We were very impressed to see the very large gardens that they had full of vegetables! Half of us worked here in the garden and helped find worms in the composts to go in the soil to help the gardens grow. We also made our own mini worm houses!
The other half of us went to work in the kitchen where we used the vegetables that were grown in the garden to make some fabulous Vietnamese rice paper rolls, an orange and fennel salad and some lemon muffins. Not only was this a fantastic opportunity to see the way in which they use their vegetables, it was a great learning opportunity in many other areas; we used out maths knowledge to work out what fraction of the muffins we were allowed to glaze in our groups, we used our time knowledge to work out when to take the muffins out of the oven in 20 minutes, we did lots of measuring and we even learnt a little science about liquid and solid states!
After the food was cooked, we helped to clean up the kitchen and set the tables. We then all got together and we were all able to eat the food we made! It was fantastic! Nearly all of us tried something new we had never tried before. We found the fennel and orange salad interesting, it tasted a bit like licorice!
All the left overs them went back into the compost and it began the cycle again!
Keep an eye out for a few of our recounts of the day, coming soon.
"In the past three years we have increased the size of our vegetable gardens. We also have many more dedicated volunteers. This increase has allowed us to offer this amazing experience to more of our students. The students continue to enjoy planting, harvesting, cooking and eating the fruits and vegetables we grow in our gardens. They are becoming experts at indentifying different types of vegetables which they may not have been exposed to at home and really appreciate the opportunity to try something new. Children willingly give up their lunchtime to sow seeds, thin out seedlings, weed the vegetable garden or just wander through to see what is growing.
Our disused swimming pool was removed and the hole that once was the pool filled up with soil. This very large garden has been split up into smaller gardens with paths in between and has as distinct Pasifika theme to it with banana trees and taro being planted in the middle. The old changin sheds have had a makeover and now serve as a potting shed and extra storage space.
The vegetable garden has become even more attractive with the addition of some garden themed murals. We are always very willing to show our gardens and kitchen to others. The Garden to Table Programme is a significant part of the school and we are very proud of it." - East Tamaki School
1 comment:
Wow Room 15, looks like you had a very busy and productive day! Thank you for showing us more about gardening and composting! We have been learning to do some of these things down in Room 5. We are growing our own strawberries at the moment!
Rainbows and Sunshine,
Room 5 and Ms. Baria
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