What have we found in our playground?

Goal 4 of the exploration strand of our early childhood curriculum Te whariki states that children will experience an environment where they develop working theories for making sense of the natural, social, physical and material worlds.
Summer time with its abundance of insect, animal and plant life offers many opportunities for children to notice and develop working theories about the living world, to develop a sense of responsibility for the well being of the living environment and knowledge of how to care for it.
On these hot sunny days we have appreciated the shelter and cooling effect of our wonderful large trees in the playground.
We have had opportunity to observe and discuss native bees that have made their homes in the sand pit, centipedes living under the stones in the garden and pavers in the playground.
Swan plant has been planted, nurtured and the caterpillars have appeared.
We have discovered and marveled over the many praying mantis and
shiny blue lady birds in the playground and cicada shells from our gardens.
Inside, the children have had the opportunity to observe the transformation of wriggling tadpoles into tiny frogs. The children have been busy with butterfly nets, catching the flies needed to feed them.
Children have shared their observations of sunsets and strong ocean currents.
So many opportunities for conversations, questions, investigation and discovery.

The environment speaks a language that children understand

The environment plays an important part in the programme, inviting children in to investigate, problem solve, to engage with and to stimulate thinking.  The teacher’s research over the last 3 years has highlighted the importance of providing a high quality and engaging indoor and outdoor environment, one  that draws children in, invites them to spend time, and allows time for them to be able to touch, smell, and look at things.  These areas promote independent play and co-operative play, so that children can choose to engage on their own or with others.  They can return to these areas again and again, to explore further, to question and to share their new knowledge and understanding with others.

 Creating an environment together means that teachers, children and families have an opportunity to share their ideas, passions, skills and knowledge with each other.  Be a part of our environment by sharing your ideas.

You will have noticed that we have enhanced some of the outdoor areas with material to create defined spaces to beautify and invite children into play.  These areas will change over time in response to what is happening for children and teachers.

Welcome back to a new year -2010

We will keep this blog going for another year, so that you can revisit all the happenings of 2009 with your child and family.  This is also a great opportunity for our new families to find out about the programme and what happens at Nayland Kindergarten.
So welcome back and we look forward to your comments, if you have any problems leaving comments please let us know, we would love to help out.

A Play Day at Playdaz - 26th November 2009

Today the afternoon session went on an adventure to Playdaz at the Action Sports Centre, Beach Road Richmond.

The fun began with a bus ride out to the centre and then there was fun galore on bouncy castles, slides, ride on cars, see saws, balls and lots lots more. It was so exciting for the teachers to see such group of confident and enthusiastic children having such fun together. The children ran around for an entire hour only stopping to refuel for water.
There will be learning stories in the children's profile books soon about this adventure.

Lee's session with the morning children - Nov 18th

Lee was trialling a new session for the very first time with our children. Kindergarten children working together in pairs to practice the skills, co-ordination and motivation to be physically active.
















First of all - the game of warm up - if the wolf[child] touched you, you had to squat down on the circle. That was the tricky part - the wolf and children could only move around the roped area by jumping from spot to spot.
Next came working in pairs, holding hands to rotate arms and shoulders together. Then as one child stood still and upright on a frisbee, their partner held their hand and ran around in circles as they rotated their friend on the frisbee!
Again, in pairs, children held their noodles and linked them together as a chain and then with a stable and strong stance - pulled. Honestly, hardly any children fell over - their grip and arm strength was strong!
To finish the session, a big ball was kicked around the circle - we noticed the anticipation as children waited for the ball to come and then kick the ball - future All Whites - you just never know!

Lee's session with the afternoon children - November 19th

Lee's session - the focus was fun and laughter with fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination.
A dome, scarves and fingers to poke through, look for and listen to the scarves?, and then at the end - pop the bubbles with clapping hands.

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!