Food Trip... around New Zealand!

 We have been learning about food from different places in the world. 

The next part of this 'food trip' brings us back to New Zealand. 

We have been reading about the giant food sculptures that are throughout the country; the giant carrot, fruit and the big trout. Some of them have been here for many years! 

We learnt about the Maori gods - or atua and how they help provide food. 

After we played a game where someone did an action and we had to guess which god it was linked to. 

To finish with we tried some carrots from the garden and some from the supermarket... do you think YOU could tell the difference? We could! 

" The shop carrots might have chemical sprayed on it so it will taste different" 

"One of them was a lighter colour" 

" The darker orange one was sweeter"

" One is much crunchier than the other" 

Pumpkin Carving!

This year we, again, grew some giant pumpkins. 

They were GINORMOUS and everyone was fascinated with them! 

After storing them in the enviro room for a while we decided now was the perfect time to carve them.

First Miss Long ran a competition - anyone interested in helping needed to draw a design and hand it in. 

Some students from year 3 / 4 and year 5 / 6 were chosen as winners and helped every lunch time last week to carve faces, patterns and shapes into the pumpkins. 

They were surprisingly easy to carve - we just used spoons! 

We displayed them outside the hall for assembly on Friday. 

We collected all the seeds from them so we can try and grow some more from seed - both at school and at home!  Time to get planting! 

We found a video HERE about how to grow them from seed. 

Drawing Scientifically

We have continued to learn more about the wonderful bugs we share the planet with. 

We searched around our compost area and found LOTS of different invertebrates!

We watched a video that told us all about the different body parts that insects have; such as a thorax, antenna and compound eyes. 
After that we had a go at drawing insects and spiders. 

Aimee visited Totara Park recently and was very excited to find a leaf vein slug - just like the one we saw in the video! 

Incredible Invertebrates

 This term the year 3-6 students are spending time in the garden finding out what INCREDIBLE INVERTEBRATES we share the space with! 

We brainstormed what we already knew (quite a lot) and jotted down what we wanted to find out...

* WHO are the bugs living in our garden and how many of them are there?

* HOW are animals grouped? 

* HOW do bugs help us? (Ayla) 

* WHY did some bugs come to New Zealand? (Ashlee) 

* WHAT was the first bug ever on Earth? (Tyler) 

We learnt:

 - Spiders are NOT insects! 

- Invertebrates is the science name for the big group that all our garden 'bugs' belong to. 

- Without insects the planet would not be very healthy

- We have lots of different creatures in our compost...

 

  

Native Garden Working Bee

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! 

We love citrus!

A HUGE THANK YOU to 

Howick Local Board & Kings Plant Barn 

for generously funding a $200 voucher towards our edible plants. 

We used this to buy 5 mandarin trees. 

  

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!