Thursday, 16 December 2010

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Safe Travels from the team at KIDSPACE.
Enjoy your time off (if you have any), safe travels and have fun with your families :)


Please click on the link below to see your chrstimas video from KIDSPACE


Wednesday, 15 December 2010

Some Snapshots

Tamara
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The KIDSPACE Christmas party was lots of fun don't you think!!!!
I sure had fun singing, eating, being involved in relays and dodging water balloons. It was great to see new families
come along and join us as well as families who have been at KIDSPACE for a while. This year we thought it would be nice to give a present to the parents that they could treasure for a long time to come. Thanks Tamara for the huge task of taking the photos, getting them printed, trimming them to size and attaching them to the canvas. Tamara then wrapped them all so beautifully with their own wrapping paper that Ann helped the children make. The children enjoyed making the cards for their parents/whaanau and some worked hard on including drawings in their card. Rie organised the cards along with a session by Lynette Holischier who brought in her craft supplies and showed the children how to use them. Ainslee took the photos for the class of 2010 and James collated them onto one page to make this lovely momento.
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Farewell Jessie


Interest in making necklaces

Last week Isabella had come in with a warehouse catalogue wanting to buy a heart necklace for Jessie, "Mum said, "how are you going to buy that with no money", Emily pipped up, "you pay mum". I asked Isabella, "Would you like me to bring my beads in and you could make Jessie your own necklace", Isabella nodded. So Isabella created a necklace for Jessie, sifting through all the beads finding a heart shaped one (she found one), she then continued to choose her beads carefully and thread them on. Jorja, Donnagh, Kian, Ella-Rose, Lyrique, Shaydn and Hannah joined in wanting to make their own, some finished theirs that same day and others have continued to work on these this week, Later on Isabella presented with Jessie with her necklace she created and Jessie put it on, she continued to wear it into the night time for her farewell with the teachers. Through this experience some children persist with difficulty as the some beads are very small for them to handle and thread on, but they were all confident at asking me for help if they needed. When children are threading they are developing their hand and eye co-ordination as well as their pincer grip which helps with writing and gripping a pen or pencil. Lyrique and Emily were very good at helping each other out when they needed a hand. This week Jack, Taneesha, Emily joined in to make necklaces then Lyrique, Jorja and Isabella continued with the beads they had from last week to make their necklaces.

Tamara

Happy Birthday Irene

Thursday, 9 December 2010

Baking gingerbread men
















To cater for the shared morning tea we had on Monday for our practice Christmas Concert, I did some baking with a small group of children. Trying to get in to the Christmas spirit, I thought of gingerbread biscuits. Lyrique and Ella thought we could use different cookie cutters to little men, so we decided on snowmen and Christmas trees. I gathered all the ingredients up and we set up on the table on the deck. Kian, Lyrique, Ella and Mana helped to measure and pour certain ingredients and then I passed the bowl round for everyone to have a turn at stirring and mixing. We sprinkled flour on the table and rolled the dough out with the rolling pin. The chidren helped to push the cutters in to the dough then lay them on the baking tray. Once they were cooked, we kept them fresh until our shared morning tea. When we were eating, some of the children recognised them and said 'hey, i made those!'.

Ainslee

Relay for Life

Happy Birthday Irene



Ainslee

Friday, 3 December 2010

Musical tones






Last week I introduced an activity to support children's sound awareness. My activity consisted of using glass jars filled with various levels of coloured water, to create different tones and pitches. I also provided paper coloured patterns to support children to read, and to recreate the pattern by tapping out the pattern in sequence onto the correct coloured jar. I found the children really enjoyed this activity, in which they were learning sound awareness skills such as different tones and pitches, supporting children's decoding skills in literacy. Basic maths such as interpretation of different patterns, shapes, volumes, turn taking, perseverance and self-confidence. Together with learning the primary colours. Ann

Thursday, 2 December 2010

Happy 4th Birthday Mollie
















Ainslee

Volcano in the sandpit





After lunch today, Donnagh, Jorja, Hannah and Libby were all playing in the sandpit. To do something fun and exciting, I suggested that we make a volcano! The children love doing this, because its something different to just digging. We started by building our mountain of sand. We all found a spade and built the sand higher and higher. I went and found the ingredients we needed.. baking soda, vinegar and purple dye. Donnagh found a cup and we placed that in the top. I tipped some baking soda in, Jorja added the dye, and then for the first one, Donnagh added the vinegar, which was the last ingredient to mix in, to make it go all foamy! When it came out of the top, the children went 'wow', and instantly began touching it. The children look turns at adding the vinegar because that was the fun part. We kept experimenting by adding more soda or vinegar etc, to see how they would react together. Donnagh and I began talking about real volcano's and what happens when they erupt. Donnagh knew about rocks flying out, and I added that hot lava comes streaming out sometimes too.


"Children experience an envrionment where they develop working theories for making sense of the natural, social, physical and material worlds" (Exploration, Te Whariki).


AInslee

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Congratulations


Congratulations to Monica's son Matt and Noah's uncle, who along with his band Horusset won the Inaugural City Showcase. They will be heading to London in May.


Happy Birthday Caelyn and Farewell

Tamara
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