Learning at Home

Home Cooking Ideas

  • See what food scraps you can use for composting.

  • Experiment with re-planting foods from their roots, shoots, stems or seeds (e.g., pineapple, potatoes, carrots, onions, papaya, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, taro).

  • Research your family’s cultural cuisine and learn to cook a new dish as a family.

  • How does your dinner grow? Identify where each item on your plate comes from and how it is grown or raised.

  • Make tea with fresh herbs (e.g., māmaki, lemongrass, mint, basil).

  • With adult supervision, have children participate by practicing safely with kitchen tools (peelers, knives, juicers, pitchers, scissors, whisk).

  • Teach children how to wash dishes/load dishwasher/help in the kitchen.

Home Gardening Ideas

  • Access this parent-led curriculum from the Home Garden Network (UH CTAHR):

Homeschool Edition (10 hands-on STEM lessons)

  • Use best practices for gardening and food safety:

How to Practice School Garden and Food Safety (Kōkua Hawai‘i Foundation)

Hawai‘i School Garden Safety Poster (Hawai‘i Farm to School Hui)

Hawai‘i School Garden Safety Manual (Hawai‘i Farm to School Hui)

  • Purchase locally grown seeds:

Hawai‘i Seed Growers Network

University of Hawai‘i Seed Lab

  • Plant in pots or start a garden! Check out these resources from Kōkua Hawai‘i Foundation and learn how to:

Build a Raised Garden Bed

Create a Sheet Mulch Garden

Test Your Garden Soil

Practice Green Pest Management

Practice Slug and Snail Removal

Plant Seeds With Students

  • Make your own compost to reduce waste, recycle nutrients, and feed your garden! Check out these resources from Kōkua Hawai‘i Foundation and learn how to:

Create Aerobic Compost (compost piles)

Create a Vermicomposting System (worm bin)

Make and Use Bokashi (anaerobic composting with beneficial microorganisms)

Cultivate Beneficial Microorganisms

Make a Compost Sifter

  • Protect your soil by covering it with mulch from yard clippings, fallen leaves, and branches.

  • Research which food plants grow well in Hawaiʻi. Look at the Farm to Keiki book and Kōkua Hawai‘i Foundation’s Hawaiian Harvest Toolkit for ideas.

  • Contribute to food security and food self-sufficiency in Hawai‘i by growing taro, breadfruit, sweet potato, and other staple foods.

  • Read about 10 important crops for your home garden in Hawai‘i.

  • Plant some vines along a fence in your yard (e.g. pole or wing beans, liliko‘i, blue butterfly pea vine).

  • Research and find weeds you can eat.

  • Identify native Hawaiian plants in your neighborhood.

  • Go on nature walks:

Find the “rainbow” in nature.

Print pictures and go on a plant or insect hunt.

Match leaves.

Collect items in nature and create a collage or do leaf rubbings with crayons or leaf printing with paint.

  • Look to nature for design solutions: how does nature solve problems? How does nature capture water? Check out AskNature.org

Invasive Species