Child Education News and Articles - Connecting with our families

Our Beachcomber Garden

15/10/2018

Our Beachcomber vegetable garden is in need of some new plants. After lots of discussions with children about what we should plant a small group headed off to Palmers Garden Centre to buy seeds and seedlings.

When we got there we noticed lots of different types of plants and lots of different smells from the flowers. Each of us had a card with the name of a vegetable we needed to find. We helped each other and looked at the letters on the card to find what we needed. Into our shopping baskets went the plants and seed packets.

We soon headed back to kindergarten and showed our friends what we had bought. Over the next week we worked busily to prepare and plant our vegetable garden.

A few weeks later we were very lucky to receive a donation of lots of strawberry plants from our local Bunnings store, we got busy planting them into our colourful barrels. Everyone chose a plant and waited for their turn to plant it. We noticed that some of the plants had white flowers and some even had little strawberries on them. As they were being planted we could see all the roots in the soil.

We are excited about watching our garden grow over the nest few months.

Living Eggs

25/9/2018

Early on a Monday morning, Jo from Living Eggs delivered hens eggs, an incubator and a brooder. We carefully placed the eggs into the incubator and turned the heater on. The incubator heat was set at 37.7 degrees celcius, just the right temperature to keep the eggs warm enough for chicks to hatch. Over the next 3 days children, parents and teachers were fascinated as they watched chicks hatch out of the eggs. When they began to hatch we could hear the chicks chirping inside the egg. Then came a tapping sound from inside the egg. That was the chick's beak tapping on the shell to crack open, this is called pipping. When a chick hatches, it needs to stay in the warm incubator to dry it's feathers as they are wet when they are born.
Once the chick's feathers are dry after hatching, they can then be moved into the brooder. This is a bigger box with a light bulb as a heater, water and feed. The chicks sleep under the light bulb to keep warm. Every day the brooder is cleaned. We replenish the newspaper, sawdust, water and feed.
Every day we could see the chicks growing, getting bigger and getting louder as they chirped for food.
The children named the chicks - 'Wriggly, Pop & Hop, Fight, Ruby, Walkie and Popsicle'.
Some children were keen to hold the chicks, a very special moment.
We incorporated games, stories and art activities during this special time. A wonderful learning experience for everyone.

Fathers Day Celebration

29/8/2018

Celebrating Fathers Day has become a tradition here at Beachcomber Kindergarten. We invite Grandads, Dads and their children to come along to kindergarten in the evening to enjoy dinner together and play. Here are some photo's of the evening.

Matariki

27/6/2018

Matariki is the name of the Māori New Year and is also the name of the star cluster known as Pleiades, The Seven Sisters.
Matariki is traditionally a time for remembering the past by telling stories (korero), for harvesting crops, sharing food (kai) with friends and whanau, and for planning for the future.
At Beachcomber we enjoy celebrating Matariki through singing songs (waiata), making artwork, kites and weaving, retelling legends and stories, picking and eating mandarins from our tree, planting in the garden and coming together to share breakfast with our friends and whanau. This year we also had lots of fun shaking cream in a jar to make butter, which we spread onto our toast at breakfast time.

Mothers Day Celebration

11/5/2018

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.

Christine's retirement

12/4/2018

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.

ERO

13/3/2018

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/

Term One

9/3/2018

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.

End of Year Celebrations

17/1/2018

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.

Marae Visit

14/9/2017

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.