The creative crew

Every day the painting / collage is like a giant magnet pulling you towards it. Caitlin and Niamh, how you let your creative side come to the fore. Creative ideas are never a problem! Twin power.

Iʻve found me

"Iʻve found me", that was your comment when you found this A4 picture of yourself in the block area. You were so pleased with it that you kept it by your side. I suggested that you might like to add it to your building (see previous blog) but you really just wanted to keep it with you. The other children were so interested that that sought out their pictures too.

A hand portrait

With quiet concentration the pen was pressed on the paper and the hand was drawn around. Clive, you told me that your Mum had shown you how to draw around your hand and how to spread your fingers so that you could trace between your fingers. I was so impressed that I asked you to draw a hand portrait for me.

We love to have parent helpers

Huda, it was so good to have your Mum stay at kindergarten for two days. How lucky is that? You were so proud and so pleased that she spent time playing just with you. In this photo you are sharing your tea party with the our new toy kittens. What a special day.

What a pleasure

Kevin, thanks for our great day together on Friday. With Alison away we had the pleasure of being with you. What a pleasure that was! You continue to delight us with the way that you join in the play and activities with the children. We were even more excited when you presented us with the visuals for the sandpit and for food (at different times, of course).

Revisting play

Over the past few days this group of girls have continued their play with the wild animals and the blocks. When I came across them today they were not only creating houses for their animals again but they had accessed pens and papers to write the names of the animals. It is great to see you extending your own play by adding the literacy dimension to your role play.

Such enthusiasm

Do you know that since you started kindergarten we have been ever so impressed with your total enthusiasm for whatever you do whether it be dancing, playing outside or as in this case, painting. You always write you name, think about what you are painting and hang your painting up when you have finished. We love those sort of organisational skills.

Focused learning

Concentration and problem solving were part of this learning experience today. Clive and Mikaela worked on their seperate building constuction projects with the house Duplo with quiet persistence. As they discovered, they were able to join the pieces together when the pieces were aligned and pressure was applied. Great problem solving.

Dancing Queens

Dancing Queens Summer, Molly and Mary-lu (Molly's mum) had a fantastic day dancing in some of our gorgeous dresses.After seeing some of her friends on the blog Summer asked if we could put some photos up showing the things she does at kindergarten . Kerry remembered the photo she had of the girls dancing and Summer was more than happy for us to use this one. It's pretty exciting when you can see share the things you get up to with others, and I'm even sure that Mary-lu (Molly's mum) will be pleased to see herself as well.

Baking time

Ah, baking time, time to try out our new griddle and what better to make than pikelets. We liked the look of our new aquisition as it had no sides, making it easy to turn the pikelets, They must have tasted pretty good because most children came back for seconds.

Top oʻ the mornin

Top oʻ the morning to you ... that was the greeting of the day on St Patrickʻs Day. As we made a connection across the world ... thanks to Google and Utube ... we were able to put our Irish dancing skills to the test. The wearing of the green helped to st the scene too. Here are just some of our children on St Patrickʻs day.

Hard at work in the block corner

Kaitlyn, Sophie and Sarah you were extremely busy in the block corner for most the kindergarten session today. I discovered youʻre wonderful pieces of construction as I was passing and decided that our talented childrens work needed to be captured on our blog.

Our perceptual motor programme

There are many stages in our perceptual motor programme. All of our equipment is chosen with the development of perseptual motor skills in mind. One of the first stages is being brave enough to launch yourself into the unknown.

Our very own princess

It is SO good to have our very own princess back at kindergarten. We hope that you have had a great day.

A visit from the Minister of Education Chris Carter

This afternoon we enjoyed a visit from the Minister of Education Chris Carter. He was interested in our philosophy, our environment and of course, our research. And... we were delighted to share that with him. His parting comments were ... "A fantastic learning environment only achieved with a great deal of hard work by the staff - well done".

Kindergarten is SO boring!

One positive about having chocolates is that we end up with lots and lots of cardboard boxes. There is never any decisions to be had about what to do with them. The children queue up for them so that they can slide down the slide. What a great way to learn the phyics of balance, speed and direction.

Allyson Gofton Night

Well, after all the organising and planning it is over. What a great night. Perfectly organised, fantastic spot prizes (for nearly everyone), the best of company. What else could you ask for! A big THANKS to Allyson for donating her sevices (huge thanks actually). More THANKS also to chief organiser Wendy, our chairperson Kelly and our brilliant committee. We are SO lucky to have such a wonderful committee. Thank you one and all.

Exploring sound

In the past weeks we have celebrated Chinese New Year. We have been sharing Chinese artefacts with the children. Sheldon took the opportunity to explore the sounds of the gong. It made very different sounds depending how the gong was held and whether the sound was interupted.

Models in the making

Following hot on the heels of the interest in dressmaking has come the intense focus on modelling ... especially wearing the super cool hoop dresses. There was a definite routine ... glide down the runway ... pose, pose and blow a kiss.