Nature Discovery at LaValla

Today we tried eeling using a hinaki that Grayson's Mum had brought along. We placed some raw meet inside the hinaki and threw it into the creek.

We went off on our adventures and later returned to check the hinaki. We pulled the hinaki up using the rope only to find some of the meat was gone and no eel inside. We will try again next week.

Written by Donna  14.8.2014

Apo the Greedy Taniwha

 

Today we waited with anticipation  for Jeffery and Whaitaima to arrive, to perform their puppet show Apo the Greedy Taniwha. As attendance was a little low today we invited the New Entrant class from Tuakau Primary to join us.
 

After warming up with a couple of songs the two characters were introduced, Apo a greedy taniwha and Uia the biscuit boy. Through the story we were introduced to the guardian spirits.

 

                                                                       Tanemahuta

 

 

Rongo



Ruaumoko

Tangaroa

Tawhitimatea

 

During the show there were many opportunities for the children to participate in a variety of roles, as the forest, kumara, rocks that rumbled and created a volcano,the wind that blew the biscuit boy to safety in his waka and the fish from tangaroa's ocean.   

 

 

 

Our children have recently become familiar with the guardian spirits through the story 'In The Beginning.' The puppet show cemented their knowledge and familiarity with these and provided  opportunities for children to act and feel the importance of the characters in a purposeful, inspiring and fun filled way.

 







 

 

A day of discoveries at Sharda

What a great day we had today, exploring nature at the Sharda Centre. We were

accompanied by Hudson and Louise's Dads today and Adriana's Mum.

We made a couple of discoveries today, Adriana found a huge big fat worm and was

really excited when it began wiggling in her hand. Our other discovery wasn't quite

as easy to work out exactly what it was, we came across this very unusual object...

 

Louise suggested that maybe it was a worm cage.

We had a close look at it and discovered that it had erupted out of a toadstool,

when Cassandra investigated further with a stick it was a perfect circle completely

separate from the toadstool. We decided to leave it where we found it so we

can look to see if it is still there next week.

Kim's Lambs visit Kindergarten

Today we had a visit from Kim's little baby lambs, there was

great excitement and many of the children enjoyed having

the opportunity to pat and feed them their bottles.

 

Anneliys discovered that she was strong enough to lift one of the lambs. Once

the children had all had a pat Kim put them in the cage with Chocolate, he

was very excited to have some company for the day.

 

 

 

Another busy day at Nature Discovery



Revisiting favourite areas with friends is one of the things we enjoy most about

 the time we spend at LaValla. Today the children spent an extended period of

time back on this branch,it has been many things to lots of different children

but today they were just enjoying it as a swing.

Isobel liked to sit up the front and push off with her feet which would make the

branch move up and down, to the delight of her friends that were sitting behind her.

We moved the large pile of wood today that had been sitting in the paddock, everyone

helped and there was lots of team work and encouragement between the children. Ava

managed to carry lots of big loads like this one. We moved all the wood to behind our box.

Meg revisited her fairy house that she had built at the end of last term. She was disappointed

to discover it was not how she had left it! We talked about how there had been a lot of

storms and how Tawhirimatea had been busy during the holidays. Next week Meg would

like to take our Kindergarten fairies to Nature Discovery to see her fairy house. 

We were excited to discover this huge gum tree that had fallen over

the stream down by Barnaby's pool. Some of us were eager to see if we

could climb it to the top of the hill. After a few attempts we discovered that

taking off our gumboots and socks gave us the best grip. Meg whizzed up the

trunk in no time at all.

It was fantastic to see everyone give this new challenge a go, some of us were scared

at times but we were encouraged by our friends to keep going. Zoe found her own

way to get up.

We discovered a Toadstool and Meg wondered if it was a fairies house.

Aleah, Hauiti and Amarni enjoyed the opportunity to take a closer look

at it using a stick.

We finished off the day with a slide, we discovered it when we were going down the ropes...

and it was fast and so much fun. Ava enjoyed trying many different ways of going down

including on her tummy and backwards! Isobel wanted to make the ride longer so explored different tracks...some looked really bumpy!

We had so much fun

See you next week Nature Discovery.