Children's Day 2012

Kia Ora whanau

This Sunday 4th March is Children’s Day! This year’s theme is ‘treasure our children' which fits perfectly within our roles of teachers and parents every day!

You are doing the most important job there is. It’s rewarding, but sometimes it’s tough. This Children’s Day we encourage families everywhere to treasure their children. When you’re a parent that might mean:

- Making sure your kids have the things they need.
- Look after yourself so you can be there for them. It’s good to take time out to be you.
- If you’re a dad, there’s so much you can do to make your child feel like a taonga. -
- Learn about positive discipline. This job never came with a manual and knowing some tricks of the trade can make life a whole lot easier.


There are planned events happening all over NZ to celebrate this special day. Some events happening within the napier area are:

Plunket's Teddy Bears Picnic
Where: Anderson Park, by the playground, Kennedy Road, Napier
When: Sunday 4th March, 11am - 2pm
Activities: Bring a picnic and your teddy's and come on down to support Plunket. There will be bouncy castles, face painting, sausage sizzle, mini Hot Rod ride on cars and more!

National Aquarium Children's Day
Where: National Aquarium, Marine Parade, Napier
When: Sunday 4 March, 9am - 5pm (last entry 4.30pm)
Activities: Free entry to the National Aquarium for children aged 14 years and under with a paying adult. Lots of childrens activities and prizes to celebrate Children's Day!

Visit http://www.childrensday.org.nz/ for more information!

I'll be back soon to post a blog about how KIDSPACE is celebrating this day next week (5-9th March).

Na, Ainslee

Christmas Tree

A huge thank you to Mission View Gardens so do your Christmas shopping at Mission View Gardens this year and support this business who have donated a lovely living Christmas tree to KIDSPACE. The children can help care for the tree throughout the year, and each year we can bring it inside and decorate it.

Happy Birthday Mollie

On Wednesday we celebrated Mollie's 5th Birthday and Graduation with a shared lunch.

Jude, Mollie's mum, brought in hot chips, fruit platters and also some edible dainty teacups, which the children really enjoyed. Happy school days Mollie.

KIDSPACE sponsor child

Instead of buying individual Christmas presents for KIDSPACE children, we have decided to sponsor a child through World Vision for $45 a month.

Our child is Abdul Aziz Gondi, a two year old boy from Yehi village in Mali, West Africa.

Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world (ranked 173 out of 177) with 65% of it's land area classified as desert or semi-desert. More than 70% of the population survive on less than NZ$2 a day. Accessing safe drinking water is difficult and time consuming.

Mali's infant mortality rates are among the highest in the world. Chronic malnutrition causes developmental problems in more than a third of children under 5 years. KIDSPACE children will be able to write to Abdoul and learn about his way of life.

I traveled in Mali in 1978. Somewhere at home I've got slides of children, camel trains, sand storms, and even a kindergarten in Timbuktu, so I will hunt these out and bring them in and show the children.

Irene

Happy birthday Tamara

Ainslee

Happy school days Libby

Ainslee

Goodbye Luke

Ainslee

Happy birthday Rochelle

Happy birthday Rie

Rie celebrated her birthday with the KIDSPACE children and teachers, last Wednesday. The children sang happy birthday to her, and she shared a yummy chocolate cake.

Hope you enjoyed your birthday weekend Rie.

Ainslee

Planning for Christmas

It seems much too early to be planning for Christmas, but plan we must. We would like to get some feedback from parents about dates and times that are most suitable. Please either leave a comment on this blog post (click on comments below this post) or on the sheet on the KIDSPACE noticeboard. Let us know which option you most prefer and approximate numbers of children and adults likely to be attending.

The options are:

Thursday 8th December 4.30 - 6.30 Family party tea at KIDSPACE
Saturday 10th December 2.30 - 4.30 Family afternoon tea party at Onekawa Park
Wednesday 14th December 2 - 3 pm KIDSPACE children's party (parent's invited)

Happy 3rd Birthday Thadeus

Thadeus spent the day at home on his Birthday, but when he and his parents Chris and Nat came to pick up Ahlyna, they had brought a yummy to cake to share. We celebrated outside on the deck by singing Happy Birthday, then Thadeus blew out the candles. Then he was off home to celebrate with his whaanau. Thank you for sharing a part of your day with us Thadeus.

Tamara

Ra whanau ki a Taneesha

We celebrated Taneesha's 3rd birthday on 19 August. We took a lovely video of the children all singing Happy Birthday and Taneesha blowing out her candles. Unfortunately, after several attempts we have been unsuccessful in loading the video onto the blog.

Happy Birthday Taneesha!

Happy 4th Birthday Hannah

Ra whanau ki a Ahlyna

Today we celebrated Ahlyna's birthday at KIDSPACE. The teachers and children all sang 'Happy Birthday' and Ahlyna blew out her two candles.

Winter wonderland day

On Wednesday 27th July, we held a Winter Wonderland day at KIDSPACE. We invited children to dress in 'wintery' clothes, and we had all sorts of outfits on the day. Pyjamas, jackets, hats, beanies, gloves, scarves, slippers, gumboots, ski boots, goggles, dresses etc, plus all the new KIDSPACE outfits including the dinosaur and tiger suits.

The centre was decorated with blue fairy lights and the children thought it was was magical. We had a shared morning tea including banana chocolate chip muffins, cherrios, sausage rolls, a range of fruit and warm milo! On the tables at morning tea time, we had ring tin frozen ice with flowers, leaves and grass frosted through it. I think there was even a plastic spider or two hidden amongst them.

A fun day had by all.
Ainslee

Rochelle and Guy's Big Day

click on picture to enlarge

Happy Birthday Monica

Ainslee

Red Nose Day

Click on photo to enlarge.

Red Nose Day is a national fundraising campaign that celebrates our communities, embraces the light-hearted Kiwi culture, and supports children across New Zealand. A simple idea created over two decades ago, the campaign encourages everyone to let go, laugh, and be silly...all for a serious cause.

On Friday 15th July it was Red Nose Day in New Zealand. As part of celebrating and drawing awareness to the day, I got the laptop out with the children, and googled the trademark Red Nose song. "You make the whole world smile with your little button nose". Starting off with just Jaz, Emily and Rionagh many more children came over and showed an interest and were asking questions. We were listening and watching the song sung by Anika Moa. When the song finished, the children kept asking for it to be played again and again. We then got the red face paint out and painted our little noses red! The children had so much fun!

Ainslee

Happy 2nd Birthday Brayden

Double click to enlarge

Happy wedding day to you

Yesterday afternoon, we had a special afternoon tea for Rochelle. It was in celebration of her Wedding this weekend. Rochelle wore a special veil (which are new to our dress up area at KIDSPACE), and blew out a candle on a yummy chocolate mud cake, as we sang 'Happy Wedding Day To You'. We had a shared morning tea of yummy fresh fruits and chocolate cupcake with sprinkles. Congratulations for your special day this weekend, and all to you and Guy for the future ahead.

Ainslee and the team