Thursday 2 April 2015

Showing Manaakitanga - A Snail's Castle

This morning a small group of children were huddled close together in the sandpit, there was complete silence as they watched a snail move across the sand and onto a shell.

"We're making a home for the snail, its a castle" Ben suddenly called out in excitement!
"Don't touch him" said Grace
"Yeah, we need to be gentle" Ben added. He pai koe ki te whakaaro pēna - Thats good thinking.
We continued to have a conversation about caring for our natural environment and lots of children were using the words 'care' and 'respectful' when talking about how to look after the snail. This is reflective of manaakitanga, something that is important to us here at Geraldine Kindergarten.

As we sat around watching the snail slide along the shells and onto the stones Eli said...
"I know turbo, he goes faster than racing cars, its so cool". It became obvious to us that Nathaniel was sharing knowledge from home, about another snail that he knows.

Grace found humour as we watched and she began to laugh "ahahaha hes crossing the road".


What a special experience today as this group of children communicated with clarity and precision, found humour and shared their knowledge all while showing manaakitanga toward the snail and each other.

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