Something new for Wentworth's Kitchen

There is a new display in the dining room and the children love it! The dining tables that were bought with the money given to the program by the P&C have all had a brand new coat of paint are looking like new. The posies created from the flowers and leaves in the garden were done by Mrs Vines' group this week. Mrs Vines shared some of her wonderful tips for flower arranging. Thank you.

It's all about herbs...

 

The garden classes this week have been focusing on the herbs we are growing. The children are creating herb posies that will be given as gifts at this week's Mother's Day Devonshire Tea on Friday. Now that Kitchen and Garden classes are run with Literacy Groups, we discussed the different spelling of Thyme and Time. We labelled all the different mints that grown in the garden and identified the differences of Italian Flat Leaf Parsley and Curly Leaf Parsley. There were lots of herby beautiful smells, some stronger than others. Above are pictures of Rosemary and Russian Tarragon.

 

Wentworth Show with the Kitchen Garden program

Thank you to all the helpers over the Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Wentworth Show. They were Travis, Mitch, Holly, Jacqueline, Jameika, Chloe, Murphy, Nellie, Josh, Matthew and Amber. There were even some extra Hancock helpers! Thanks also to the parents who got them there; we really appreciate your support. We served the public Cheesy Herb and Silverbeet scones. Thanks to 4/5H and especially 2/3G who did the lion’s share of the cooking. Over the 2 days, the children received a total of $141.15 in loose change donations which is wonderful!

Very big thanks to all the helpers that are coming along to our kitchen and garden sessions. It means so much to have your help and the children love having you there.

This year the Kitchen Garden Program’s green eggs were entered in the Produce and Preserve section and a selection of 10 Vegetables was entered in the Vegetables section. It was very exciting to see a prize of First for the eggs and A Special Prize for Best Exhibitor in the Vegetables Junior section! Well done to our lovely white chook and to Vince and the children who work so hard in the garden.

Pizza, Salad, Vegetable Lasagne and Rosemary and Vine Fruit Bread

The Grade 6 class are undertaking the Pizza Party Unit from the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden "Tools for Teachers" resource. This term we have made our own Pizzas with different flavourings in the Kitchen sessions - Potato and Rosemary, Pumpkin, Chilli and Fetta. The picture above shows a simple Pizza Napoletana made with tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. The children have been working hard in their follow up sessions in the afternoon, to determine whether it is best to make their own pizzas or buy them in. They have decided based on their findings that they will make their own and we are closer to working out what the toppings will be. They have created surveys, collected data and then graphed this data. We have worked on fractions to determine how many slices each Pizza should be cut into.

The above picture also shows a beautiful green salad with crisp baby radishes, a vegetable lasagne with pumpkin and silverbeet and Rosemary and vine fruit bread.  Delicious!!

Garden design using nature

The term that was....

The students have all been working hard in their time spent in the kitchen and the garden in Term 2. Art activities have included weaving, dough animation in the garden, dream catchers using the vines prunings, creating crazy critters using Autumn Leaves, observation of colour difference in Autumn leaves and creating a a framed, hand drawn colour representation.

The winter produce that we have used include, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, rocket, beans,turnips, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, lemons, oranges, lettuces including curly endive, cos and iceberg. Herbs such as basil, parsley both curly and flat leaf, mint, rosemary, sage, coriander.

The kids have really enjoyed the variety of soups that we have cooked. These were Pumpkin, Broccoli, Potato and Lettuce, Sweet Potato and Jerusalem Artichoke, Broccoli and Cauliflower. Soup is a lovely meal particularly in Winter.
It was wonderful to see the amazement on their faces when they tasted the Potato and Lettuce soup, it was like they couldn't believe that cooked lettuce would taste good!

Risotto is always a hit and most of the children enjoyed the Pumpkin and Pepita seed Risotto. Pepitas are pumpkin seeds and when we added them, we toasted them. They have a beautiful flavour when they are toasted.

We had a visit last week from the members of the Milewa Garden Club and they were very impressed with the garden and the kitchen. Some of them went home with some Jerusalem Artichokes to plant in their own gardens.

Mildura Living Magazine Article

This article was published in the Mildura Living Magazine earlier this year. We were all thrilled with how happy the leaders of our school looked in the photos and how beautiful the garden looked.


Click here to see the article