Excitement, laughter and exploration in the sandpit.

There was great excitement in the sandpit this-afternoon, shared laughter and excitement was the order of the day. Billy was in awe of the water flowing while the group busily dug channels. Guy shrieked excitedly and jumped up and down time after time with sheer delight, as the water filled the holes almost as quickly as they were dug. He was keen to fill the pipe and took the task very seriously though, moving it to make the water flow faster. "Look it's coming out of the pipe, hurry here it comes" Billy was amazed at how fast the water covered the roller." oh my goodness, oh my goodness" exclaimed Dylan when the water seemed to be chasing his feet. He repeatedly, moved and dug moved and dug.

 

There was lots of learning happening through problem posing and solving: tilting the pipe, altering the flow of water, digging deeper holes or shallower channels. But just as important was the way the children were working together, enjoying the tactile experience of wet sand and water, taking turns at leading the play, listening to each others ideas, sharing equipment, being expressive and enthusiastic- having fun !.

E hara taku toa, I te toa takitahi ēngari he toa taku tini
My strength is not from myself alone, but from the strength of the group.

We joined the building frames together to create a larger house. With large pieces of frost cloth the children nailed the walls and roof to the house.

This created a new space to work with.  It created lots of interest for all the children.





Logan came in with an idea to attach signs to the house.  He decided to be the foreman - "You not allowed to do any of my foreman jobs..."   and went on to tell his workers, "Get to work you lazy link!"  And then corrected himself and giggled to say, "That wasn't a good word."  Logan supported us to find humour - we all laughed!

"Let's put it that way up, that's the right way up!" Alex stated.  

 Logan and Alex showed their skills to work together/ mahi tahi and drew upon their knowledge of letters and words to position the sign.

Logan continued to lead the play and stated, "We are building a hunting house to protect it from the animals!"
The children began to bring pipes to the house with ideas of plumbing and we encouraged them to come back tomorrow and follow their thinking.

Welcome to Term 4 at Geraldine Kindergarten!

Welcome back to one of the busiest terms of the year and what a year it has been!

We welcome two early childhood students for the first 4-5 weeks of the term - Jemma and Lisa.  Please make yourselves known to them.  As a teaching team we always enjoy having students with us as they bring in new ways of teaching and learning as they study towards becoming fully trained teachers.  We hope they enjoy their time with us.

Jemma

Lisa

Hero Day

Today was the last day of term and we decided what a great day to have a Hero day. We had a fantastic turnout and children were really excited to see what their friends were dressed up as. We had a variety of hero’s, fire people, Spiderman, superman and super women, and some children even come as family members. We also enjoyed a sausage sizzle for all the children as part of Mitchell’s 5^th birthday celebration.

As today is the last day of term we say farewell to a number of our friends who will be heading off to school and we wish them all the best.

We hope you all have a safe enjoyable term break and we look forward to seeing you all back on Monday 14^th of October

 

 

End of term - Already!

Hasn't the term flown!

We area taking a break and Friday is our last day of Term 3. 

We look forward to seeing everyone again on Monday 14th October at 8.15am

Look forward to seeing you when the doors open again!

Relationship Building

Recently in our afternoon session a group of children have been initiating and remaining involved in imaginative fire play. This came about after our practice fire drill, and have had feedback from parents that this type of play is being further explored at home.

Angus arrives at Kindergarten each afternoon, finds a high vis vest and a hard hat. Eli arrives each afternoon and finds a hard hat, and today Angus decided that we needed to find a vest for Eli so that they could be fire fighters together. 

"We're fire fighters, cause we've got a hose and hats" Angus shared while working with Eli to squirt the hose. 

Later Angus came inside and said to me "That's my friend over there...." pointing to Eli.

It is so warming to see as children spend more time here at Kindergarten, become comfortable with the environment, routines and the other children here they start to make connections. Angus and Eli have a similar routine when they arrive each afternoon, finding their hats and vests to wear. It has become obvious that this shared interest has allowed them to connect, begin to interact and play together. 

We cannot wait to see how this friendship continues to develop and in what direction they will take their imaginative play around fire. 

Emily Went on a Egg Hunt

Emily decided it was time to go on an egg hunt out the back this morning. We haven't had any eggs from our bantams for a long time so we thought that maybe Brownie and Rosie had been laying them in a secret place.

It didn't take long before Emily, on her hands and knees looking under all of our grasses and harakeke plants found them -  underneath a harakeke plant. 

Amethyst and Alex heard the excitement and couldn't wait to come over and see where the nest was. Everyone helped Emily gather the eggs together and brought them inside to keep for future use. 

Keep checking up on us to see what we make with our new eggs.... the children will share some ideas tomorrow and decide what they'd like to make.

Could our hens be getting clucky?