The Traveling Teacher

“Te iwi e” means the people, and this piece is often sung to remind communities of their shared strength and responsibility toward one another. In Māori tradition, singing is not just performance. It's storytelling, memory, and connection passed down through generations.”

The Fundamentals, New Zealand • Te Iwi E by Pariare Tomoana The Fundamentals from New Zeland perform Pariare Tomoana's "Te Iwi ...

This is how our littlelies learn.

🤎Outside kitchen and drive-through taking shape!

🪴This will be where we learn about the medicinal plants and herbs on our farm. Where we preserve our yield from the garden. Make sauerkraut because it is good for our guts. Create horse snacks since our whole community loves horses!

🛠️Thank you NomadNess for being our fixer-upper and builder of things!

Term 2 Element: Air
Theme: Wind that Works

This week, the Mother City showed us just what the wind is capable of! So our learning question became:

🌪️ How do big storms impact communities?

We are a nature based learning space so it had a huge impact on us. Kids had to stay home so we moved online for the second day.

🌧️ We compared storm stories. We discussed safety aspects of strong winds and watched news report about trees falling on cars.
We thought about areas where people would suffer the most and the impact on stray animals. We wondered about the increase in pollution.

🌲 When we came back to our farm,
we guessed that the increase in road congestion and construction vehicles were as result of the cleanup missions across the City of Cape Town.

We went out to investigate our site. A natural obstacle course with trees blown over and many branches suspended in the treetops. We thought about and worked out what it means if you get 200mm of rain in two days when the average yearly rainfall for the area is 600mm.
Fun and games and farm life learning!

For years, I focused on teaching better.

Now I realise:
Sometimes the fastest way to improve learning…
is to redesign the space.

We added:
🌱A workshop for building
🌱A quiet corner for thinking
🌱Evidence of our thinking and scaffolds for learning

Result?
More focus. Less friction.
More independence.
Environment isn’t decoration.
It’s strategy.

Before you say a word, your space has already spoken.

It tells students:
▪️What matters
▪️What’s possible
▪️Who this space is for

Most classrooms are designed for control.
What if they were designed for curiosity?

Not every child buys in immediately.

This week was a reminder:
Belonging takes time. Some students test it.
Some resist it. Some don’t trust it yet.

That’s not failure.
That’s the work.