A visit to Noah's farm

October 30th - a sunny afternoon for a small group of afternoon children to visit Noah's farm to see his animals on his farm. We saw some lambs and Noah told us that their names were, "lambs." We fed them some bread and then we went inside to see Ethan the cockatoo and the chickens. The chickens are still growing and that is why they are inside. As a teacher, I stood back and watched the brave and curious children holding the chickens - hmmm they are most certainly braver than their teacher!
Noah's farm continued to have surprises as we walked past 'Billy' the goat and headed into the forest. Well, just a little part of the forest - we gathered pinecones, had a rest and then went back through the long wavy grass to our cars. A big thank you to Noah and his family for the invitation to visit your farm - we had a great time!

Broadgreen Chickens come to Nayland Kindergarten

Just before the end of Term 3, a group Of Broadgreen Intermediate children and their teacher came to read stories, about chickens! The children at Broadgreen had hatched the chickens and continued to look after them as they grew and from all of these experiences, stories were written and published and then read to our children. Then, as the stories were about real chickens, we were able to use our 'gentle hands' and gently stroke the chickens. We gave a big thank you to the Broadgreen Intermediate children for sharing their stories and chickens with us.

A drumming we will go!

We were lucky to visit the media suite at Broadgreen Intermediate


with 20 children, to check out the drum set. We all had a turn on the drums and drumming has now become a craze at kindergarten, along with song and dance.
There has been a huge amount of interest in music, dance and shows, and I have a sneaky suspicion it has something to do with the parents/teachers musical show soon  to be performed by Nayland Primary, called Mile High Mania.  (WOW! what a show, I loved every minute of it)
Drumming is for everyone, and anything goes, if it makes a noise you can drum it, even concrete, monkey bars, the tunnel, the wooden structures and plastic containers out of the sandpit.
We are watching to see what might happen next, as the singers, dancers and drummer seem to be doing gigs together now.

We really love the feedback we are getting in our profile books and communication books,  it tell us what is happening for children and families and also what is important to families. 
We all have different ways of communicating- if you want to email feedback, then send it to -naylandkindy@ts.co.nz, or make a comment on the blog, or of course tell us face to face, or write in the profile book or communication book.  Which ever way you feel most comfortable as we know that families are really busy too, is fine by us.
We are looking forward to some of your comments about the many many happenings on the blog.

Dinosaurs and Volcanoes

9th November 2009

Talking about the dinosaur age in our last entry, we had dinosaurs and volcanoes all happening at Kindergarten a couple of weeks ago. The children helped me to set up a dinosaur land in the water trough to which we even added a volcano! This provoked much interest and excitement from the children, so much so that this play continued over three days, each day more features being added to the dinosaur land. On the last day it turned into quite a science experiment when I brought out lemons, limes and oranges, using
these as a substitute for the vinegar when making the volcano. The children helped to squeeze the fruit and then it was wait and see as the juice was poured into the baking soda mix, each fruit poured in separately so we could notice any changes. I wonder what did happen?! You could find out yourselves by trying this at home.

Fossils, Crystals and Minerals

19th October 2009

Thanks to Carla, Lucy and Erin's mum, the children had the chance to learn all about fossils, minerals and crystals. Carla brought along her extensive collection of these to Kindergarten to share with the children. This was a great follow-up for those children who had shown an interest in the Fossil Exhibition at the museum earlier in the year and for all of us to learn a little more about these fascinating treasures. It is amazing to think that some of the fossils are so incredibly old, older than the dinosaur age, a fact that some of the children can relate to. We will
look forward to Carl visiting us again with more of her exhibits. Thank you, Carla!

Planting and Harvesting

22nd October 2009

Spring time is here and the garden is flourishing. We have started to pick some of the crops in the vegetable garden. The morning children have made 'Dinosaur Pie' using some of the silverbeet and the afternoon children have been enjoying fresh parsley, silverbeet and broccoli with the kai time fruit. "It's yummy!" exclaimed one child as she ate piece after piece of the raw silverbeet.
Then last week some of the morning children helped to plant some potatoes in a special potato drum. We dug out some great compost from our own compost bin as a starter and then added potting mix to this. The children carefully placed the seed potatoes on top of the soil and then covered them up with some more of the mix. Now we just have to wait and watch and hopefully before too much longer we will see the first of the potato sprouts pushing their way through the soil. Let's hope that we are not too late to have some new potatoes for Christmas!

The Bead Gallery Visit - September 10th, 2009

Off we went, 10 afternoon children and 4 adults out to Richmond Mall's Bead Gallery shop. Children's interest and fascination with beads has continued from August and so, these children, who have all engaged in the bead making process at Kindergarten, visited the shop where the initial interest started.
We learnt:

• nearly all of the beads come from India
• all the children could thread their own beads with the right threading twine
• that there are many colours, shapes and patterns on the beads
  

After the holidays, some old and new recipes for bead making will continue.....but as we are interested in visual arts and further provoking children's thinking....will all the beads end up as a bracelet?!

Harold the Giraffe

Every year, Broadgreen Intermediate kindly extend an invitation to Nayland Kindergarten morning children and teachers to visit the Harold Room.
Harold's helper - Jenny, introduces Harold.
1. Jenny asks the children what Harold will need for a weekend visit.
2. What does our body need? Children put matching pictures onto the poster of the body. What makes Harold happy or sad and what makes us feel that way.
3. Next, food that is good and not so good is selected and placed on the wall.
4. Surprise - children lie down and sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and fairy lights light up on the ceiling - just wonderful!
5. Harold sings a song to the children about getting fit and staying healthy.
We all leave the trailer...until next year.

Nayland Primary Room 12 visit

On an overcast day, we walked down the road to Nayland Primary School. It was our turn to visit Mrs Jimmink and Room 12 at school. However, we were in for a treat - we visited the library first and then when we went to Room 12 to eat our lunch.
In the library, Mrs Jimmink explained the rules of being inside the library. Then a story was read by Mrs Jimmink and then all the children had an opportunity to choose books and 'browse'. Mrs Jimmink explained that browsing was when children carefully turned the pages and looked at the pictures and words in the book to see if the book would be of interest.
We do plan to keep these reciprocal visits happening - especially after farewelling so many children at the end of the term...

Bird Feeders

Sustainability - how to keep feeding the sparrows other than the plastic bird feeder? Make a different bird feeder of course.
On a cold day, a Mum at Kindergarten, who was looking for a job!?, agreed to whizz up the peanuts into peanut butter.
The afternoon children then poked, smeared and covered pinecones with the peanut butter. We then covered the peanut butter with seed and they hung from the trees. Yes - they do work as you can see!
We will continue to explore sustainability ideas and projects from children, families and teachers interests'.

Entertained by Levity

Monday 14th September
This week it was the morning children's turn to have a special entertainer in. Levity came to share his music, dances, games, stories and humour with the children. What fun we all had! He kept the children's interest right through, involving them in activities and just being the wonderful entertainer that he is. We hope to be able to invite him back in again next time he is in Nelson. In the meantime, we have bought two of his C.D.s so that we can practice some of his songs and dances.

Fun Fern Coaching Session by Tina

Some children and parents have been practising their netball skills at Fun Ferns at Saxton Field Sportsground.
So a couple of parents who are real Fun Fern coaches ran a coaching session at Nayland Kindergarten:
1. Blow the whistle and change, stretching exercises – legs, waist, ankles, ,
2. Fox and goose game - fox at the end of the line wants to eat the goose at the beginning of the line....lots of fun
3. Pass the ball backwards over head and then between legs from front of line to end of line.
4. Last game - all the balls are in a big nest in the middle and there are 4 nests around the outside - go raid the big nest and other nests to collect the most balls - just lots of fun!!!
Thank you to our parents who ran the coaching session - it was enjoyable and we now have a few more ideas for fun games.

Roger Sanders - Story teller

This afternoon we had Roger Sanders visiting Kindergarten to share two of his stories with the children. The children sang a welcome song to him before he started to tell the stories. His first story was about a hat seller and he had the children transfixed as he narrated his story. The second story, to a smaller audience (some children went off to play or have some kai), was about a magic porridge pot. With both stories Roger weaved a little bit of music through by playing the bongo drums, a beautiful sounding Swiss drum, a recorder and his guitar. And when the story session was finished the children were able to have a turn on his drums. Thanks, Roger!

Parent workshop

Sarah Langi from
Waste Education Services - Nelson and Tasman supported and delivered practical and very useful information to parents at Nayland Kindergarten about......
Bokashi, Composting and worm farming.
We saw parents leaving kindergarten - armed with discount vouchers and lots of enthusiasm to start the recycling journey - good on ya!!!