A little late getting into the blogging thing again but here is a update of what happened at Glamorgan Kindergarten during the first term of 2012. As usual the term got off to a real bang with everyone celebrating Waitangi Day in our own special way. The children were encouraged to participate in conversation around why we do celebrate Waitangi Day and we made little kites - Manu iti - to fly and also wove some fantastic paper tipare which led into our main focus for the whole term.
Weaving that is. What can we say about this except that with the exception of five children, participated in some form on weaving that permeated the kindergarten curriculum. The children and the teachers wove headbands, used little weaving frames of a variety of types, delved into flax weaving, wove God's eyes using sticks and even tried our hands at weaving hair ([plaits in fact).
The learning and development was marvellous as children extended their skills, developed resilience and persistance in completing their weaving and also worked together on group weavings thus developing collaboration skills.
The teachers were certainly challenged at times by the sheer number of children who wanted to take part bu
t quickly realised that learning to wait was also important and literacy opportunities such as writing one's name on a list could be used. Lots of opportunities were taken up around maths concepts such as over and under, counting threads and numbers of colours used, length of threads etc to name just a few.
We were very fortunate in being able to provide the children with the opportunity to see woven mats and bags from a different county - Tonga by courtesy of Olivia's dad and grandmother. Sef shared some insight into the Tongan culture with us all which was lovely.
We now wonder where this interest will go next term. Will there be some children who want to revisit it or perhaps have noticed different forms of weaving while on holiday. Certainly some of the teachers will have been very aware of different woven bits and pieces while on break.
Weaving that is. What can we say about this except that with the exception of five children, participated in some form on weaving that permeated the kindergarten curriculum. The children and the teachers wove headbands, used little weaving frames of a variety of types, delved into flax weaving, wove God's eyes using sticks and even tried our hands at weaving hair ([plaits in fact).
The learning and development was marvellous as children extended their skills, developed resilience and persistance in completing their weaving and also worked together on group weavings thus developing collaboration skills.
The teachers were certainly challenged at times by the sheer number of children who wanted to take part bu
t quickly realised that learning to wait was also important and literacy opportunities such as writing one's name on a list could be used. Lots of opportunities were taken up around maths concepts such as over and under, counting threads and numbers of colours used, length of threads etc to name just a few.We were very fortunate in being able to provide the children with the opportunity to see woven mats and bags from a different county - Tonga by courtesy of Olivia's dad and grandmother. Sef shared some insight into the Tongan culture with us all which was lovely.
We now wonder where this interest will go next term. Will there be some children who want to revisit it or perhaps have noticed different forms of weaving while on holiday. Certainly some of the teachers will have been very aware of different woven bits and pieces while on break.
