Springtime Gardening
29 October 2024
Welcome to spring and a wonderful time to plant, see our flowers bloom and to harvest our vegetables!
Recently whanau will have seen that we have been picking our spinach out from our own garden in our learning environment. We take several bowlfuls to our Centre Cook and she add these to our scones and pizzas. Some of our older children enjoyed watching through the kitchen window as our cook placed the spinach into the cooking, and some of our children didn't seem to notice they were eating healthy veges in their food. Shhhh don't tell them!
A couple of weeks ago, we took our children outside the front of our centre, in small groups from all learning spaces. This is where we enjoyed planting sunflowers. The seedlings are now growing up out of the ground, along our outside entrance pathway. We welcome our children, families and community to help water these and talk about them to the children.
Between the exciting planting and harvesting, the children have also been helping to regularly water the plants around the playground. They are the greatest little helpers!
Music and Movement
Is there anything more fantastic than seeing an infant, toddler or young child fully rocking to a beat with their own artistic movements, not a care in the world as they create, move and groove to music that sometimes only they can hear?! There are, of course many learning benefits for children when they engage in music and movement, these are just a few of them as well as some ways that you can bring music and movement to life for your child.
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Family and Dramatic Play
Young children are learning their place in the world every single day in multiple ways. The ideas that they form from observing the world around them will often show up when children are engaging in family and dramatic play, but what exactly is family and dramatic play and what are the benefits of your child engaging in it?
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A month full of Cultural Celebrations and Learning!
Kia Ora! This month has been full of exciting activities and cultural celebrations at our preschool! We celebrated Cook Islands Week and Tongan Language Week by learning about greetings, colors, numbers, and the days of the week from these cultures. The children enjoyed making Tongan “Otai” and learning some Cook Islands language from one of our dads. We also had a visit from the librarian who entertained the children with puppet stories and songs. A highlight was our parent evening where we discussed raising resilient children. Parents learned about language development and strategies for managing common behavior issues. The children had fun with our homemade Olympic Games, where they created and awarded their own medals. We also raised awareness about asthma with the Sailor Asthma Show, presented by Aimee Gaestro. The Kapa Haka group from St Mary’s School performed for us, and it was a fantastic experience. Be sure to check out the videos! Our oldest children visited St Mary’s School to see what primary school is like and what they can expect. It’s been a busy month, and we look forward to more enriching experiences for the children. Connections to Te Whāriki (ECE Curriculum) Learning Outcomes: Belonging: Connecting with people, places, and things in their world Contribution: Using skills and strategies to play and learn with others Communication: Enjoying and creating stories
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