Walking to the library

This afternoon 5 children walked up to the library with Deanne and Haley to get out some books on Chicken's. Tomorrow some of our children go back to live on the farm but we are keeping 3 of them and have a new home for them. We wanted to get some books out to read about what they need to eat and drink and to provide us with information so we can ensure we can look after them as best as can. The children enjoyed looking for the books and using the library card and computer to issue our books out.

Washing our hands - a science experiment.

Today we completed an experiment where we looked at the importance of using soap and washing our hands. We had two bowls, one with water and one with dish-washing liquid/soap..We put lots of glitter into the water which represented 'germs', when the children stuck their finger in to the germy water the germs all stuck to their finger. They then cleaned their fingers off and dipped their finger into the soap. When they dunked their finger into the germy water this time, the soap pushed the germs away and the germs did not stick to their finger. The children were amazed by this experiment and really saw the importance of washing hands and using soap.

 

 

Turtle Safe - Earthquake drills

Yesterday we had an Earthquake drill which we do each Term. Some of our new friends were not familiar with the 'Turtle Safe' position that we use if we are not near a table to get under, and some of our old friends were a bit rusty with what to do. So at each bubble time we will practicing this over the coming 5 days. You can watch this video at home too by typing 'Turtle safe' into you tube. It's a wonderful song and video showing the tamariki what to do in an Earthquake. The children are becoming really familiar with this important drill again.

Celebrating St Patrick's Day!

St Patick's Day is a time to wear green, celebrate Irish and have fun learning.  Our tamariki loved the celebration of green. leprechauns, gold coins, shamrocks and rainbows.

"I never ever knew that kindy could be this green" Leo G says

What a lot of festivities and fun!!

Te Kakano - From Egg to Feather

 Once again we have been lucky enough to be involved in one of the Te Kakano events organised by Auckland Council. This one was themed "From egg to Feather". This was very appropriate for us as we have just hatched our chicks. As always we took on the role of hosts supporting  Te Whare O Matariki in welcoming the guests with a waiata. This time we were very lucky as we were given some beautiful bird puppets to hold during the welcome. We then shared some Kai before heading over to the Howick Library for some bird themed movement and music. Stories included "Kuwi the Kiwi's Egg" and "There's a Tui in my Tea Pot". We also did the Chicken Dance which were were very good at as we had been practicing it at mat time here at Uxbridge. We always love being invited to these events, and gain so much learning and experience by being involved in community events.  Developing and cultivating relationships with members of our local community is vital to the depth of our local curriculum, and look forward to these relationships continuing to grow in the future.

The Droo

We read an interesting book about a Droo. A made up creature that ate anything blue.
We talked about the language of the book, how it sounded good to read aloud because it was a rhyme. Leyla wanted to know what a rhyme was so we talked about how some words sound the same! Good questioning  Leyla.
The book finished with the Droo creature going to the Zoo and sitting in an enclosure with a creature called the Gred who was painted red. We put our thinking caps on and discussed what we thought the Gred may eat. If the Droo ate things that were blue then the Gred would eat things that were....? RED

"What if I had a Droo that ate blue?" Kian asked.
Wouldn't that be interesting! We came up with a brilliant idea.  We were all going to draw our own creatures just like the Droo.

" What if I had a Dred that ate things that are red?" Marlo giggled.

"Maybe I would have a Morange." Kian added, " It eats all of the orange."

"I want a Tink that is pink." Hallie was ready to draw!

The children collected all the resources they needed to get straight to creating.
And what clever creations they were. The tamariki had their ideas, articulated themselves and had a lot of fun doing so!

Celebrating Holi!

On Monday we were invited to wear our brightest colours to kindy to celebrate "Holi - The Festival of Colours”. Holi is the most vibrant Indian festival, marking the beginning of spring and also celebrates fertility, colour, love and the triumph of good over evil. There was scarf dancing, face painting, we also explored colours by colour mixing, play dough creations, dye dropping and creating our own colourful tshirt. It is always so much fun participating in special cultural occassions.