winter celebration

This week, we celebrate winter solstice. It coincides with the Matariki, the New Year celebration of the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. A parent kindly came in and helped us making pumpkin soup, a popular winter warmer. A teacher contributed the pumpkin from home. While the adults skinned and sliced the pumpkin, the children seeded and diced the pumpkin. And then, children picked some herbs from the kindy garden for making herb bread to go with the soup.

For the Maori people, Matariki is the time to express gratefulness about the land we live on. So, we thanked the Mother Earth for gifting/giving us the food; and we also said thanks to the parent helper and all children who helped cooking. Lastly, we thanked the teachers who did the dishes. With the coming together of family, children and teachers, we had a truly delicious celebration.

It's good that children learn about the local culture and seasonal celebration, especially to learn to feel grateful about the gifts from nature, which we usually take for granted.

A note about cutting pumpkin, better talk about the safety use of knives first. As pumpkin is hard to cut, children tend to try harder and might not be careful enough with the sharp blade. Softening the pumpkin in the microwave did work. Good luck!