The Rugby World Cup

We started off the Rugby World Cup by decorating the kindergarten with rugby bunting and flags and celebrating the beginning of this great time in New Zealand with a special day and a community luncheon. the children and their families certainly got into the spirit of things with the children dressing up to represent their country, many of course in All Black colours but a smattering of South Africans, a Scot, an Italian and a few Tongans. It was a lovely day and naturally there has been a considerable amount of rugby taking place on the kindergarten grounds.
A few of us have read the instructions to try and kick like Dan Carter but in the end decided to do our own thing. Yeah. Roll on the winning team. Lets hope it is the All Blacks but if not a good time to discuss how things do not always go the way we want them to and promote resilience within our children and adults.

Our Amazing Town and City

September 2011 -It has been a really busy and fun time at kindergarten with a real buzz of excitement in the air. From an interest in our families and where we all live the focus moved to constructing buildings to make 'Our amazing town'. Most of the children have been involved in some way or another in constructing buildings which have ranged from pre-schools through to farms allowing us to put all these together as a small town. One which could be found any where in New Zealand.


An influx of big packing boxes encouraged the making of a city outside with tall buildings, city streets and parks. We have put to good use our newly purchased data projector and this has proved to be a valuable teaching tool allowing us (teachers) to revisit ideas and view buildings all over the world. We quickly discovered that the children were very interested in tall buildings, such as our very own Sky Tower in Auckland so we arranged an excursion as an extension of their interest and what a fantastic visit we had.The 16th September saw us all get on a bus which took us into the city via Westhaven Marina where we got off to look at the Harbour Bridge from the underneath. The children very impressed by the fantastic structure of the bridge and also curious in regard to the walkway they could see. After a quick morning tea at St Patricks square it was up the lift to the viewing area. A bit scary for some of the adults in our group - a brave bunch as some of them are a little nervous of heights, but once there all thought it was marvellous. Helpers and children poured over the sheets showing landmarks and other items to find and then many of the children settled down to draw what interested them most. At 12.00 a very excited group headed back to kindergarten full of ideas.


The next week or so the children were involved in extensions of the interest such as opportunities for special art work and more construction using boxes and believe it or not sand, which provided a great medium for remaking the city viewed from a height.


All in all a marvellous, busy, exciting, interesting learning experience for all.