Visit to the Community Garden

Over the last three years we have been working towards building a reciprocal relationship with our local Community garden. We regularly take the children to the garden to see what is growing, pick flowers and simply just to have fun running around enjoying the garden. We also pick vegetables and use this fresh produce in our cooking back at kindergarten. To give back to the Community garden we have helped with the gardening, planted some seedlings and have made a large mosaic sign for the front.

Today we spent some time at the Community Garden digging over the leek bed pulling the weeds out. This sits well with our commitment as an Enviroschool, caring for our environment. It is also developing links between kindergarten and the wider world as the children help maintain the gardens and kindergarten environment.

Left: Caitlin uses the spade to turn the soil over.

Right: Sheryl pulls the unwanted weeds out of the garden.

Written by Donna  29.08.2014

Addisons first day at Nature Discovery

Nature Discovery offers our tamariki the opportunity to experience risk, challenge and a chance to push themselves out of their comfort zone.

Today was Addison's first day at Nature Discovery and she embraced all the challenges that faced her with courage.

Addison was fascinated by the eel we caught in Grayson's hinaki, at first she was a little reluctant to touch it but with a little encouragement gave it a go and much to her surprise she liked it!

 

Addison also gave abseiling a go, she told me she was scared and too frightened to try. I reassured her and said its good to feel fear but to be brave and just try. Addison did just that she made it all the way to the bottom and up again, once at the top she was a little shaky and sat with me. As I gave her a cuddle I could feel her heart beating hard and fast. I think sometimes its easy to forget just how scary and challenging some things are for the first time. I was so proud of Addison for finding her inner strength to push through her fear and accomplish the tasks she set for herself today and also the way her friends supported her during her 'scary' moments . I can see she will have a great journey with us on Nature Discovery.

Written by Cassandra

 

 



Looking after our Environment

We are extremely proud to be part of the Enviroschools programme and encourage our children to care for and respect our environment. This expectation is documented in our kindergarten Treaty/Care code that has been created with the children.

The children regularly demonstrate this care and respect in numerous ways.
Yesterday, Chocolates cage (our rabbit) had been moved and there was some long grass left where it had been. Today out came the lawnmower and the children set to work taking turns to mow the lawn.
 

 

 

After taking his turn to mow, Lakhan found a broom and swept the grass clippings from the concrete.

 

 

Armani helped out by sweeping up the piles of grass clippings and sand that Lakhan had created. What a great team effort!

 

 

With spring just around the corner, last week Ava, Bonnie and Armani helped to weed and replant the garden.

 We believe that by providing children with real and purposeful experiences helps them to develop a sense of belonging and a belief that their contributions are valued and appreciated. 

 

 

 

Written by Dianne

 

 

 

 

 

Out and About...Walking to the Library and Park

Finding different ways to connect our tamariki with our local community is really important to us and one of the ways we do this is by walking to our local library and park. Through this experience our tamariki are developing skills and knowledge that will help support their learning about the wider world.

On our walk today Armani was excited to share with us that we were getting close to her Nans house, as we approached Nan was driving out her drive in her little blue car. She was so excited to see Armani and jumped out of her car and gave Armani a big hug and asked us where we were off to.

As we continued on our walk we came across a picture of our students mum and dad on a real estate sign, this lead to questions about why were they on the sign.

We were nearly at the library when we came across a sneaky driveway with a car with its engine on, what should we do? we were in quite a dilemma as Ruben hadn't talked to us about this! Cassandra checked it out and discovered that nobody was sitting in the drivers seat so it was safe to cross.

We had a great time at the library choosing books and getting stamps from the librarian, then we headed to the park.

Sacha gave the balance board a go.

Evie on the bee.

Felix tires out the flying fox.

Ava shows us something new she can do.

Sacha reaches the top and Ava begins the challenge.

Jack watches Armani go down the slide.

 

On the way home Kim suggested we go a different way and as we walked through the primary school we were surprised by Evie's dad who snuck up behind her, he walked with us back to kindergarten where we were just in time for lunch. 

 Written by Cassandra

Visiting the Alpacas

Today we were very excited to be able to revisit the Alpacas down the road, only this time our friend Ali arranged for us to meet their owner Sue. It was great to see the children practice their road safety that they had learnt from Ruben earlier in the week, with lots of children keeping a close watch on the sneaky drive ways.



There were three big alpacas and two babies, they all had very big eyes and long hair on their heads.

Most of the children wanted to be able to feed the alpacas out of their hands. Sue showed us what to do, but we had to be patient and quiet the alpacas were very shy and unsure of all the new faces looking at them.  

Kobie was determined to get the alpacas to eat from his had, they would come so close but then get a fright and move away...Kobie didn't give up and finally he was rewarded with the big brown alpaca gaining enough confidence to have a number of nibbles from Kobies hand.

What a great experience we all had and a wonderful way for our tamariki to be connecting with our wider community. We are looking forward to our next visit already, Sue said we can come anytime.

Written by Cassandra



Floral arranging

It was such a beautiful sunny day this morning we decided to go for a walk to our local Community Garden. We took a basket and some scissors so we could pick some flowers.

Once we returned to kindergarten Caitlin and Aaliyah busily sorted the flowers arranging them in several vases for our tables. Aaliyah made up a bunch to give to her Mum.

Written by Donna  22.8.2014

Eeling at LaValla

Last week on Nature Discovery we were unsuccessful in catching any eels in the hinaki. So we thought we could try again this week. Armani and Hauiti placed the raw meat into the hinaki and then Armani threw it into the creek. We anchored the hinaki rope to the post and went off to the climbing trees.
                                     

When Dianne, Armani and Bonnie went back to light the campfire for lunch, they stopped off to check the hinaki. They discovered some of the meat was gone and inside was an eel!! When they tried to lift up the hinaki the eel escaped. I think we may need to modify our hinaki and try again next week, so watch this space...

Written by Donna  21.8.2014

Ruben the Road Safety Bear Comes to Visit

 

Yesterday we had a surprise visit from Ruben. He had visited earlier in the year so this was an opportunity to reinforce the road safety messages of Stop, Look, Listen and Link, making seat belts and helmets click, sneaky driveways as well as crossing the road safely.

 

 

This was a really interactive experience for the children using song and actions to reinforce these important messages in a fun way. It was great to hear the children's awareness and knowledge of road safety by their responses to questions that they were asked, some of who had been involved in the previous session with Ruben.

 

 

Some children practiced Stop, Look, Listen and Link with Ruben using the zebra crossing. 

 

Thanks for visiting us again Ruben, keep up the good work!!

 

 

Written by Dianne

Nature Discovery at Sharda

Louise has been requesting that we make a cake at Nature Discovery, so today we decided to give it a go. Alex, Caitlin, Jack, Sacha and Taylor all had a go at cracking our chickens eggs into the mix.

Louise was keen to give it a stir once the delicious chocolate mix was added, we all thought it smelt yummy. Caitlyn very kindly held the bowl for Louise. Once the cake was mixed we went off exploring to the climbing trees. The children really enjoy paddling in all the puddles and climbing the tree with the 'slide'.

 

Then it was time to head back to camp and cook our chocolate brownie. We had to be very patient and wait for the fire to burn down before we could put the camp oven on the tri pod. The brownie took a long time to cook.

 
                              

But once it was done we all agreed it was worth the wait...yummy.

 

Written by Cassandra



 



Yummy Blueberry Rolls

We have had a few requests for cakes to be cooked in the camp oven on the fire, so we thought we would give blueberry rolls a try.

Ryan was a keen starter, he enjoyed mixing and kneading all the ingredients together. It was a bit of a squash to get all the rolls into the camp oven.

Ryan had some helpers to carry the oven to the fire.

It was hung from the tripod and then we had to wait...a long time.

 After checking it a couple of times it was finally time to do a taste test, Cassandra carefully tipped it out of the camp oven, it looked and smelt amazing.

We sold our yummy treat in our Kai Café, it was very popular with some children having seconds. Ryan thought it was delicious! There was even enough for Ryan to take a little home to share with his whanau. I wonder what we will try next.

 

Written by Cassandra