Earth School Aotearoa

30/04/2026

Last week we celebrated Earth Day !

We sang, we read and we listened as the children read poems they had wrote with the Earth in mind.

Clear streams were played in and we had a story around the fire, we planted a Kōwhai tree in honor of Earth Day and started a food forest area that neighbors can share in.

Finally! We ate roasted Chestnuts from our foraging and learning adventures over the last few weeks.

We experienced the land, and listened.

Earth Day - by Jane Yolen

I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.
Each blade of grass,
Each honey tree,
Each bit of mud,
And stick and stone
Is blood and muscle,
Skin and bone.

And just as I
Need every bit
Of me to make
My body fit,
So Earth needs
Grass and stone and tree
And things that grow here
Naturally.

That’s why we
Celebrate this day.
That’s why across
The world we say:
As long as life,
As dear, as free,
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.

27/04/2026

Sweet verse Horse Chestnuts and there differences continued last Monday when we explored their casings, seed shape and leaves.

We learned that Sweet Chestnuts have simple leaves and Horse Chestnuts have complex leaves. That these leaves can have parallel or netted veins. Amongst the rain we gathered some leaves, netted leaves were more common than the parallel ones.

We made soap! Did you know that horse chestnuts contain saponins? Learning is everywhere, and exploring what a saponin is and comparing it to commercial soap was a great experience. Although toxic, they're part of the same family as Soap berries and a truly sustainable seasonal alternative for natural laundry.

It was a very STEM rich day.

23/04/2026

Apples:

Apples are unseen storytellers.

Apple trees have grown and evolved alongside humans for 10,000 years. They have witnessed changing seasons, shifting generations, and long human lineages. And here at Earth School, we’re fortunate to be surrounded by them — trees quietly watching, quietly teaching.

How do apples teach us?

In Greek mythology, the Golden Apple of Discord helped sparked the Trojan War — a symbol of strife and temptation. In Celtic lore, apples represented the afterlife and eternity. Sir Isaac Newton watched one fall and began articulating the laws of gravity. Even the star revealed when you cut an apple crosswise has become a small moment of magic in many Waldorf-inspired stories.

But apples also teach through ecology.

They show us how water moves — why one side blushes red in the sun, why fungi appear after damp weather, how fruit swells after rain, how a tree’s roots search for moisture beneath the soil. They tell stories of season, soil, sunlight, and time.

Harvesting and foraging often open lessons we didn’t plan.

So next time you hold an apple, pause.
Look closely.
And ask what it might be teaching you.

23/04/2026

Family friendly foraging event were hosting

Join Mangaroa Farms for Foraging with Earth School Aotearoa Explore the taonga of our local environment with this family-friendly wild forage walk. Timed perfectly with the late autumn/winter season, we'll discover medicinal and edible plants growing right under our noses. We believe learning alongs...

20/04/2026

We transition out of harvest learning and into seed over this week, however like nature, these themes are not linear and spiral back to each other.

Last week we decided to explore the seed theme in our own backyard, exploring farm land as we went. The aim of exploration was finding a chestnut tree, harvesting nuts and comparing them with similar looking, but toxic nuts ( horse chestnuts) .

While there, the children discovered how to forage the edible nuts without gloves and that of the nuts found, most were flat!

This looped to an earlier exploration theme around pollination and water and how wet seasons can affect pollination.

We will be exploring nuts and seed over the following weeks, including roasting our yummy harvest over our outdoor fire pit.

16/04/2026

Our second home herbal workshop is booked in, for May 16th.

Like the last designed as a per family ticket price, you do not have to pay per person. The time it takes to make remedies is approximately an hour, so feel free to come at any point that suits around other commitments.

https://store.mangaroa.org/products/community-home-herbalism-sat-7th-march-11-30am-2-00pm-copy

13/04/2026

Today at Earth School we got our hands into something really old.
Natural dyeing. Plants, water, heat, and time. The kind of knowledge that lived in the hands of our tīpuna long before synthetic dyes existed, and is finding its way back into the hands of children at Mangaroa Farms.
We foraged, we simmered, we waited. And watched ordinary plants become something extraordinary on cloth.
This is what Earth School is about. Not just learning about the natural world, but learning from it. Weaving old ways into young hands, one season at a time.

12/04/2026

https://canva.link/earthschoolaotearoanaturaldyes

Last week we harvested materials for natural dying and tomorrow we will give it a go. Happy to share our resource for you to use with your own explorations.

09/04/2026

Today, two students schooled me as to what creative problem-solving and true grit really look like.

The first was B. I'd arrived with a laminated forage-and-dye card, ready to teach the kids about plants for natural dyeing. I was pretty pleased with myself. Then B got her hands on a hydrangea. She pressed it across the page of her nature journal and discovered it left a beautiful blue (hydrangea was not on my newly minted card). She rubbed leaves for green grass, found charcoal in the fire pit and used it as a pencil, then pressed a buttercup to make the sun. Within minutes, the other kids had abandoned my lesson plan and were doing the same. Natural dying, B-style. Couldn't have been more delighted.

The second was M, who is three years old and frequently asks her mum to carry her because, well, she's three. But today she was unstoppable.
We were at the bottom of a steep paddock hill, just finishing up a lesson on the kahikatea tree, when Gritty, our Earth School dog, bolted after a rabbit. The kids asked if they could chase her. I said of course, assuming they meant to the end of the paddock. Instead, they decided the hill needed to be conquered. It was steep, maybe six kahikatea trees tall. The older kids charged ahead, and M went after them. I honestly wasn't sure she'd make it. But she did, all the way to the top, with the other kids cheering her on to touch the manuka they'd declared the summit. She was beaming from ear to ear.
Two kids. Two entirely different kinds of grit and curiosity. Both knocked my socks off. - Mandi Lynn - Project Lead - Earth School Aotearoa