Year Six 2025 Matariki Kumara Harvest

The kai we planted in koanga is ready to harvest! In just 45 minutes K1 had dug up enough kumara to feed the Kauri Hub for our Matariki Hangi and there's still more to come. Hopefully enough for the whole kura. Tu meke! #Enviroschools

Year Six also researched how to grow and harvest kumara and the history of kumara in Aotearoa. We were amazed to hear about Whakaoterangi, the wahine Maori who bought kumara to Aotearoa in the 13th centuary. We also learnt about Mr & Mrs Gock, Chinese refugees who helped breed a disease resistant kumara and then gifted it free to the farmers of Aotearoa. You can find their heart warming story here

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Find K2's Instructions for how to harvest Kumara here

Find K2's Biographies and Fact Files here

Kumara Recount's by K1:

Written by Annie , ALEXANDRA , YUMI

Yumi’s experience:

Digging up the kumura is a really fun experience, we even found like about 30 kumara in the garden beds. Annie, Alexandra,Lisa, Mia, Stella and me, worked as hard as we could while laughing and having fun!🍠   

Written by Annie

Our group made a very interesting meme. Everytime we are digging and trying find a kumara , when we saw  purple roots and when we pulled it and it broke then we would just say “ it’s a worm , 😈die!”Our group harvested 30 kurmaras!We were all amazed at how many kumaras we dug up in total with the whole K1.

🍠Written by Alexandra🍠

At the Edible gardens, we helped Mrs Daniel pull out the kumara and vines out of the garden beds. We go put in groups of six. I was with Lisa, Yumi, Annie,  It was a hard process but we got through it. 

Kumara stuff 🍠

Today I learnt that kumaras are SUPER DIRTY!

We got dirt up our eyes and NOSE . It was super annoying and disgusting.

We got big ones and small  ones and looong skinny ones.

 In a couple weeks we will have a hangi with the kumaras we dug out.

In my group we dug out a lot. Aiden

Harvesting Kumara

We learned how to pull out the kumara from the garden.

When we were pulling out the kumara we found clay it was very fun to play with.

What we could do better  was to be more careful whilst pulling out the kumara.

We found some very interesting shapes and sizes of kumara. In fact someone even found a massive one!

At the end we felt so good because we harvested so many wonderful kumara that we will eat for the hangi.

(we also planted some onion seedlings at the end!)

Gabby,Olivia a,Aiden,Evie,Jake b and Emily.

Year 3 - Luscious Leaves

 

Today Year Three discovered The Green Room was covered in fragrant leaves from our mara.  We split into teams and investigated each plant using our senses.  We recorded the name if we knew it our any other ideas we had.  

Jaxon "It smells like onion"

Jadyden "It smells like ice pops"

Joshua "It's bamboo"

Theo "It smells like lemonade"

Kimaya "It looks like a lily pad"

Ella "Is it lemongrass? We grow it and my dad uses it".

Mrs Daniel identifed each plant and some of it's uses.  They were lemongrass, kawakawa, kumara leaves, spring onion, nasturtium, sorrel, mint pineapple sage & rosemary.  They can be used to add flavour, make teas and some of them are herbal medicines.  

We brainstormed what we wanted to find out about leaves, herbs and tea. 

Next we researched the amazing origins and fascinating history of tea. We followed up with a Kahoot to check our new knowledge. Did you know it was invented in China 6000 years ago?

We have mystery box of special of tea from Mr Lesley to investigate in the coming weeks:

Next time we're looking forward to using our mint plants to make tummy tea. 

Year 3's very own herbal tea blends

After learning about the history and cultural uses of herbs and tea around the world, Year Three created their very own herbal teas today.  

We chose from these plants in our Mara Kai:

Lemongrass

Sage leaves

Mint

Pineapple sage flowers 

Kotu Kola

Kawakawa

&SunnyHoney

Before we drank our tea we said the school's new Karakia kai. 

Ranger "We made our own tea. We used herbs from the gardens"

Milana "It tasted like mint and honey"

Constance "It tasted like lemon"

Luke " I can smell mint and honey" 

Hunter "It smells like an ice block"

Kirsten "It tasted interesting with all the flavours"

Olivia "My tea is called Olivia's Special Pineapple Sage Tea"

Matty "My tea is called Mint & Lemon Tea"

Emily "My tea is called Fun Tea"

Karuna "We grow gotu kola in India too.  We eat the leaves and make tea with it. We have it because its healthy."

Madeleine "I learnt that tea is delicious"

Albert "I learnt how to make tea out of herbs"

Ruby "I learnt how to try tea"

Zoe "Even if you don't like the plants you put in your tea it can make it yum".

Tino "We can grow herbs to make drinks"

Coby "I learnt about a plant called lemongrass. It is very hard to chew.  It smells like lemon"

Maddison "My tea tasted like cucumber and it smelt really good"

Chase "We learnt how to make really yummy tea with herbs"

Bok Choy Banquet with Year Three

 Today, Year 3 harvested the bountiful bok choy from our Mara Kai. We talked about how it had grown from last year's plants with the help of our school bees. Mrs Daniel had left two plants to go to flower and now there's lots of plants that have grown from the scattered seeds.

Ciara "It tasted sweet and a little bit bitter".

Coby "I had a stomach ache and it cured it".

Tino "The bok choy was juicy and nice".

Afterwards we typed recounts in a Google Doc:

Bok choy noodle Soup

Today Room 18 and Ms Daniel cooked up Bok choy noodle soup.We went to the kitchen and

chopped up the bok choy with a big knife.Next we added it to noodle and flavours and water.

Ms Daniel boiled it all for 3 minutes.We each got a cup.Ms Daniel said we could slurp it.  It tasted like normal noodle and vegetable.  I liked it.  Jin Room 18.

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Enviro Bok Choy Noodle Soup

Today we went to Enviro. We went into the kitchen.

We played Sustainable Shaun.

Some people made the soup.

We ate some. It was delicious.

Then we cleaned the cups&forks.

We left and that's how I came to write this story 

The end. Matty

Room 8 and Ms Daniel had bokchoy soup and it smelt  and tasted sooooo good. The noodles  were the best part for me. I didn't ’t like the bokchoy that much. Madison

Rongoa & Tea History with Room Wha

 This morning with Mrs Daniel, Room 4 took a deep dive into Maori Rongoa and the world history of tea.

Firstly, we investigated kawakawa - a Maori medicinal plant.  We made tea and tried it and ate the cooked leaves.  Next we researched other rongoa rakau we could grow at school.  We discovered that we could create a Mara Rongoa by growing these traditional healing plants:

- manuka

- harakeke

- rata

- kawakawa 

- ponga

After morning tea we studied the world history of tea and played a kahoot to review.

Lastly we reflected on our sustainability journey by bookmarking the blog on our devices and having a browse.  We liked seeing photos of ourselves, friends and siblings.