The pallet trees gets pretty!

You would have already seen the blog post about Marshall (Elle and Coco's Dad) making a pallet Christmas tree with the children. Well now it was time to make it pretty...... It is sitting proudly in our flower garden and shines so beautiful, spreading Christmas cheer into our outdoor area. The children are still making more decorations with the hot glue guns but it's already looking gorgeous .

The ninja course with a twist

The tamariki love the ninja course so we decided to make it a bit more of a challenge with the waterfall going over top. This was so much fun and added a new dimension to this popular activity.  The children had to be brave enough to give it a go, and then persevere to get to the end and their level of awareness and concentration was heightened by the water flowing over them but most of this was FUN FUN FUN!!!!

Thanksgiving - Celebrating new traditions

What an amazing day we have had today at Uxbridge celebrating Thanksgiving. This was a new tradition and celebration for us to take part in. We were so lucky to have Hallie's Mum, Cindy join us for a special Thanksgiving Mat time. Cindy is originally from The United States of America and was a teacher over there so it was neat for the children to have someone new and different come in and teach us about new traditions from another culture. We learnt new songs and games about a Turkey and shared stories about what we are Thankful for. We heard about how special this holiday is for them and their family.

We then headed upstairs for a Thanksgiving feast. We were very grateful to have Marlo's Mum, Melissa prepare us a whole Turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, olives and the children peeled and made mashed potato to join the feast. For dessert Melissa had made us some delicious Pumpkin Pies too. It was neat to try new foods, the Pumpkin pie was  a hit with the children!!! 

We have made a big wall display of a turkey in the centre that has the children's thanks shared on it be sure to keep an eye out for this. 

We are so Thankful for Melissa and Cindy sharing their culture with us. What a great first ever Thanksgiving we had.

Te Kakano trip - November 2019

Once again, we were lucky enough to be invited to take part in the Te Kakano event, put on by Auckland Council. 

Due to our special relationship with the Marae and Library, we were asked to host the event alongside them.  What a special honour and a privilage!  

Anu and Mel, along with parent helpers Kobe and Hazel, took our 4 year olds, first to the Marae.

We were taught a beautiful Waiata, and then sang to our guests after they were welcomed onto the Marae with a powhiri.  

We then shared some kai with our new friends, before heading off and following the footprints to the Howick Library.

After getting settled, we again sang our waitata, this time with the beautiful hand made poi that were gifted to us.  

We were then treated to a very fun and interactive story time from our favourite librarians.

 

It was such a fun event to be a part of.  Our Tamariki love going out into the community, and are able to learn so much about our local Marae, Te Reo, safety in public, interacting with others, socially appropriate behaviour, following instructions, following a process, making friends and so much more.  We love the special relationship we have with both the Marae and the Howick Library.  We look forward to it continuing into the future.

It's starting to feel like Christmas!!

Our tamariki have been busy working on a special project over the past few weeks -  painting, nailing, sanding and screwing a very special tree for our outdoor environment - A christmas tree!  Today, we placed it in the garden, all ready for the festive season ahead and started creating our own handmade ornaments to decorate our tree.  These are starting to look great and our tree is going to be beautiful once finished!! We will have to make sure we make a 'Santa stop here sign' so he comes to our Christmas party.  A few friends have asked too if Alphie will be back this year?? I guess we will have to wait and see :-)

10 little ducklings!!

Taini called over to us to let us know that one of our resident ducks had some baby ducklings.  We just had to go for a look! Out the gate and over the bridge we went, finding mama duck and her 10 little ducklings in the pond, so cute!!  Mama duck was super protective of her babies and made a bit of noise as we approached, so we stood back a little so they felt safe as we took a closer look.

Kepapa Huarākau- Fruit Kebabs

We read (pānui) the pukapuka Kepapa Huarākau. We then made our own kepapa huarakāu using the instructions from the pukapuka.

 

Tino eka ngā kepapa. The kebabs are really delicious!