Despite the weather on Sunday we had a success time creating pathways in our native garden.
A massive THANK YOU to all that braved the weather and came along!
Mr Earl, Mr Hamilton, David, 'Snowy - Kate, Elvin, Rianka, Emily J and her Mum, Ari and her Mum & Dad, Sean and his Mum, Hazel and her Mum, Aimee and her Dad, Mason and his Dad.
 |
| Loading up the wheelbarrows! |
 |
| Adding scoria to the pathways |
 |
| Making a start on the weeding too! |
 |
| Snack time! |
 |
| Creating an open space to sit and relax! |
Its citrus time of year!
Lemons and oranges are a plenty in the Garden to Table kitchen - the students just love eating these; even the lemons! Our recent recipes have included lemon slice and lemon bliss balls.
In other areas around the school we have used lemons to make herbal tea.
We have recently added some orange trees to our fruit orchard.
We have been given a $200 KINGS PLANT BARN voucher by Howick Local Board. Due to the popularity of the citrus fruit, we have used this money to buy 5 mandarin trees to further complement our Garden to Table programme.
We are so excited to have fruit right here at school! Less food miles, cheaper and fresher too!
We have had a great week celebrating some awesome enviro achievements.
This year we are running a school wide 'enviro challenge'.
Classes earn points for different enviro initiatives such as having a wrapper free lunch and putting rubbish in the right bins. Some students have helped their class earn bonus points by doing extra rubbish duty!
Room 1 and Room 6 have both now reached GOLD level by earning 200 points. This week as their reward they voted to have a shared lunch. They brought in some food to share but also had a few other treats provided; hot chips, herby breadsticks and some baking from jar mixes.
. 
Room 2 has also recently reached GOLD level and they voted to have a class mufti day.
Congratulations also to Enoch from Room 2 - he has consistently demonstrated his commitment to our school enviro initiatives by always being wrapper free. He did a wonderful piece of persuasive writing to further convince me he deserved some vouchers for PARADICE.
Herbal tea; not only is it a great 'winter warmer' but it has many health benefits too.
This term the year 3- 6 students have been learning about and tasting tea.
We have learnt about tea from all around the world and have made our own herbal tea.
The students came up with some really thoughtful questions;
'How long has tea been around?'
'How is tea healthy?'
'How many different types of tea are there in the world?
'What tea is popular in different countries?'
'Why does tea make you feel energised?'
We collected some herbs from the garden and explored what they were like by feeling, smelling and even tasting them!
We looked up how different herbs are used in different kinds of herbal tea,
- thyme can be used in tea to help with sore throats
- rosemary helps with brain function
- mint can be a great 'wake up' tea!
We made the 'morning wake up' tea using mint, lemon balm (as a substitute) and lemon zest (we have lots of lemon trees at school too!)
We are going to make the brain tea next as one student has some 'gotu kola' - a common Sri Lankan herb, growing in their garden at home.
The students love this - especially when they come in from the garden and see a 'taste of home' on the serving table.
Last week it was the turn of Cook Island language week.
We made:
* Chop suey (always a favourite!)
* Herby flat bread (as a side)
* Coconut cookies (as a sweet treat after!)
Our Garden to Table GARDENERS have been doing a great job in the garden both composting the food scraps and collecting the new, rich compost we have made!
Our new hot composting is going really well and turning out fresh 'black gold' compost in about 2 months!
We are also adding more growing space to the gardens by creating kumara beds. We had great success growing kumara 2 years ago but, to keep healthy soil, we have planted other vegetables in that particular garden bed this year.
.jpeg)
To continue our theme of how nature can help us, we have learnt about the many healing properties of kawakawa leaves. Some students tried c...
