Year 4 and 5 students cooked up a delicious Israeli feast to celebrate Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israel’s Independence day) in Kitchen classes this week. Dishes created in their feast were vibrant and nutritious using fresh produce harvested from our garden. Students made Israeli salad, Shakshuka, Majadra, fresh fluffy pita and Israeli hummus. All recipes can be found under the RECIPES tab above.
We are a passionate group of Year 4 and 5 students. We proudly ran an active Science and Sustainability workshop using the Kids Teaching Kids methodology taught to us by Julie Hart. We represented the school and taught other students from local primary schools about how we protect and enhance local habitats at school. Especially in the Kitchen and Bush Tucker Gardens.
In the afternoon we learnt a lot at the adult-led activities. We especially enjoyed learning about sustainability practices from Darren the Indigenous Educator from the Boon Wurrung Foundation. Testing the lake water to identify macro invertebrates to determine the water quality with the Environmental Educators from the EcoCentre was really interesting and fun. We learnt a lot on the day that we will share with our peers so at school we can all take more action to make a positive difference.
What a wonderful start to 2002 for our Year 4 and 5 students have had in our Kitchen Garden Program. We’ve been fortunate to be able to grow, harvest, prepare and share with minimal disruptions this year. Students have begun understanding the many benefits of cooking with fresh, seasonal produce and our bountiful summer harvest has been used for a variety of delicious dishes.
Our Summer Harvest Table
In the first few lessons of Kitchen, students have focused on the importance of Food Safety and developing safe Knife handling skills. They’ve mastered the bridge, bear claw and rock & chop techniques (shown below). They’ve also developed confidence is using other equipment like graters, peelers and spiralisers to create different textures in their dishes
There are so many skills to learn in Kitchen and many opportunities to incorporate cross circular learning. I look forward to seeing the Year 4 and 5 students grow in confidence in the Kitchen learning space as the year progresses!
If you would like any of the KG recipes made in class, click on the RECIPES tab at the top of this page.
Nate Zukerman and family have an a very fruitful vegetable farm and vineyard. We are incredibly grateful for the large range of summer vegetables that the family donated to the Kitchen Garden Program. The deep red of the tomatoes is blinding and the kids remarked “they taste so flavoursome” “this is so juicy and delicious”. In the next fortnight students will use the zucchini in the variety of dishes they prepare.
Today we found and dug up potatoes, potatoes and more potatoes!
DON’T WASTE YOUR OLD POTATOES! When they are old and start to grow shoots dig a 30cm hole and plant them! Potatoes are tubers, grow underground and off a central stem. They need around 60-90 days frost-free to successfully grow. It it so much fun finding them when you dig up the soil! 5A students
In the garden this week students will be participating in these 2 events –
https://youtu.be/i_CbW0dmWjE WATCH THIS CLIP FOR DANCE INSTRUCTIONS
FIRST EVENT – Global Waggle Dance Challenge
Honeybees are known to communicate in a dance language called the waggle dance. It is an important part of how they provide food for the bee community.
The direction the bee moves in relation to the hive indicates direction of the food source (pollen or nectar); if it moves vertically, the direction to the food source is directly towards the sun.
Objectives – To be a part of the 20,000 waggle dance videos uploaded, from 20 countries, to represent the 20,000 species of bees that exist globally!
Aim: To make a solar oven to reflect light and trap heat energy to melt chocolate.
I predict that the black paper will absorb the heat from the light rays. The glad wrap will trap the heat in the box because it is airtight. The foil will reflect the light rays into the box. I predict that the marshmallows will completely melt.