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Our Hangi Experiences
Te Whāriki is our early childhood curriculum and it emphasises that all children will be provided with opportunities to develop a knowledge and understanding of the heritages of both partners of the treaty (Ministry of Education, 1996).
One of our wonderful teachers Sarah first shared a picture book showing the process of preparing a real Hangi. She wanted to show as many aspects as possible about what an authentic Hangi looked like and involved. All of the children were excited to make the connection that food could in fact be cooked in the ground and the processes the rocks, fire, sacks etc involved. We began by recalling the steps we had seen and a child remembered we needed a hole. The sandpit was close by so after deciding not to dig up the garden.. We were inspired to dig an enormous hole, that the children were very proud of!
Next a child explained that we needed fire. We pretended to light a fire and discussed the wood we would use to heat our rocks. Discussing safety around fire. Everyone then helped us to collect some rather heavy stones from the rock garden. We referred back to our book to see if we had the right stones and several of the children recalled river stones would crack when heated. Clever children indeed, as in a real Hangi they would use volcanic rocks to avoid this. As a group we decided our river rocks would do then we discussed the type of food we could cook. All of the children had great ideas and there were a few surprises too. The children had a great time learning about something new, while having fun, learning and creating a mock Hangi pit.
More fun and learning was then had, as the day before Waitangi day we hired a 'kai cooker'. This was used to celebrate and continue to make connections with our history, by having a shared 'hangi' lunch. The children helped prepared the food and put it into the large baskets that were lined with cabbage leaves. Into the kai cooker to be steamed went chicken drumsticks, kumara, carrots, pumpkin, potatoes and more cabbage for lunch. The children got very involved in this experience filling the baskets and checking to see if it was cooking nicely. Some of the children served their own lunch and all the children were given the option of chicken on or off the bone. You can see the fun we had in the photos - It was an interactive and inspiring learning experience for all!