Spring is Here!

There was great excitement yesterday when Deidre brought in Sean, a very cute little lamb, to visit the children at Kindergarten. He was here for the whole day which allowed both morning and afternoon children to spend time with him and getting to know him. Some children were braver than others and wanted cuddles with him and helped to give him his bottle and bath him. Others preferred to watch on. Meanwhile Sean enjoyed exploring the gardens around kindergarten, finding flowers and bark to nibble on. What a picture of spring with a lamb, happy children, garden flowers and the sun shining! Thank you to Shirley and Sharon from Brightwater for letting us adopt Sean for the day and thanks to Deidre for organising his visit and bringing him in. Maybe he will be able to visit us again before he gets too much bigger.

Ephimeral Art is underway again.

Ephemeral art is something that is  to be transient and short lasting – only existing for a little amount of time.

The warmer weather has encouraged us all outdoors and the sandpit area has come alive with ephimeral art materials.  The children have been curious about the number of children busily engaged in making art from the materials available in the sandpit.

To protect children's work we have now sectioned off a side of the sandpit so that children's work can last for the session, at which point it is photographed and put away.

With a selection of plant life, shells,
bones, bark, small logs and stones on hand their ideas soon came to life.

Art in the outdoors certainly attracts the boys and it wasn't long before the bones had come alive as they soon became dinosaurs and the storytelling began.  
The fascination with dinosaurs and the discussions that arise out of this are never ending as children explore the concepts of extinction and a time long ago.  

Back to the ephimeral art produced over this week, check out some of the 

amazing designs that children created.

Children's work is all quite unique.

A trip to Lucy's paradise

The term is speeding along and although we have not had many blog entries this term, I can assure you that we have been very busy both at kindergarten and exploring our wonderful community with our families.
Last term we were noticing the birds in our playground, and then a number of children were keen to count the birds they saw around their houses, and in Nelson as they travelled around.  So we decided that those children would explore the wider community for different birds, in a totally different setting at Lucy's house.

Time for karakia and kai together then off for a walk.


We didn't see many birds but the chatter could be heard as the children explored the Ngawhatu area, walking and talking at great length.  

Enjoy these photos, I am sure you will get a sense of wonderment and awe as you see our surroundings, and celebrate the the diversity of our Nelson environment.

We saw a pukeko running for his life over the hill ( I think he heard us coming) , 2 rather large well fed kereru (wood pigeon), a fantail, some yellow hammer heads and a hawk.

It is always exciting to see children and adults developing new friendships, and strengthening their bonds together as a group. 

Research shows that children who have opportunities to explore and care for their environment continue to do this throughout their lives.

Our morning finished all too soon, but we still managed to fit in a stop over at a local cafe for a coffee and fluffy to cap the morning off.  Great parents, fantastic children, great hosts and a great time out.


We will watch with interest as the warmer weather encourages more birdlife back to kindergarten. We had better get on with making more bird feeders before winter is over and refueling our existing ones.

Music Fun!

Last week we had two wonderful sessions with Kath Bee, a local singer who has recorded several children's CD's and whose music is well-known to our children, particularly a current favourite, "Dragons Under My Bed". She came and sang at both a morning and afternoon session, ensuring all children had the opportunity to participate in one of her very entertaining and interactive sessions. And of course "Dragons Under My Bed" was a must at both sessions, the children singing along with her. All the songs encouraged active participation from the audience, so providing the children with opportunity to experiment with pitch, keeping a steady beat, changing beat, moving to simple rhythmic patterns and just having lots of fun. Thank you, Kath! And we can continue to enjoy her music as we now have 4 of her CD's at kindergarten which include all the songs that she did with us.

Broadgreen Intermediate Ukelele Group.

What an awesome community we live in , with several other schools right on our doorstep.We love the way we can all work together in ways that benefit us all, especially the students we teach. A fine example of this was when two students from Broadgreen Intermediate came over to ask us if they could come with the Ukulele group to play for us.Of course we did not turn them away.On Wednesday morning a group of six students came to mat time. Five of these were originally Nayland Kindergarten children and the other one I have known since he was a kindergarten boy along with one of my sons.
They performed some of our favourites for us like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Row Row , and You are my Sunshine.Our children were a brilliant audience singing along and clapping, thoroughly enjoying the experience.It was also a wonderful opportunity for these older students to share the things they have been learning. Watching the performers faces showed me they were enjoying performing to such an appreciative audience. What a bonus having students like this right on our doorstep, encouraging our children. All of us teachers have been learning the ukulele so the children are well used to the instrument and often children will pick up a ukulele and have a play too. The opportunity to see a group play and sing together was so valuable.
Thanks Broadgreen Intermediate Ukulele group for sharing your skills with us.

Football skills.

Because some of the children are interested in football(soccer) we asked if Ian ( an ex parent)and Midgets football coach would kindly come along and do a session with us.So in small groups of ten we headed over to Broadgreen Intermediate Hall and met Ian there.
What was interesting was to watch how carefully the children listened to Ian and took on board the things he taught them.He is an awesome coach, and made sure we all worked out, leaned some new skills, practice some we already have and had a good time.Giving children these types of experiences provides them the opportunity to gain confidence in and control of their bodies, learn ways of keeping themselves physically healthy.
For some children this was a completely new experience trying something they had never done before. For others the challenge was feeling comfortable leaving Kindergarten to go soemwhere new but once they got there and relaxed it they discovered it was OK, and actually fun.Thanks Ian for giving up your time once again, we all benefited.

Nayland College students make children's lunchboxes

Check out this link - http://www.nayland.school.nz/?p=777.

The child studies classes from Nayland College were involved in preparing healthy foods and waste free lunch boxes for the morning children. 

Each child received their own lunchbox with their name and a design on the lid which was a great hit, and they continue to be used for lunches weeks later.  Inside there was a range of delicious everyday foods which proved very popular with the children. 


This a one of the many ways we share learning, resources and ideas with our surrounding partners in education. 

Thanks Nayland College we look forward working in partnership with further projects in the future.

It's a Policeman!

Friday 17th June

The children were very excited when Constable Garland arrived at Kindergarten during kai time. They quickly forgot about eating their morning tea and surrounded him asking,"Do you know my name?" No shyness here! One boy even went and got a chair for him and insisted that he sit down by the kai mat. Then we all went in to mat time where the children had the chance to ask Constable Garland some questions, ably facilitated by Ethan, the designated teacher for mat time. Constable Garland also talked to the tamariki about the role of the police, general road and car seat safety and the police uniform. Some lucky guys got to try the uniform on. Then at the end they all lined up to shake hands with Constable Garland. Thanks to him for taking the time to come along and talk to the children.

A visit to Jake's house.

Jake and his Mum Margaret invited a small group to go to their house to see their new baby finches. We helped mix up the food for the babies and then give it to them. Some children bravely went inside the aviary while the rest of us watched. Jake also has a rabbit, some very cool toys and a trampoline. The chidlren were quick to explore everything and Jake and Margaret were brilliant hosts sharing their special things with us.
Small Group excursions are a wonderful way of building connections between kindergarten and the community, of deepening the relationship between children, their homes and kindergarten and also extending on the interests of children. The thing I appreciate the most is having the time to interact iwth children and parents in small, relaxed and informal settings. Thanks Margaret and Jake for inviting us. Thanks also to Angeline, Alicia, Kirsten, Nat and Pauline for coming with us . Thanks for your help. it meant the afternoon went smoothly and enjoyably for us all.

Winter time can be noisy!

We often tell children to use a quieter voice, an inside voice or a smaller voice - but what does that really mean with 40 children inside on a winter morning and everyone is busy chatting with their friends?
The teachers came up with a plan - how could we make noise visible? - installing a noise monitor which is approved by the Deaf Association would make noise visible to children through something they are already familiar with - a traffic light.  
After a week on the wall, children are talking about it, watching it to check out the colour flashing and reminding their peers that it needs to be on green so that it does not hurt our ears.  Some children really like red so we will work on that one, but already safe noise is visible inside.

A wonderful morning out- thanks to Rescue Helicopter

Thanks to Bede's family for another wonderful experience.

A quiz night to remember- thanks FLG's (Family Liasion Group)

With great organisation and lots of energetic and supportive help - what do you get- a very successful fundraiser and a fun night out for all.  The quiz setup at Stoke School Hall looked and felt great, the team where enjoying setting up their tables with lots of sponsorship and it looked dynamic, so of course the outcome was to always go well.  It was apparent that everyone was having fun, thanks to our wonderful quiz master Woody and his stunning assistant Gaye, along with their support staff flanking them.
Thank you to our sponsors who made this night both successful and funfilled.

We would also like to thank HireQuip for their very generous support, we very much appreciate their contribution.

Visiting Nayland Primary.

Transition to School is made a little smoother by children being given many opportunities to become familiar with the school routines and environment.About six weeks prior to a child starting Nayland Primary they begin to attend Rainbow Club and also make a series of visits to a classroom on a Thursday morning.Each week children also take turns in small groups to visit the school library .We were invited by Mrs Payne to take a small group up to visit her class room. The children made Lynne and I feel extremely proud as we listened to them share tier mihimihi so confidently.
Mrs Payne read story and we all joined with a song. After this children were able to choose a numeracy activity and work with others.The school children all chose a kindergarten buddy to work with.Having someone who already had some school experience was helpful . The school children were fantastic role models to our children, showing them around and making sure they were well looked after.
We had morning tea on the verandah and then a play in the playground.What a great morning. I think the thing I appreciated the most was watching children have opportunity to become familiar with the way things happen at school.

Photography Walks

Nayland Kindergarten has for a number of years now has provided children with ICT technologies such as cameras, computers, recorders and video cameras. Children have provided us over this time with amazing photos as they see the world with the kindergarten property inside and out.
After attending a teachers' course we heard of another kindergarten who take their children on photography walks giving two children the chance to photograph the walk through their eyes and then work with these photos to make a book. I decided to take a group of children to see how this would go.
Here are a sample of a few of their photos. I was stunned at the detail they discovered with the lens of things I simply walk past. What do you think?

My favourites are the shadow photos. I took the first one then asked the children to create a different shadow. The children then found their own shadow photos. WOW!!

Next time I go I will restrict the cameras to just two children as this will make it more manageable and give the photographers more uninterrupted time to spend capturing the world through their lens. I can feel an exhibition coming on!

Creating with Stella - our new sewing machine

Last term saw the arrival of our sewing machine into the kindergarten. We opened the box in great excitement and named the machine "Stella." Since then there has been a number of

amazing creations by the children. Each artifact or article of clothing has had significant meaning to each of the designers and seamstresses.

Whether it be the teddy bear for one to cuddle at night or the all important wedding dress each one begins with a concept drawing to creating a pattern to the construction of the chosen material. It is important children have real tools to construct their real work and the sewing machine is just one of the construction technologies children at Nayland Kindergarten have available to them.
Children throughout the sewing process develop the ability to self assess their work and plan what to do next, sometimes this is with teachers guidance . Throughout these processes the children develop a sense of what counts as good work for themselves. They take control of the process and determine the end product.
Watch this space as children plan to visit the textiles and technology class at Nayland College to share creations and learn what older students do with a sewing machine. Also we will plan a morning at WOW- World of Wearable Art Museum for more inspiration, provocation and food for the creative soul!