Garden To Kitchen
It has been another fabulous fortnight in our Garden Kitchen Program – Engaging with Place, with students continuing to enjoy hands-on learning in our wonderful garden and kitchen spaces.
Each grade has been busy creating and making delicious smoothies, using produce from our school garden alongside a range of carefully selected ingredients. Students enjoyed choosing their favourite smoothie from the menu and developing their confidence with food preparation.
This week, students continued to develop their recipe-following and teamwork skills by working collaboratively in small groups to make delicious garden herb scones. We harvested fresh parsley, chives and thyme from our very own school garden to add to the recipe. While there was some initial hesitation from a few students, the taste test was a resounding success — the scones were delicious! Our families and special visitors were also able to enjoy them at our shared breakfast yesterday morning. A huge well done to all of our fabulous student chefs for helping to cater for this special event!
In the garden, students have been observing plant growth, helping to pull weeds and watering our growing plants. We have also been learning about composting and the two types of compost systems we are adopting at St Mary’s. Students have been exploring what helps to make a garden healthy, including the many living things that call our garden home or visit it along the way.
September is Biodiversity Month, and this week we explored what biodiversity means. Students discovered that biodiversity is all the different kinds of plants, animals, insects and other living things that live in a place and work together like a team to help keep their environment healthy. It has been wonderful to see students becoming more curious and observant about the many living things that are part of our garden ecosystem.
We are looking forward to a couple more enjoyable sessions together in the garden and kitchen this term, with opportunities for further harvesting, planting, journal reflections and cooking before the break.
Next term, we are planning to share some of our wonderful garden produce and food creations with our school community — stay tuned!
Clare Grainger
Science and Health & PE Specialist Teacher