:
o Principle 6 sustainability
o Principle 2 Partnerships
o Principle 1 Secure, respectful and reciprocal relationships.
Practices:
Practice 1 Holistic, integrated and interconnected approaches
Practice 3 Play-based learning and intentionality
Practice 4 Learning environments
Practice 6 Cultural Competence
· Learning Outcomes:
o Learning Outcome 2: children are connected to and contribute to their world.
Sub Learning outcome 2.2 Children develop a sense of connectedness to groups and communities and an understanding of their reciprocal rights and responsibilities as active and informed citizens
§ Sub Learning outcome 2.4: children become socially responsible and show respect for the environment.
o Learning Outcome 4:
§ Sub Learning outcome 4.1: Children develop a growth mindset and learning dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity
§ Sub Learning outcome 4.2: Children develop a range of learning and thinking skills and processes such as problem-solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating
This plan has been established by Rachel Smith of Rachel’s Home Child Care in conjunction and referral to the Education and Care Services National Regulations and Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 and the Early Years Learning Framework
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