Puppet show

Tea party at Emily and Isabella's house

(Click to enlarge)

Ainslee

Socialising in the sandpit

Ainslee

Trip to Park Island

Rugby World Cup - Teams Flags

On Friday I introduced to the children, the flags of the 20 teams that are playing in the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Hannah, Libby, and Cian showed an interest as soon as I had the laminator out. The children helped me to put the flags in laminating pockets. A few moments later, Donnagh, Luke, Joshua, and Ruby joined us. Donnagh was eager to find the Irsh flag. He held it up proud! Luke took responsibility for feeding the pockets into the laminator. As we feed each flag in, the children asked which country it was for, and this gave me an opportunity to give the children knowledge about other countries and how they are involved in the RWC. Cian liked the flag of Wales as it had a dragon on it and the children thought the flag of Argentina was funny because it has a sun on it! We talked about the New Zealand flag of course, and Ruby noticed that the NZ flag and Australia flag were similar. Good comparison!

We have proudly displayed the 20 flags in the foyer of KIDSPACE. Many learning opportunites had by the children.

Ainslee

Puppet show with a conservation message

Yesterday we went to a puppet show. This is Charlie, Emilie and Isabella's recollection of one of the stories.

"There was a frog and kiwi's and the boy and the girl and the boy and the tree and the volcano and birds. They told us a story about the rat and the possum trying to get the bird's eggs to eat. We had to sing a song to tell the mama birds to go back home to their nest and scare away the possum and the rat".

The puppet show was called The Enchanted Forest and had a conservation message about looking after our forests and the creatures that live there. The puppeteers used some awesome puppets and upbeat songs to get the message across. It was an interactive performance with the children joining in with songs and actions.

With Conservation Week coming up this was a great way to introduce the children to concepts such as this.

Conservation Week runs from 11 - 18 September and we will be revisiting our learning from the show via songs and conversations with the children.

Rie

Spotty the Lamb

Last week Isabella and Emily spent lengthy periods sharing their stories of when Spotty the lamb came to stay. They were very excited about the fact that they got to feed Spotty milk from a bottle, but also stressed the fact that they both missed her since her return to her owners.

After several days of hearing Isabella and Emily's tales of the lamb, I suggested they bring a photo to show their friends at KIDSPACE, which they were very eager to do, however there was a little problem, they had not yet been printed.

Today on arrival at KIDSPACE, Zilda, Isabella and Emily's mum, informed me that the girls were very proactive in reminding her about these precious photos, and suggested we view them from the camera instead, and that is what we did.

After setting up the laptop and camera, we sat down to view these much talked about photos, and before long a large audience had congregated around the screen. Isabella and Emily did a wonderful job of narrating as we flicked through the photos, and not only did we get shown Spotty, the girls very proudly told us a story about the time they stayed on a marae, and showed us the relevant photos.

It was wonderful to hear stories about the girls experiences outside KIDSPACE, and I thank Zilda for allowing Isabella and Emily to share some of them with us.

Wonderful Weaving

Yesterday Irene brought in all the tools we needed to create an amazing weaving masterpiece. Irene had prepared the frame for the weaving and brought along a selection of dried and freshly cut natural resources ready to use. This quickly caught the attention of many of the children and they worked hard with Irene all afternoon creating this beautiful piece of work. Lyrique, Mollie, Max, Isabella, Emily and Tarquin all mastered their weaving skills quickly. This learning experience held the children's attention and kept them engaged and working hard together for a long time. You can now see this wonderful weaving hanging in the artroom where the children can continue to add to it whenever they like. So, if you have any feathers, bark or anything else at all that could be used to weave, please bring it in for the children and watch their masterpiece develop!!

"We had to put them in this way in the strings" - Lyrique

"I put something else on there...cool" - Isabella

Visit from Health Nurse

Helen from the Ministry of Health visited us at KIDSPACE today, delivering messages to the children about healthy teeth. She used visual props and bought Dr Rabbit along. She talked to the children about brushing teeth regulary, how much toothpaste to use, healthy eating and drinking plenty of water. Some of the children, including Jack, Shaydn, Ataahua and Acacia had a turn at brushing the big set of teeth. I hope the parents found the note from the nurse in the lunch boxes :)

Ainslee

Literacy at KIDSPACE

Lately there has been a very strong interest in reading books amongst the children, and much of the time, this has been initiated by the children themselves.

It was just the other day, that I caught this wonderful example on camera.

Max, Mollie, and Libby spent a lengthy period reading "We're Going On A Bear Hunt", and were able to tell the whole story word for word, and using such wonderful animation in their voices.

Through reading, Children develop an expectation that words and books can amuse, delight, comfort, illuminate, inform, and excite, as well as a familiarity with print and its uses by exploring and observing the use of print in activities that have meaning and purpose for children.

The learning through this experience, links to the New Zealand School Curriculum in the areas of English, the Arts, and Social Sciences.

Monica

Connecting the straws

This morning the connector straws were set up on the deck and were a real hit with the children, particularly Xavier, Luke and Netana. Luke's construction was coming together rather quickly. Although he put pieces together carefully and thoughtfully, he still worked fast. Netana was watching what Luke was making and was careful selecting similar pieces. It was nice to see Luke being a role model for Netana and others. I think these were new to Xavier, and he enjoyed exploring the mechanics of these. How they connect, what pieces go where, and how to take them apart etc. Charlotte joined the activity and left a few times, but when she did come back to stay, Charlotte enjoyed putting both hands in to the container and stirring them all up, before tipping some out. Charlotte also held on to the straws and squeezed her fingers around them.

After Luke shared what he made, he started up a fun game. He would point the end of his straws towards me and the camera, and wait for me to snap it up like a crocodile. Netana joined in and both the boys thought it was so funny.

Children develop the confidence to choose and experiment with materials, to play around with ideas, and to represent their discoveries using creative and expressive technologies and equipment (Exploration, goal 3, Te Whaariki).

Ainslee

All Blacks Haka

Last week, we had planned to go for a walk, but it started raining. The boys were a bit disappointed, so I asked Charlie, Donnagh and Kian if they would like to go on the new laptop. To begin with, I opened up the KIDSPACE whanau blog, and we looked at people we knew, experiences we could recognise. I then invivted the boys to suggest... ...something else to explore on the internet. "Hmmm" Charlie said... "Ritchie McCaw" he added excitedly. "Yup we can search for that on google Charlie" I replied. This opened up many opportunites to explore Ritchie, rubgy, sports and other related things. We saw photos of Ritchie and some of the other All Blacks. "Let's watch the haka?", Donnagh and Charlie suggested. So we played about five different videos in full screen with very loud volume, to get a thorough understanding of the haka performance. Half way through the video's, Rionnagh and Tyson came over, showing interest and curiosity. After watching intentively for so long, Donnagh said "Ireland aren't scared of the haka"... "Ireland aren't scared of anything". Charlie was quick to reply with "Yes they are, they are cross when they do the haka". "How do you know they are cross?" I asked Charlie. "Because they have angry faces". A lovely interaction to be a part of.

Children develop "positive judgements on their own ethnic group and other ethnic groups" Communication - Te Whariki.

Ainslee.

Recovering our poi

One morning, I invited children to help me recover our poi with material. I wanted to do this with the children (rather than in my office time), as it is a bi-cultural experience for them. I wanted to talk about the importance of poi and ask the children what they thought they are used for. To begin with, we looked at the different patterns on the material we were using. There were taniwha's, a marae and koru designs etc. Donnagh helped me to do the first poi. We needed to follow a process: cut the material in to a big enough square, cover it over the poi, cut the string to tie around it, then wrap some cello-tape around it. Libby was confident in using the scissors and cut the material that needed to cover the poi. She also used the scissors to cut the string. Maia was extremely helpful and willing to participate. She helped to cut the material and string, and held the poi while I knotted the string around it. We needed to make sure we were covering them properly so they could be used effectively with poi dance. The children had fun using the poi later in the afternoon, spinning them around and using great co-ordination.

Ainslee

New vege garden

This afternoon more vege's were planted in our vege garden. We finished the last of our small whero and kowhai tomatoes a while ago, we have been sampling sprigs of parley in the mean time. With our newly planted leeks, lettuce, beetroot, broccoli and vege combo children will be able to pick and eat straight from the garden. The vegies we need to cook, we will try at morning tea times or whaanau and teachers can take home.

Jessie

Stories on the grass

This was Rie's first day back at KIDSPACE after her hoilday break. Outside Maia, Sarah, Max, Isaac, Theo and Jasper listening to her read stories on mattresses on our newly grown grass. "Children are helped to participate in social and cultural settings, demonstrating consideration for others through qualities such as caring, fairness, tolerance and generosity",
Te Whaariki: Well-Being

Jessie

Outings this week

This past week we have been out and about in our community."Children develop interest and pleasure in discovering an unfamiliar wider world where the people, images, objects, language, sounds, smells and tastes are different from those at home", Te Whaariki, Belonging.
We walked to Onekawa Park to run on the grass, climb trees, collect weed flowers, roll down the hill and play 'Queenie Queenie' and 'Duck, Duck, Goose'.
Monica organised a visit to Bardowie and after singing songs to the residents in Maori and English Tyra was presented with a basket of lollies for us all, a pre-Christmas gift. Ruby said "I can smell noddles", on entering and we talked about how older people who don't work anymore or live in their own homes, can retire and belong here. "Children develop an appreciation of the ways in which they can make contributions to groups and to group well-being", Te Whaariki, Contribution.
Jessie