Obstacle Course time Trials

The tamariki had great fun exploring the obstacle course outside last week. After a few practice rounds to get familiar with each part, they decided to add an extra challenge, timing each other using the stopwatch feature on a phone. This brought an exciting new element to their play, as they eagerly waited for their turn and cheered each other on.

Each child focused on doing their very best, remembering the course sequence and moving quickly through each obstacle. When they heard their time, they immediately started planning ways to improve…

“I can go faster if I take off my shoes” - Summer

“I’m going to put my arms out  the side to balance!”- Maisy

This showed determination, problem-solving, and self-motivation.

What a wonderful experience for the children as they challenged themselves and tested their physical skills, balancing carefully, coordinating their movements, and showing impressive agility. With each turn, they took safe risks, explored what their bodies could do, and set little personal goals to beat their own times. There were smiles and cheers as they compared results, celebrated improvements, and discovered early numeracy ideas like sequencing and comparing numbers. Their social skills were also promoted as they practised fairness and turn-taking, and showed encouragement to their friends. Tino paid, well done team! :-)

 

A special delivery!! Quail eggs....

This was definitely a special delivery and one we are very nervous about!  12 tiny quail eggs were delivered by courier for us to hatch in our new incubator gifted by Aubree's family.  As we opened the box, they were in egg cartons, carefully wrapped in tissue paper to keep them warm and safe.  As we unraveled them we noticed each egg was slightly different in colour, some with blue, black or greenish spots, soo small, beautiful and precious.  We set the incubator up, placed the eggs in and put up a countdown for hatching calendar.  We need to ensure the temperature is correct and listen out for alarms if something is not okay, each day the eggs have a cool down period and need to rotate, we also need to ensure it is topped up with water.  We have been watching eagerly..... It's just too exciting!!  It is going to take about two weeks to hatch, watch this space!

Our friend Tyler has been singing to the eggs, the lyrics goes like this...

"Little eggs, we are here to help you. We are your best eggy friends. We are just people. We're not really eggs. We're not birds, we are just poor people, but we will help you!"

Our new Gym bar!

Well, this was a bit exciting!! A big box delivered by the courier, we wondered what it could be??  Metal poles, some screws.... We had no clue!  Your teachers couldn't help but spoil the surprise by telling you it was a gym bar!  How cool is that?  We love to hang, twist and turn, so this was definitely going to be a way for us to have fun and challenge our bodies!  Everyone was intrigued. Following Haley's instructions (she was looking at the diagram) we took turns at placing the parts and putting it together using screws and an Allen key. Easy peasy, we are really good at using tools and following instructions.  Then the fun began as we learned how to use it, exploring different movements which required a little focus, concentration, physical strength and perseverance. Some of us were more confident than others, having experience through gymnastics, some enjoyed watching for a bit, then having a go, we also figured out that using the side bar can useful to help pull ourselves up. It's all about learning, giving things a go and encouraging each other. Even Teacher Jojo did a spin! Go Jojo!!

Controlling our bodies!

We were having loads of fun rolling the balls down the pipes today.  To add a bit of a challenge and risk, we bungeed one of the pipes to the side of the swing frame.  We then positioned the ladder against the frame,  climbed up and dropped the ball down the pipe and watched it shoot out of the bottom.

There were a couple of components to this challenge.  You needed to engage your muscles, vestibular and proprioceptive systems to to climb and balance, while holding on to your ball.  This took a great deal of confidence and concentration.  You were all so proud of yourselves! 

You all enjoyed it so much and practiced some social skills, by jumping back in the line and waiting for a next turn.  Well done everybody!  Everyone really enjoyed the physical challenge and being active, some changed it up by hopping into the bucket to catch the balls, we love it when children use their possibility thinking and invent new ways to explore! It was also great to see the teamwork and collaboration as they collected the balls, encouraged and helped one another.

No flies for our froggy friends!!

We have been in a bit of a dilemma with feeding our frogs as there has been no flies about.  After a visit to animates she suggested breeding our own mealworms for the frogs!  How interesting! The mealworm lifecycle consists of 4 stages: egg, larva (mealworms), pupa and adult beetle.  It's a form of metamorphosis. 

Today we set up a new container to give it a go, we have a few beetles and mealworms to start the process "eww creepy" said Hazel "they are so wriggly" said Zac.  We added to the container oats, fruit, the mealworms and beetles. Let's see how we go!  This is going to be interesting to watch.

The frogs seemed quite happy with their new cuisine too, beetles, YUM!