Ka kite ano - We will see you again!

We want to let you all know that we are currently exploring other ways of sharing our stories, with you our wider community. This means that we will not be posting on our BLOG page about the teaching and leanring that happens here at Geraldine Kindergarten.
We would love to have your feedback about our BLOG to use and we consolodate our options for sharing our unique kindergarten with you in the future!

Finding bugs leads to exploring compost

After some interest in bugs, we decided to bring some of the compost out of our compost heap inside for the children to explore a little further. 

After taking precautions by putting gloves on curiosity set in and the children explored the compost excitedly finding worm and other bugs. Once they had finished with the compost inside we decided to put it back in our compost heap. 

As an extension to the children's learning we talked about adding more things to the compost heap to help the process so soon our compost would be ready for our gardens. 

The children took responsibility for adding the contents of our green bin as well as some saw dust to the top of the heap, managing their impulsivity as their friends had a turn, taking care so that the saw dust didn't blow into other people's faces. 

We will return to our compost in the next few days to turn it over and start a new heap ready to work its magic.

Its a rocket ship, no its a fire engine!

This morning a group of children enjoyed using a large collection of cardboard boxes to create a rocket ship!
Thick sellotape was used to hold the boxes toegther and then it was used in role play. It soon turned into a fire engine where it was sat in and fires were found and put out - a great extension on our visit to the fire station at the end of last term.

A Visit to the Geraldine Fire Station

This morning we made our way to our local fire station. A lovely walk along the park and down the street to the fire station where the volunteer fire fighters were awaiting out arrival!

A very well organised visit by the fire station meant that children were engaging with and learning about a range of fire related equipment and safety messages. Children made their way outside to where a fire engine was open for all to get into a have a look around, even turning on the siren was an exciting time for many! 

A hose was connected to the fire truck that everyone got to have a turn holding onto and squirt water toward a target, while finding out about the different controls on the hose and giving them a try.

We had the opportunity to explore the different pieces of equipment that are on the fire truck, from safety equipment to life saving machinery! Some favourites amongst the children were the vehicle cutters, stretchers and inflatable air bags.

We also listened to a fire fighter share with us about the dangers of matches, lighters and candles in our homes and how important it is for us to have smoke alarms - even though they do beep when we burn the toast! 

Some fire fighters dressed up in their safety gear so that we could see how they looked and also sounded when they breathed with their masks on. 

Thanks for the amazing morning Geraldine Fire Station - conversations will continue to be had about our visit and we will practise some important messages you shared with us!

Peter's Visit

We love having visitors at Kindergarten and Peter Fleming arrived down from Christchurch, who has taught in the Kindergartens of Christchurch over many years, to share some wonderful rope activities with the children. 

Long ropes, short ropes, and additional equipment like the pulleys were constructed around the Kindergarten with the children's help.

They pulled, climbed, and ran along with a pulley rope to swing off the ground with a harness attached, well nearly! 

The ropes gave many opportunities to give things a go and gave us lots of rope activities that we can do together at Geraldine Kindergarten. 

Kia ora Peter, we so enjoyed your visit to our special Kindergarten. 

Sneeze Girl Comes To Visit

With lots of bugs about Sneeze Girl's visit was very timely.

Sneeze Girl showed us what happens when we sneeze or cough and how the bugs are spread around in the air. She first showed us using a spray bottle of water squirting it all over us making us want to duck for cover.

Next Sneeze Girl put some glitter on some children's hands to represent the bugs and then asked us to shake hands with a friend.Very quickly we saw the germs transfer to someone else and then another person and another!!! Puta atu! Get out of my way.

The only way we could do that though was by remembering to

1.Trap it( the bugs into our elbow)

2.Bin it( put the tissue in the bin)

3.Wash it( wash our hands well)

4.Dont eat it

Ka kite ano Sneeze Girl. We will practice and remember!

Investigating the drains...

Today the tamariki were very curious about the drains. They noticed there were some small objects such as lids and Lego siting at the bottom. This was a chance to try some problem solving. 

We discovered that the end of the drain popped out and this was a good place to pour and scoop water. Then the hose came out and we explored how the force of the water could move objects along the drain. He pai koe ki te whakaaro pēna. That’s good thinking. Lots of perseverance was required to move things along under the grating. 

Tamariki practiced turn taking and managing their impulsivity as there was only enough room for one scoop at a time in the open part of the drain.

With the weather becoming warmer, more water play like this will encourage the tamariki to explore more water based problem solving activities. 

Paper making.... Step two.

Today was step two of our paper making process.  We had our pulp all ready to go, so it was time to create baby paper!  Firstly we all went outside as it can get a bit wet making paper, then we looked at the pulp and had another feel.  We put together the special paper making frame and dunked it into the pulp.  When we pulled it out again all the pulp had gathered inside the frame, golly it was starting to look a bit like paper.

We carefully lifted off the top frame and layed the paper on to the drying board.  Then we used our cloth to gently sponge out some of the water.

  

Next it was time to lift off the netting and revel our brand new recycled baby paper. 

Wow what amazing care takers of the world we are, just look at all the paper we made!

We will leave it to dry tonight and then tomorrow we are going to use the paper to create very special and beautiful art work.

How do we make paper? Step one...

The investigators have been exploring sustainability and the small ways in which we can help the world.  As we have been talking a lot about recycling we decided that this week we would recycle some of our own paper from the yellow bin.  Our first step was to rip up the scrap paper into small pieces and put in into the bowl.  This took time and persistence until we had enough paper ripped up to create the first step of our pulp.  Then we added some hot water and left the paper to soak over night.

The next day we were excited and interested to see what our paper now looked like.  Wow, the water was all green and the paper had mostly sunk to the bottom of the bowl.  We then took the opportunity to explore the paper with our hands, is was all soft and squishy.

Out came the kitchen wiz and we were ready to wiz up the paper into pulp.  We added some paper and some water and waited expectantly as we checked that everything was safe before we the turned it on.  The red light went out which told us that yes we were ready to go. WIZZZZZZZZZZZZZ went the paper.

When we opened the wiz the paper had turned to pulp!  

Wow, our pulp was a green colour...

"It looks like slime" said Emmy

"It looks like sick" said Macy

Time to explore with our hands again this time the pulp was cold, soft and we could squeeze it with our fingers.  We added some more water and left it to soak together for the night.  Tomorrow we will use the paper making frame to create the paper.  Stay tuned to see how the next step of our paper making goes!

Learning to make Pad Thai.

This morning we were really lucky to have one of our children's Mum come into kindergarten to share her skill of making a special dish from their culture, something her child enjoys eating at home.

Children were all enthusiastic to wash their hands and find a seat for themselves and their friends so they could learn something new. 

We explored the ingredients as they were added to the electric frypan and then watched with anticipation what was going to happen next. After the pad Thai was finished being cooked some children took a risk and tried something new. Tu meke, fantastic. 

We are very lucky to have children and their families sharing their skills, knowledge and culture with us here at kindergarten and we all learned something new today and enjoyed experiencing a new taste.

Which way on the slide?

This morning a group of children were having trouble deciding which way to go on the slide, up or down? Some children shared "Lets go down" while their friends quickly replied "No Climb up."

After some negotiating and problem solving we decided that if we were careful we could climb up one side and slide down the other at the same time, but how could we remember what side was what? 

Luckily, this had been explored the week before and I and put some masking tap in my bag to use on the slide. So we decided creating arrows on the slide would help us remember and also show manaakitanga/ care and respect for the other children around us. So we worked together to create an arrow first we made a "rectangle" and then joined a "triangle" onto that so that it makes and "pointed shape" Emma shared as we talked about creating an arrow. 

The play then continued with the children exploring what the arrows ment, and sharing their knowledge with the other children around them. They often applied past knowledge of what happened when they had early slid down the slide when a friend was climbing up sharing "We crashed." 

Balloon Play!

Ashleigh read a wonderful story about a balloon to the lunch time group of children and just by chance after a visit to the supermarket we brought back some balloons. 

Could we make the same balloon shapes that the picture portrayed?

Not really but we did come up with a few ideas like rubbing the balloon on our hair! The children didn't notice Beau's hair rise up with the balloon but squealed with delight when the balloon reached the ceiling. It floated back down again to try something new. The children suggested to make it into a sausage and then we could sit on it. 

Incredibly, Sarah took upon herself to please her audience and sat on the yellow balloon! It went pop! 

Out came another balloon and Sarah puffed and puffed and waited and waited. She let it go! 

The balloon flew across the room and that was the end of that! 

It's fun when we all laugh to together and it set the scene for lots of chatter at lunch time too. 

Mapping Aoteoroa!

We have been fortunate to have received a large construction pieces of Aoteoroa. By placing them on the mat it was so awesome to see how the children interacted with them. They knew they were the shapes of where we live and confident to point and lie on top of the South Island, Te Waipounmau to show us. 

However, we love how the children can think so creatively and seeing Chania interlocking the islands together and trying different ways by lifting it up to make the pieces fit was so ingenious. 

And later in the morning they became the guitars for Macy and Alice to have a sing a long together. 

Ka mau te wehi - That’s amazing! Kei te pai! 

A Campsite!

Today a group of children were enjoying exploring out the back (our natural play area) when they came across the camp fire that a group of children had created a couple of weeks ago. 

Jack, shared with us..... "I really need to make a campsite"

Hmmmmm so we wondered how we could do this?

Some resources were gathered and a tarp and some bungee cords were used to create a tent/roof/campsite. Problem solving was required as everyone worked together to get the roof up and the best way agle the bungee cords so it would stay up.  Surprisingly it was quite an easy task to get the roof to stay up and it was now time to enjoyed the new campsite.

"We need the seats underneath the roof" Jack said.

So with some more team work and perseverance stumps were moved under the roof and planks placed onto to make some seating reading for toasting marshmallows.

As the morning went by groups of children came and went from the campsit where singing and playing the ukuleles around the campfire was enjoyed!