This year we celebrated Mothers Day at by inviting Mums, Aunties, and Grandmas in to kindergarten to join us for a shared morning tea. Teachers, children and families dressed up for the special occassion. A time to come together and share this celebration.
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Christine's passion for teaching is evident in her business which she has owned and managed for many years. Christine's extended family has grown in recent years with four grandchildren to spend time with now. Early in 2018, Christine made the decision to step back from the day to day running of the kindergarten and hand over the operational side of the business to Theresa and Karen. Christine calls in to the kindergarten on a regular basis, with two of her grandchildren attending. We wish you all the best in your retirement years Christine.  In term 1 the Education Review Office visited our centre and reviewed our service. Over two days, they looked in-depth into our centre programme, management, internal evaluation, teacher/child/parent interactions and relationships, and more.
We came away with a good feeling from their two day review and when the official report was published on the Ministry of Education website, we were very please with the document. Here is the link:www.ero.govt.nz/review-reports/beachcomber-kindergarten-09-05-2018/ The year started with many new families joining us and settling in to our Beachomber culture. We organised our annual excursion to Cockle Bay Beach where we invited all our Beachcomber families to come along, get to know each other and explore the sea shore. Everyone enjoyed themselves, exploring rock pools, making sand castles and picnicing on the grass. Looking back over the year, we can see it has been a busy one! To celebrate such a fun filled year we held a party at kindergarten, inviting all of our children and their families. Hands Alive was the puppet show entertainment, along with bubble blowing outside, face painting and decorating the Christmas trees. The children sang songs to their families and then we shared a morning tea in the garden. Here are some photo's of the day. On the 14th September our four year old children, their parents and four teachers visited our local Marae, “Te Whare Wānanga o ōwairoa,” in the Garden of Memories, Uxbridge Road. The trip was part of our programme planning for Te wiki o te Māori , (Māori Language Week) and was a great opportunity for the children, parents and teachers to experience Māori culture and traditions, which are part of our New Zealand bicultural heritage. We were welcomed by whaea (aunty) Karen and as we approached Te Whare Matariki, whaea Rose performed the powhiri karanga, (traditional Māori welcome) before we were invited inside. Once inside the whare we listened to mihi, (traditional introductions) and waiata, (songs) from Matua Hemi. Then Patrick’s dad, Murray, responded in Māori, with Raewyn and Saira also saying their mihi, Murray then gave a koha, (gift) to whaea Karen. All our tamariki sang our special waiata, “Te Aroha,” which sounded beautiful. After the welcome ceremony we enjoyed delicious kai, (morning tea) then explored the beautiful ngahere, (native bush) with whaea Karen, and also looked through the little whare taonga, (museum). We returned to te whare to sing waiata, play with harekeke (flax) balls and dance with poi. Then it was time to say “Haere ra” (good bye) and return to Kindergarten. What a wonderful day. Term 2 was a very busy term at Beachcomber Kindergarten. We celebrated Mothers Day by inviting our Mums, Grandmothers, and Aunties into the centre for a shared morning and afternoon tea. We also incorporated this event with fund raising for the Breast Cancer Pink Ribbon Appeal and invited everyone to wear pink for the occasion. In June we celebrated The Queen's Birthday, inviting the children and teachers to dress up in their most regal clothes and include fancy treats for morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. Ball gowns, princess dresses, capes, crowns, and tiara's were some of the fine costumes worn. We looked on the map to see where the Queen lives and some children made a birthday card for the Queen. Later in the term children's interest grew from rockets to making paper planes and onto kite building. This was very timely with the Maori New Year, Matariki starting in June. It is a time of coming together to share kai, and waiata. Children came to kindergarten in their warm winter pyjama's and shared a lovely breakfast of toast and milo, we sang a waiata before eating. Children were involved in weaving and star making activities, we displayed these on the walls. We harvested a pumpkin from our garden and turned it into pumpkin soup for all of us to share, yum. As part of our Beachcomber culture, we organise an annual trip to Cockle Bay Beach. We choose this local beach as there are safe rock pools to explore and a big Pohutukawa tree to play on. There is also a legend relating to the tree, we include this into our program to enhance and extend our bi-cultural commitment. A long time ago a man named Manawatere arrived on Cockle bay beach shores. He wanted to let other people know he had been there so he dipped his thumb into ochre (red clay) and placed his thumb print on a large Pohutukawa tree. From that day on the tree produces brilliant red flowers around Christmas time. We re-tell this story to the children before our excursion and talk about what we might find at the beach. On the day, teachers, children and their whanau meet at the beach to explore the shores and rock pools looking for sea creatures, seagulls, seaweed and shells. Children explore the big Pohutukawa tree, crawling under it's big long branches and climbing along them. This was also a good time to re-tell the Manawatere legend and a good opportunity to teach children how to respect and care for our environment. Later, we all sat down for a picnic on the beach. Thanks for joining us. The children and teachers enjoyed participating in a variety of Christmas activities, including art and craft, singing, dancing, stories and of course decorating the tree. Our party day was filled with fun. The children, teachers and some parents wore fancy dress, there was face painting, bubble blowing, a wonderful shared morning tea and we were entertained by the children singing our favourite Christmas songs. Then Alan Watson amazed everyone with his magic. Thank you to all the wonderful Beachcomber children, whanau and teachers for making Christmas a happy time for us all. There has been a huge interest in building rockets over the past few months. Children have made rockets out of boxes and collage, construction equipment and other resources while at play. We decided to make an area where their work could be displayed and the children could enjoy dramatic 'space play'. The interest in the planets took off with lots of questions and conversation about travelling into space. It inspired further investigations into how long it would take to get to each of the other planets, and which plants would be best to live on. It has been a fantastic learning experience for everyone! |
AuthorKaren Harris Archives
August 2019
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