A very sad time at Botany Downs Kindergarten

It is with such a heavy heart that we share with you the news that Helen (our teacher)'s daughter Jackie was tragically killed at her home on Saturday night. Our thoughts and love are with Helen and her family at this point in time.
I taught Jackie when I was teaching at Pakuranga Kindergarten in the late 80's and Helen was a member of our kindergarten committee ... a very long association.

Communication can be made on this blog or via

Botany Downs Kindergarten
22 Maroubra Place
Howick

Jackie's funeral will be at 11am on Thursday 30th December at the International Baptist Church on the corner of Chapel Road and Dannemora Drive. In lieu of flowers donations can be made to Jackie's children's education fund.

Exploring the new friendship swing.

I captured a group of very happy girls exploring different "swinging" options on the new friendship swing at Botany Downs Kindergarten. Their enthusiastic intentions (to have four friends on the swing at once), patient interactions (waiting for each friend to place themselves on a perch) and endless giggles (pure fun and laughter) lead to the swing being labelled THE BDK FRIENDSHIP SWING. We hope that many friendships blossom on the perches of the swing in the future.

Olivia and Benjamin's Christmas Stories

Jacob's Santa Story

Nathan's Christmas Story

Miriama's Christmas Story

Reagan's door bell

Making Christmas scones

The children often bake individual scones at Botany Downs kindergarten and with Christmas fast approaching it was time to make red and green Christmas scones.
2 heaped tbsp flour
a small cube of butter
cheese, apple, sultanas etc if desired
add a milk until its just the right consistency
bake at 4oo for 10 - 15 minutes

In this picture Ridge is writing his name on the graph so that he will know exactly which scone is his when they come out of the oven

Youtube Night and Hamper raffle

Thank you to all those who supported our YouTube Night. It went really well, didn't it. It is just so exciting to go to kindergarten in pyjamas!

Our raffle winners (they were all present on the night)
1st ... Poppy
2nd ... Connor R
3rd ... Mya

Making connections through soft toys from home

My atttention was drawn to a hub of excitement in the locker room. Not wanting to be left out I just had to check it out. Out of the bags came favourite soft toys. There is nothing like sharing your favourite toy with your favoutite friends.

Writing letters to Santa

Getting in to shaving foam

Jack, Nathan, Ben, Benjamin and Sean - Surfer boys

Kendyl, Madison, Kyla, Emily and Tabitha

Charlotte, Charlotte and Jessie dance for you

Spending time with the guinea pigs

Our afternoons have been SO busy of late that we have not had a lot of time to spend with our guinea pigs. Caring for the guinea pigs is such a popular part of our programme that it was nice to spend some quality time in the guinea pig grotto holding the guinea pigs in their snuggle bags. For some of the new children this was a first time experience. Oh how we love our guinea pigs.

Spreading the reo

Since we have had the lovely Kara coming in to work with the children with te reo we have heard many heart warming stories. This story involves Madison. It seems that Madison has been practicing her Maori words on her sister. It is great to see the words learnt at kindergarten are being incorporated in conversations at home and at kindergarten. Ka pai, Madison.

Learning te reo

All aboard

For years we resisted the urge to have bikes at kindergarten, however this sidecar bike changed our thoughts. This bike offers so many learning opportunities. On its own it tests children to problem solve. The first challenge is to remember that there is a sidecar attached! It is quite a mean machine to negotiate around obstacles - people and obstacles. The bike encourages social interactions. It often has three aboard. the driver has to exert so much energy to propel the bike with such a load on board. On this day the children had attached the trolley ... and had all piled aboard for their adventures. Mya struggled to get any forward movement, however with a little assistance she was off. After that she was able to keep the momentum up while her friends sat back and enjoyed the ride.

A poem gift from Rm 9

Thank you so much Room 9

Charlotte's frog

There has been an intense interest in frogs since the arrival of our tadpoles. I was ever so impressed to see that Charlotte had used playdough to create her frog. Ka pai, Charlotte

Our visit to Botany Downs School

Tent city

The fabulous weather we have been experiencing inspired an interest in camping. The boys decided that the blue tent was a boys tent and proceeded to fill it with ladders and tyres ... all the things that they might need. In the meantime the girls decided they wanted a tent too .. so it was time to erect a tent (old sail) for the girls. It was just fabulous with so much space. The boys, on discovering this decided that the girls tent was better because it was bigger. It was then that they came up with a solution, "We could share the tents." And so it was that the tents were shared. Long may this fabulous weather last.

Bree's hat

Bree, what a cool hat. You were so pleased with what you had made that you wore it all morning. "It was really cool to make one. I rolled it up and then I put cellotape on it."

BDK top models

The interest in sewing has been off the boil of late, however that all changed when Olivia and Anna designed, sewed and modeled these stunning numbers.

You won't believe what happened ...

We have just been given this Toy Story Aliens game. The children have been intent upon catching as many aliens as they can as the aliens spin around. It takes quite a lot of concentration to catch an alien, but with advice and encouragement from the spectators the task is made easier. We had only had the game for a couple of days when disaster struck! An apple rolled out of the fruit bowl right on top of the 'grabber' and you won't believe this ... it broke it! No amount of our trying has resulted in a successful repair. So ... we are down to one grabber. Just as well we have lots of patient children.

The Olivias

There are often trends in names at kindergarten. At the moment we have a three Olivias in our morning session (and four Charlotte's). Far from being concerned, the children seem to thrive on the connection. It is just that they are always known by both their names ... as though that was their first name. Our group of Olivias are great buddies and enjoy being together ... but not for much longer as Olivia(in the middle) is leaving us to go and live in Melbourne. as we were discussing the implications of this Olivia (the one that is moving) suggested that we could skype. What a great suggestion for keeping in touch. We use skype in a number of instances at kindergarten, so we are excited about this possibility.

The rubbish truck

Team Logan tackle the Auckland Marathon

Team Logan ... we are in awe of you. What a goal to set! What an achievement!
Remembering Logan and raising asthma awareness.

Happy Halloween

Fathers Night

Thanks to everyone who made this evening a success. What a great night! We would love to hear what your child had to say about it ....