Just kidz Childcare & Preschool Henderson

Last week, the Kea and Ruru room went on a very exciting trip to Crystal Mountain!

The children were full of excitement as we hopped on the bus and began our adventure. On the way, we happily sang “The Wheels on the Bus,” and the bus was filled with smiles, laughter, and singing voices.

When we arrived, we visited the museum and explored the amazing crystals. The children were fascinated by the different colours and shapes, and everyone enjoyed looking closely at the shiny, sparkling stones.

Next, we went to visit the animals. We saw beautiful peacocks, horses, goats, pigs, and fluffy llamas. The children loved feeding the animals and watching how they moved and ate. It was a wonderful hands-on experience for everyone.

As we walked around the park, we also discovered dinosaurs along the way! The children were excited to spot them and talked about which dinosaurs they recognised.

To finish our trip, we visited the indoor playground where the children climbed, explored, and played together. There was lots of laughter and happy energy as everyone enjoyed the space.

It was a fantastic day full of fun, discovery, and new experiences. What a wonderful adventure we had together! A special thank you to our wonderful parent helpers for joining us on this trip. We truly appreciate you coming along and being part of our adventure.

Our children had a great time celebrating Chinese New Year last month 🧧✨ Over the two-week celebration, our tamariki were immersed in rich cultural learning, exploring the traditions, stories, and symbols in fun and meaningful ways.

It was wonderful to see all our rooms buzzing with hands-on experiences that sparked curiosity, creativity, and a growing appreciation for cultural diversity. Such a special time of learning, sharing, and celebrating together ❤️

Please enjoy some snapshots of our tamariki engaging in different activities.

We’ve been in full swing with our final Christmas party preparations, and the festive spirit is definitely in the air. Our tamariki have loved getting creative, adding the finishing touches to their Christmas cards and crafts. ✨🎨

Please take a look at our gorgeous children with their wonderful creations! 🥰🌟

We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude for your continued support, encouragement, and trust. Being part of your child’s learning journey is a privilege we treasure every day, and we are constantly inspired by the incredible whānau who make our community so special. Your involvement, kindness, and partnership mean the world to us.

We would also like to extend a huge thank-you to everyone who joined us for our Christmas celebration. Your presence helped make the day extra meaningful, and we are so grateful for the delicious kai (food) you brought in to share. The generosity and thoughtfulness from our families truly warmed our hearts.

It was wonderful to see you all—catching up, laughing, and celebrating together. Seeing our tamariki playing, exploring, and enjoying themselves alongside their friends and families was a beautiful reminder of why we do what we do. These shared moments strengthen our sense of community and create memories we hope you’ll cherish as much as we do.

Thank you once again for being such an important part of our centre. We look forward to many more special moments, learning adventures, and celebrations with you and your children.

This week we welcomed a brand new water trough for our tamariki to explore. It’s already inspiring wonderful sensory play, cooperation, and creativity as the tamariki discover new ways to interact with water.

Take a peep at our amazing tamariki in action—busy learning, playing, and discovering!

This week in Kiwi room, our tamariki have enjoyed participating in lots of different activities, including building alongside our friends, exploring some new puzzles, exploring sea animals, counting, sorting and naming different farm animals, naming different colours, exploring the different transport vehicles, exploring the new fire station, making sea animals out of play dough, participating in small group activities and painting activities!! Our children have been having fun and learning so much by participating in these activities!!

This Tuesday we had another wonderful adventure—this time to the Auckland Art Gallery! The tamariki were full of excitement as we hopped onto a big bus for our journey. On the way, we spotted so many interesting things: the sparkling sea, the Sky Tower, a fire truck, and even other double-decker buses!

When we arrived, we enjoyed our morning tea together before heading inside. Right above us was a huge sign that moved up and down and changed colour constantly—our children were absolutely fascinated by it!

We then split into two groups and explored four different rooms filled with art, carvings, and displays, many of them themed around boats. The tamariki were curious, engaged, and full of wonder as they looked closely at the different artworks.

One of the highlights was a hands-on activity where the children tested how easily different objects—feathers, big pompoms, and corks—could be blown across the floor. So much learning and laughter in one simple challenge!

What a fantastic day of creativity, discovery, and fun. We're so proud of how well the tamariki explored and participated. Another successful trip for our little adventurers! 🎨🚌✨

Finally the day came for our trip to Good Planet for strawberry picking! The tamariki were incredibly excited and had been counting down the days with our special chart at mat time, changing the numbers every day.

Half of the fun was getting into the yellow shirts and travelling on the bus. Look at all those gorgeous smiles!

When we arrived there we had morning tea, before we walked to the fields to pick our strawberries.

And pick them we did! The tamariki were excellent harvesters and it was a new experience for most of them.

The strawberries were red, ripe, juicy and very sweet!

The best part about picking was that we could eat as many as we wanted - and by the end of our trip there was strawberry juice everywhere!

To end our trip, the tamariki had a very special treat of the strawberry ice cream made in Good Planet's very own shop. There was also some space to run around and have fun afterwards. What a successful trip!

A big thank you to our parent helpers for coming along to help with the tamariki - we hope that you enjoyed the strawberries as much as the tamariki did, thank you for your support!

Take a look at our Diwali celebration! The children explored the traditions and legends that make this festival so meaningful. As we talked about the victory of light over darkness and the importance of togetherness during Diwali, their curiosity and enthusiasm shone brightly. To our delight, some of them even recited the entire story with great confidence and charm.

We had a super exciting visit — Asha, a real-life St John paramedic from Hato Hone, came to see us! 🚑✨

She told us all about emergency services and what happens in an ambulance. We learned what sound an ambulance makes — nee-naw, nee-naw! — and why it’s so loud (so everyone knows to move out of the way!).

Asha showed us what to do if someone gets a bump or scrape, like using bandages and other clever tools to help people feel better. We even got to see the special clothes paramedics wear.

Is there anything more magical than playing with giant bubbles?😆