Introducing...

Hello there, carpenters and citizens of Dunedin. You may remember me- I have bumped into most of you over the past week and seen you in action, building, making and on the computers. I have introduced myself briefly to most of you, but I am aware that I haven't had a proper opportunity to introduce myself to you as a group.

Briefly (I will tell you more next week when we meet as a class) my name is Aaron Blaker and I grew up in the North Island, in Gisborne. I moved to Dunedin in 2001 to study, and have been here ever since. I fell in love with Dunedin's social and cultural life, its stone buildings, its fierce winter weather, its beaches and its people- so full of beans! I played football for Caversham for eight seasons, but now I have a dodgy knee and am awaiting an operation. I am married, and I have a three year old daughter and a thirteen year old step-son. I am a busy man.

As far as teaching goes, I am a trained secondary school teacher (English and Drama) but decided that schools were not quite the place for me, so I trained as an ESOL teacher and have been teaching international students and migrants in Dunedin for the past eight years.

When I'm not teaching or riding my bike or hanging out with my family, I'm studying Spanish or writing short stories.

My main purpose for being here, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, with you the Trades students of 2012, is to work alongside you as you do your written and reading and course work. I will be providing encouragement, assistance and extension if needed. We will also look at some interesting ways to communicate verbally (by speaking.)

I look forward to supporting you as you work toward your goals in Semester Two, 2012.

Suerte!

Aaron

Update from Hortykim

Well we are back into action this week after our Easter break. Thanks for all the positive feedback about our Blue Tick BBQ that we hosted from the Polygrow Nursery at L block before the holidays.Also thank you to the students who helped with prep-you rock! Speaking of rocks I have put together some photos of the progress made on your Japanese Style Garden at L block.  So yes that is phase one-stay tuned for phase two which will be the finishing touches!We will be putting the finishing touches on the garden over the next couple of weeks. Jamie and I have selected a cool bluey green container ,solar powered water fountain and some water plants for your water feature.
 So yes anywhooo on our first class back after the break (on April 23) we had a fantastic guest speaker named Alan Ferguson.Alan explained to the class what makes a landscaper tick. He also explained what kinda stuff  you would learn if you studied landscaping at Otago Polytechnic and what the job prospects are like.Alan also showed the class photos of projects he has done with our landscaping students over the last few years.
Kim went way back in time(well she did not really go back in time-that would be tricky) to our first session together and we had a wee review of all the things we have done together up until April 23.Of course, if you need to refresh your memory you can get details from my wiki page ! Yah I know -it is awesome!
And then we did some seed cleaning and made some delectable seed balls. Here is a series of photos with information about seed balls.
We also divided up some mondo grass for the Japanese Garden. In the afternoon we went to Aramoana beach and collected sea weed in preparation for our next class together when we will be looking at different composting systems.
Thank you to all the students for excellent attendance,asking great questions when we have guest speakers and just general awesomeness.
Over and out.

Update from Hortykim

Hi Team,
I have just returned from Wal's Plant Land in Mosgiel and have purchased some more plants for our second Bonsai class on Monday! The first bonsai class on March 18th resulted in some amazing bonsai plants which I have uploaded to Flickr. The Foundation Studies in Hort students worked really hard on these plants and I was very pleased with the amount of focus and effort that was put into the day. Click on this link to see a slide show of the before and after shots!
The Bonsai plants will be displayed in our Japanese style garden which is in the process of being built at L block on the Otago Polytechnic campus.
Bye for now,
hortykim