Haere Mai 2026 & Welcome International Students

 Welcome back for another fun sustainable year at our GreenGold Enviroschool!

Today Ms Everitt & Ms Daniel took our International Students and their buddies for a taster session of what our Education for Sustainability programme is all about.

Firstly, we went on a scavenger hunt around the kura to see all the places that make us a GreenGold School. Our visitors couldn't believe we have bees, chickens, fruit trees, vegetable gardens, compost, worm farms and lots of ways to sort our waste.

Next stop was the Mara Kai.  We harvested a marrow and planted marigolds for the bees.  It was great to see our kumara plants had grown so much over the summer.

Back at the EFS room, we grated up the marrow and made delicious veggie pancakes.  Everyone got a turn flipping their own.

Lastly, we tried honey made by our own Waka Bees.

Thanks for visiting!

Check out all the photos here

Yr 4 Exploring Herbs

Yr 4 are exploring the origins of tea, and our many herbs that are in the Senses garden and in gardens at home. 

Using some of our senses, we guessed what each smell was. 

Afterwards we created inquiry questions and researched the history of tea. It began in China and spread across the whole world,  including wealth, world trade, drugs, war and smuggling! 

Next week we'll explore Aotearoa's special kawakawa tea. 
 

Kiefer Finds A Wasp Problem

 Keifer found that wasps are attacking our honey bees. He's going to investigate how to protect our bees from wasps, by either eradicating the wasp nests or creating wasp traps. What an awesome empowered student. 

Stay tuned to see Keifer's solution.

https://completegarden.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/bee-safe-wasp-trap-how-to-make-your-own-for-free/

UPDATE

Today Keifer tried verion one of his wasp trap.

Materials:

Vinegar 

Sugar

2l plastic bottle

Scissors 

Tape

Step one

Step two

Step three

Step four

Step five

He is going to check progress on Friday and tweak if needed. Good luck wasp hunting!!

How did you celebrate Chinese New Year?

 

Terrific Tea - History and Taste Testing

 

Today Year Wha found out about the fascinating history of tea that took over the world. We found out China was very important for tea and England acted quite badly in the history of tea.

Did you know in every place in the world the word for tea either sounds like tea or cha?

We chatted & found that all our whanau have different types of tea and different traditions around tea. 

We played a Kahoot to review our research.

Lastly we tried a delicious fruit tea 🍵 🍊 😋 

We can't wait to make our own tea next week!

Where can you see the Enviroschools Guiding Principles at Wakaaranga?

 Year Wha have been thinking about what makes us a GreenGold Enviroschool.  Check out our ideas in our Flipgrid videos:

https://flipgrid.com/dc6f03ea

Use your wakaaranga email address to access.