Pyjama Day - Supporting Jammies in June!

What a wonderful day we had celebrating Pyjama Day at Kindy in support of the Jammies in June initiative! This special campaign helps provide warm pyjamas to children in need across New Zealand, ensuring they stay cosy during the colder winter months. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Jammies in June, with an ambitious goal of collecting 25,000 pairs of pyjamas for tamariki throughout the country. We were proud to join in and support such a meaningful cause.

  Our Pyjama Day was filled with excitement and laughter as children and teachers arrived dressed in their favourite pyjamas, ready for a day of fun. We enjoyed a lively pyjama party complete with dancing and music, and making our own delicious pizzas! To finish off our cosy celebration, everyone enjoyed a cup of warm hot chocolate together.  

A huge thank you to all of our whānau who supported this fantastic initiative through their generous pyjama donations. Your kindness will help make a real difference for children and families this winter.

What a fantastic way to have fun, show kindness, and help others in our community!

Joel Nicholls - inspiring local author comes to visit!

When Joel Nicholls, the author of The Sounds of New Zealand, arrived at our kindy, the children were so excited to finally meet the person who wrote the book we had walked all the way to Poppies Bookshop to buy.

Joel read his story with lots of fun voices and animal sounds. The tamariki joined in, calling out the noises they recognised — chirps, hoots, rustles, and squawks filled the room. Everyone was smiling, listening, and laughing together.

After the story, Joel signed our book. The children watched proudly as their special copy became even more special with his signature. It’s now a treasured part of our kindy library.

Moments like these help nurture a lifelong love of reading, storytelling, and connection to the natural world. We’re so grateful to Joel for sharing his time and talent with us.

A visit to Poppies Bookshop

We’re thrilled to share that Joel Nicholls, the talented author behind The Sounds of New Zealand, will soon be visiting our kindy to read his newly published book. His work celebrates the unique voices of Aotearoa’s wildlife, and we can’t wait for our tamariki to experience those sounds brought to life by the author himself.

To get ready for his visit, we took a lovely walk down to Poppies Bookshop in Uxbridge. The children were buzzing with excitement as we browsed the shelves and found Joel’s beautiful new book. Bringing it back to kindy felt extra special knowing that soon it will hold his signature — a keepsake for our community and a reminder of this memorable experience.

Joel’s visit is a wonderful opportunity for our tamariki to connect with a real author, ask questions, and deepen their love of stories and the natural world. We’re counting down the days until we can welcome him into our space.

3D Tetris!

 Tetris 3D, is a new game, that teaches us how to place pieces into the top of the frame, in such a way that it fills the frame without any gaps.  This is possible.   It just takes some forward thinking and trial and error  however in this game, if you make a mistake, you must start the game over.

The game consists of bright plastic pieces of different shapes and sizes that must be carefully fitted together to create a solid wall within a framework. 

While there were children who simply enjoyed posting the pieces into the game, some of the children observed the strategies of others, paid close attention to how each piece connected with the others and demonstrated strong problem-solving skills thoughtful planning, prediction, and an ability to evaluate solutions before taking action. Blake, Sophie, Ruby, Josh, Hailey, Nico L and Grace worked collaboratively alongside each other they shared ideas and understood the goal of building the Tetrix wall to the top.

Through this experience, we explored a range of mathematical concepts: - Geometry by recognising and matching different shapes and how they fit together - Problem solving and logical thinking as we predicted which pieces would connect successfully.  Position and Orientation, and Spatial awareness, as we manipulated and rotated 3D shapes as we considered how pieces could be turned and placed.  Pattern recognition and visual discrimination when identifying the next piece needed.  Trial, testing and reasoning as we used the table to check solutions before committing to a placement.  Some of the children demonstrated early mathematical thinking by planning ahead, testing hypothese and using spatial reasoning to solve complex construction challenges.  We counted how many spaces we had left on the frame and compared that to the number of pieces we had left to still try and use.

Wassily Kandinsky inspired Geometry Art

 As the children explore geometry through art, they engage in rich mathematical learning by noticing, creating and discussing shapes, patterns, lines, and spatial relationships. The children develop an understanding of concepts such as symmetry, size, position, and pattern while expressing their creativity. They develop mathematical language to describe their ideas, compare shapes, and explain their thinking, strengthening their understanding of geometry in meaningful and hands-on ways. 

A special visit from Andy from Howick Library

Today we were lucky to welcome Andy from Howick Library to Kindy for a fun-filled session of stories, songs, and movement!

Andy brought along his ukulele and beautiful singing voice, engaging our tamariki in a wonderful morning of music, action songs, dancing, and storytelling. The children eagerly joined in, singing, moving, and laughing together as they participated in the interactive experience.

Visits like these help foster a love of books, language, music, and community connections. Our tamariki thoroughly enjoyed Andy's visit, and we would like to say a big thank you to him for sharing such a joyful and memorable experience, we can't wait to welcome Andy back again soon! 😀