Year 3 Kumara Kids

 Year 3 are ready to put their delicious compost into action, by growing kumara. Now is the time to start feeding the garden soil ready for spring planting. We want kumara to harvest for Matariki 2025 so we need to start them now.

First we warmed up by creating a fruit and vegetable alphabet. Next we learnt about Whakaotirangi, who brought kumara to Aotearoa NZ

https://instructionalseries.tki.org.nz/Instructional-Series/Connected/Connected-2020-Level-2-Digging-Deeper/Whakaotirangi-and-her-Kete-of-Kumara

We drew Whakaotirangi in a traditional poupou format. 

Then we learnt how to grow kumara slips before composting our Mara Kai. On the way, we made sure to add sand to the compost just like Whakaotirangi.

We can't wait to see if our kumara tipu have sprouted next week.

Year 4 Explore

  Welcome back for Term 4 Year 4! Today for a fun warm up we used our senses to take part in a quiz identifying fruits, herbs & flowers from Mrs Daniel's mara.

We also visited the school’s mara kai to see how it has changed in koanga / spring.

We thought about how we can use the herbs we grow at school. 

Lastly we explored the amazing history of tea - a beverage made from brewing leaves. Did you know it was invented in China?

Next time we'll be learning about Maori traditional tea and herbal medicine.

Room 5 Keep the garden alive

 Today Room 5 learnt about bugs that are helpful in the Mara Kai and those that are not. We watered the garden, drew helpful and unhelpful bugs, did mindful yoga and lastly shared The Lorax in preparation for the Tread Lightly Caravan next term.  The tamariki were amazed to learn that trees give us the air we breathe.  Why else should we protect the trees?

Room 29 Garden Time!

 Thank you to King's Plant Barn Botany & Enviroschools for the beautiful new plants for our Mara Kai and Junior Playground garden. And thank you to Room 29 for helping to plant them.

More photos here

Year 0 Compost Heroes

 Room 6 learnt about what threatens and helps our vegetable garden.  We inspected the Mara Kai and found some vegetables had been munched by snails, slugs and caterpillars. Xaria sprinkled Quash to helped protect them. We like slugs and snails in the compost but NOT eating our kai.  

The tamariki then tried some silverbeet fresh from the garden:

Olive "It tasted yummy"

Rylee "The silverbeet was green"

Tyler "We ate the leaves"

After lunch we collected  compost and worm tea in buckets and put it on the garden so our vegetables will grow BIG! Lastly we had a story and a Cosmic Kids Yoga class.

Room 29 Takeha vs Pukeko

 Room 29 continued their native bird study by comparing and contrasting Takahe and Pukeko.  We've all seen Pukeko wandering around our local wetland area but did you know they have a very special endemic cousin called the takahe?  We research and recorded how pukeko and takahe are the same and different.

Sharing our estuary mahi at the Tamaki Environmental Expo

 

Check out this video showcasing all the work our tamariki have down to study and promote the Tamaki Estuary.