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.

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.

To view all of the delicious recipes please click here Recipes | Kitchen Garden (bialik.vic.edu.au).

In the garden this week students will be participating in these 2 events –

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!

SECOND EVENT – Wild Pollinator Count

You can join in by watching any flowering plant for just ten minutes sometime in our count week.

• You don’t need to be an insect expert.
• You don’t need fancy gear.
• You may be surprised by what you see!

Find out how to count pollinators, identify the insects you see and submit your observations through the links at the top of the page. You can also download our Run Your Own Count kit and organise to count with a group.

Official hashtag is #WildPollinatorCount

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.

Results:

Posted on July 7, 2021 by hartj

Due to a mild summer and regular rain we were still harvesting many of our summer vegetables in mid autumn! We had a huge crop of basil. It grows as a small bush with lots of leaves on each stem. At the end of the plants lifecycle you see beautiful purple/white flowers.

The smell of basil reminds us of pizza and tomatoes as basil and tomato are campaign plants. They like to grow together because the smell of the basil deters Aphids. Aphids suck the sap from the leaves and fruit of tomato plants. Year 4

Harvesting some of our big rooted parsnips was a real team effort!

Parsnips grow in soil with pH 6.0-7.0, that means it is slightly acidic. In the below photo we are testing the pH of the soil in our garden beds using universal indicator. We concluded that the pH of our soil in our garden be 7 which is neutral and the best for growing most vegetables. We are also testing the pH of many everyday items to develop a better understanding of pH levels.

The light intensity should be high but slight shade is ok. They like soil with lots of fertilizer which puts nutrients into the soil.

Parsnips are a root vegetable that is high in fiber and a good source of Vitamin C.

Parsnip, sweet potato and red lentil soup is delicious!

Our Year 4 and 5 classes enjoyed baking Hamantashen in their Kitchen classes in preparation for the festival of Purim. Several Year 6, 7 and 9 Hebrew classes also helped bake for our school community. It was so lovely to see students sharing this experience with their family too as volunteers are once again joining us in Kitchen. Chag Sameach!

FOR MORE INFOMATION CHECK OUT THEIR BLOG https://iotkg.org/blog/

ht

Great stratigies to increase childrens vegetable intake.

https://www.vegkit.com.au/globalassets/vegkit/documents/oshc–schools/infographic-best-practice-guidelines-for-increasing-childrens-vegetable-intake.pdf

https://www.vegkit.com.au/globalassets/vegkit/documents/oshc–schools/7-days-of-veggie-snacks.pdf