Flowers for our Valentines!!

Rainy day fun!

It was raining really hard all day.  There was no chance of us getting to go out side and run around, so we needed to improvise.  We are lucky to have a deck area downstairs that is sheltered from the rain, but where we can still get some fresh air.  Because it is always important for preschoolers to be able to use their bodies to move and explore as much as possible, we needed to set up an experience that promoted movement.  Between two frames, there was a plank, which the children we able to jump off onto some mats.  This was such great fun, but everyone soon got tired of doing the same thing over and over.  To make it a bit more challenging, we strung a balloon up.  This provided a target for the children to aim towards.  Some children were able to touch it straight away, while others needed a few tries to perfect their technique.  Moving is such an integral part of being a human being.  Our bodies need movement in order to function and stay healthy.  Movement is also crucial for brain development as well as physical development.  It may sound strange, but you need to be able to move, in order to learn how to stay still.  Jumping off the plank, helped the children to develop their muscles, co ordination, depth perception and their proprioceptive and vestibular systems, which are needed for balance and the control of their body (for example, holding a pen or holding your body still while you listen).  We had such fun, but we were also learning and developing our bodies at the same time.

Mt Valentine

We love to build volcanoes in the sandpit and make them erupt. The children built a heart shaped volcano in the sandpit on Valentines day which we named Mt Valentine and had lots of fun exploring science as they made their volcano erupt.

Isobel had a great idea to drill a hole for the crater instead of using our hands

Adding the baking soda

Evan adds some vinegar to cause a fizzing reaction

We added red colour to make it look like lava

Lachlan has a turn to add the vinegar

Issy just loves making the volcanoes erupt. Gabriel was jumping and squealing with excitement as the lava flowed down Mt Valentine. 

Jack also enjoyed adding some vinegar to our crater

Happy Valentines Day!!

A bit of maths and Science

Exploring with vessels and containers that were a range of shapes and sizes really captured the children's interest here.  These new containers had different shapes that fit inside each other which provided great opportunity for us to make the water different colours. The children were learning about how to make new colours by adding more than one colour together. The beakers with numbers on the side and the scales were of great interest too! We enjoyed using  our hand eye coordination to tip and pour the varied sizes into each other which sparked great conversations, on measurements, volume and weight. Children learn  maths and science concepts through water play as well as sharing and cooperating with their peers and hypothesizing and solving problems along the way.

Visual Literacy

Learning to read and write is a tricky business.  Before you can understand how to recognise and form letters, you must have seen them thousands of times.  This is why it is important that children are exposed to a wide variety of letters and symbols regularly throughout their early years.  It creates a foundation, from which reading and writing will grow.  Using texture and colour is one way of exposing Tamariki to a multi-sensory experience where we can practise drawing and writing our letters.  Any experience where we are able to use our hands and brains, helps to develop the hand-eye co-ordination needed for writing, as well as the muscles in our arms and hands, needed to correctly hold a pencil.  Our Early Childhood curriculum, Te Whariki, states that Children will learn to 'recognise print symbols and concepts, using them for enjoyment, meaning and purpose'.  Today, we were able to practise the letters in our names, as well as draw, shapes and emotions (faces), while chatting, suggesting and laughing with our peers.  Playing while learning is what Early childhood is all about!

Welcome back 2018!

Welcome to a New Year!  It is lovely to see everyone back safe and sound from the holidays.  It has been such a great week, with lots of conversations about all the fun and exciting things everyone has been up to, rekindling of friendships and lots of water play.  We are so happy to see everyone's smiley faces again and we are excited and enthused about the year ahead!!

Here are some pics from our first week back......

Our garden is looking amazing, our New world seeds from last year have grown over the holidays and we have lots of baby cucumbers, corn and different herbs.

Ari, Chloe, Isobel and Charlotte are just taking a dip, how refreshing!  What a way to cool off on a hot day!

Everyone has been excited to see their friends again

Sprinkler fun! 

We celebrated Caleb's 3rd Birthday!
Happy birthday Caleb xx

And we have remembered how working together gets the swing moving

Mel came back from Disney world and brought us a really cool NASA astronauts hat!