December 2009

Term Three - And so the change begins. We, the teachers settled into the term with some trepidation but all went quite smoothly. We had good systems in place ensuring that everyone was aware of the routines and had set up a picture book so that the children could see who was attending each day. Over the term we managed to the stage where each child was attending at least three afternoons per week which was great.

The children, on the other hand just settled back into kindergarten life as if there were no changes. Apart from the few who wondered why they were no longer attending each day there were no major hiccups. The six hour group quickly became accustomed to having lunch at the kindergarten and spending extra time with us. Little friendships were formed between children who didn't notice each other in the larger four hour group.
We were fortunate that it was only a short time before a fourth teacher was appointed to the teaching team. This was a 6 month appointment to be readvertised as a permanent position after consultation.


Puppet Galore: - All the changes did not dampen the children's enthusiasm for learning and during this term there was a enormous focus on puppets. The entire kindergarten community became infected by the joy and excitment of constructing puppets of all kinds - glove, box, finger, paper bag. You name it the children made them. At times it was a challenge to keep up with providing resources but that was part of the fun for us as teachers. thinking: - Where is this going? How can we extend it? What will happen if we!!!. Another challenge was that of ensuring that the interest was wide enough to enable some of the younger children, just on three years to be involved. Many of these children learned to use the glue guns during this interest and are now dab hands at them.
This interest continued for the whole of term three and at times re-emerged during the following term.

Changes to our kindergarten

Here we are now in our third week of being a 'Diversified Kindergarten'. For us this means not being a traditional sessional kindergarten but having a roll of 40 children per day with 20 staying for 6 hours and another 20 for 4 hours. A challenge for us was how to continue to provide the children with a real sense of belonging when there was not longer a continuity of attendence. With this in mind we set up a photo poster board showing the children who were attending for that day for the children to consult. This has been a huge success with the chldren gathering around to check it out when they arrive and at other times during the day. It has been interesting to watch the children who stay for the six hour day discover and make friendship with children they usually do not play with during the four hour morning. For us this is one of the positive outcomes of change.

No doubt other challenges will arise as we work our way through this first term of change but for now we continue to acknowledge that things will happen and we will think, heavens, didn't think of that.

bubbles of colour

As we continue with our colour exploration we investigated what happens when we blow bubble and wediscovered that blowing bubbles of colour is not as easy as it seems. At times we found that we had swallowed a little of the mixture but on the whole we were a noisy group of bubble blowers.

We were able to blow big groups of bubbles which at times topped over the sides of the containers and we then captured the bubbles on to pieces of paper. This allowed us to see the colours which made up our bubbles. We also noticed that we could see the colours of the rainbow in our bubbles.



BubbleShare: Share photos - Play some Online Games.

Colour is all around us

May 2009
After reintroducing the Rainbow song to the children they have become very interested in colours and this has motivated the teaching team to look at ways to extend this interest.
Initially we introduced more songs especially those in Te Reo Maori as this was one area which we, the staff, were keen to further extend and then the interest branched out into art activities which provided opportunities to discuss the properties of colour with the children as they worked.

June 09
This week the colour interest has taken a twist into scientific discovery as the children have made colour spinners - both as tops and using string/wool to spin the shapes. This proved quite a challenge for some of the participants but the discussions held were very worthwhile with many fascinated by the fact that they could not clearly see the colours they had put on their circles when they were spinning.

StarFish visit

I love Insects Show at kindergarten Friday 8th May 09
Finally at last we have had our visit by StarFish to the kindergarten.Unfortunately the intial show set for March 6th did not happen due to unforseen circumstance so this is extra special. And it was special. Star and Fish are the two performers who provide the very interactive show. Fish plays the keyboard, sings and links things together while Star acts and sings. The show linked beautifully with the children's interest in Butterflies and other Insects during Term One and consolidated and extended their knowledge regarding the life cycles of not only Butterflies but Bees as well. Every child was totally immersed and the hour passed extremely quickly as they sang and danced along with the performers.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing