A visit to Toni's house

Last week we were invited by Toni to come and visit her new playground. Toni's Dad had built it for Toni and her sister Bonnie for Christmas, so we had heard lots about it.

Toni's house is just a short walk down the road so we were able to practice our safe road crossings and watched for sneaky driveways along the way.

As you can see Toni's playground is amazing, and we were all so excited that she wanted to share it with us.

                               We met Toni's uncle who looks just like her dad.



 

Tyler and Jasper had a great time jumping on the huge trampoline.

The slide was super fast and we went shooting off the end!

Dianne had a go on everything...such fun.

The flying fox was so popular, Tyler was up for the challenge.

Alex and Charlotte pulled themselves up the cargo net.

What a great morning we had, Tracey Toni's mum provided us with delicious snacks and we had made yummy bread cases at kindergarten before we left, it was such a feast. We are already looking forward to our next visit, Thanks Tracey and Toni you are awesome!

 Written by Cassandra

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new swing at LaValla



Today I thought we could create a new swing at Nature Discovery so on our way to Lavalla we stopped off at Profarm to purchase some rope. The children were excited to be doing something a little different on our journey and were excited to help Leah and I measure the rope.

We looked at all the different trees around where we have our other two swings and discovered a nice thick branch that looked sturdy enough to support the swing. Then we had to look for a seat, Ava and her mum found the perfect piece of wood, long enough to tie the rope on each end. Ava offered to do the test run, which I thought was very brave as we are never too sure how the swings will perform! We all agreed it was best to stat off with little pushes, which slowly developed into bigger ones. Everyone enjoyed taking turns to either push or be pushed it was great to see our tamariki negotiating the order of the turn taking.

 Hauiti noticed that Tyler was having a little trouble getting onto the swing, he just couldn't quite jump high enough to get on the seat.

So Hauiti showed Tyler how to jump...so Tyler tried again a few times,

but still had no luck...

So Hauiti showed Tyler how to jump and pull himself up onto the swing, so Tyler tried again...but still had no luck...

So Hauiti offered to hold the swing thinking that maybe that was the problem, he then said Jump Tyler jump! So Tyler jumped, Hauiti held the swing but still they had no luck.

Hauiti gave it one more shot and tried to lift his friend onto the swing and Tyler jumped, but still they had no luck so Hauiti called me and said..."Cassandra Tyler cant get on the swing can you help him"

And so I did. Hauiti asked if he could use my camera to take a photo of his friend, and what a great photo he took. I was so proud of Hauiti and Tylers perseverance today, it would have been so easy for them to have given up a lot sooner and asked for help. Instead they worked together, with Hauiti problem solving and supporting his friend. When Tyler finally made it onto the swing he wasn't the only one with a great big smile, Hauiti and I had one too!

Written by Cassandra

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exploring Imaginative play through 'Junk'

The saying one persons junk is another persons treasure is certainly true at Tuakau Kindergarten, we are committed to either repurposing or purchasing items we need from our local second hand store River Traders. At the end of term three I noticed our friends at Mairtown Kindergarten had been doing some neat things with junk and I thought we can do that! We started off term four with a selection of found objects that had been collected from around the kindergarten as well as the addition of three pallets from our friends at Profarm, these items were left in a pile on the grass.

 

 

Paris and Aleah were the first to discover the pile, they looked puzzled so I explained that the equipment was there to use in any way they wanted, they became very excited and began arranging the items. They discovered some items were easy to lift, others were really heavy but by working together they managed to move almost everything. That is until they got to the final pallet...it was so heavy!

 

 

Serj, Hauiti and Caitlin had all been watching Paris and Aleah's progress, they all noticed when Aleah and Paris began struggling with the large pallet, Caitlin was the first to jump up and lend a hand followed closely by Hauiti and Serj. Together they all started lifting and finally it was off the ground, Aleah and Paris were able to direct them where to go. Serj and Hauiti decided the house also needed a ladder which Aleah and Paris were enthusiastic about the addition. With the help of their friends Aleah and Paris were able to complete their house.

 

The house was very popular and Aleah and Paris were very proud of their achievements and returned to it throughout the day. Since this creation many of the other children have enjoyed exploring this equipment and have turned it into many things including....

A bus going to the toy museum driven by Evie,

Serj and Grayson off on a trip in their car,

Melanie driving her car through the Kentucky Fried Chicken drive through.

 

Its been great to see the amount of team work these items have encouraged and the imaginative play and ideas being tried and shared. I am looking forward to seeing what is created next.

Written by Cassandra 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Ka kite Kim

Today we farewelled a valuable member of our team...Kim. One of her favourite books is 'The terrible underpants' so that was the theme of the day.

 

Leading up to the day the children had been busy creating a variety of underpant pictures to put on display around the kindergarten.                                                                      

Everyone was invited to wear a pair of underpants over their clothes and we had a very special pair of underpants for Kim to wear. Included in the celebrations was a delicious shared lunch with a terrible underpants cake (Mahi pai Jess!)                                                                                     

Kim will be sadly missed by the children, parents and teaching team. We wish her all the best for her new teaching position at Mason Ave kindergarten. Ka kite Kim. 

 Written by Donna 24.09.2014

Buns in the camp oven

Today Taylor's Dad, Nik prepared some bread dough at home so we could cook buns in the camp oven over the campfire at Nature Discovery. From previous campfire experiences we knew that we needed to have really good embers to cook the buns so we started the fire a little earlier than usual. We sat around the campfire chatting as we patiently waited for the buns to cook. Nik put some bacon on the hotplate to accompany the buns. Yum!

This experience really reinforces the closeness Nature Discovery provides between the children, teachers and parents. At Tuakau Kindergarten we identify whanaungatanga - process of establishing relationships, relating to others as valuable where families and extended whanau are partners in their children's learning and experiences. The buns were delicious. Thanks Nik!

Written by Donna 16.09.2014

Fairy Houses

 Today a variety of natural resources were provided on the deck along with two Fairy books for provocation. Louise and Sacha, Celeste, Evie worked really hard designing and creating their own fairy houses. This required some quite complex thinking and problem solving around the construction but the results were awesome. Louise's construction was in the shape of a cube while Sacha's was more like a teepee. Each house was original in design with a variety of special features such as a ladder, TV, a window and even a hanging light. The children's eye hand co-ordination was challenged as they held resources in place while using the glue gun at the same time. Once the children had finished their creations they put them on the grass topped table where their fairy friends were waiting.
It was interesting to see that some children were only interested in creating the fairy houses and happily left them on the table for others to play with. Other children, like Taylor were only interested in playing with the fairies and houses that others had made while Evie and Louise did both.
Evie and Taylor played together for a long time with the children's creations and the fairies, role playing Elsa and Anna, the characters from Frozen using their imaginations and  memory recall in their play.
    

The use of natural resources supports our involvement in Enviroschoools as well as our Nature Discovery programme and provided children with a variety of opportunities to extend their learning depending on individual interests and strengths.


                                                                                        Written by Dianne

Catch and Release

Today at Nature Discovery we decided to have another go at catching eels in Grayson's hinaki. On our way to Nature Discovery we had stopped off at the butchers shop for some eel meat.  Our butchers love hearing about how we take the children eeling and generously keep us well stocked in suitable meat. Today it was sausages and mutton. We loaded up the hinaki and Armani asked if she could toss it in and she did a great job, taking care not to topple in with it!. Then we had to wait...a long time so some of us disappeared up the hill to go sliding and abseiling.

After a while the excited call came to say that we had an eel, most of us rushed to investigate the catch. Some of us were comparing it in size to previous eels and we all agreed it was a baby one and nowhere near the size of our old friend Barnaby. As we let it go were able to see how its slime helps it to move across the mud so it can make it back to the stream. 

Through our eeling adventures our tamariki continue to develop a deeper understanding about eels, their habitat and how to treat them with respect. With each visit we are rewarded with some fantastic eels and they are now getting used to hearing us and will often come up close to the edge of the pool to get a closer look.

  

The swing was also popular today with Grayson, Hauiti and Serj creating a little game around it, there was so much laughter and fun that I just had to include this little movie.

Written by Cassandra