Feathers Early Learning Centre

🎄✨ Our Family Christmas Party ✨🎄

What a beautiful way to celebrate the season together...
We loved welcoming our children and their families to our annual Whanau Christmas Party. The afternoon kicked off with a special performance from our tamariki, who filled the room with joy as they sang their Christmas songs — such a proud moment for everyone watching.
The excitement continued with a surprise visit from Santa 🎅, much to the delight of our children, followed by a bouncy castle, an ice cream truck, plenty of delicious food, and lots of laughter shared between families, teachers, and friends.
The atmosphere was full of Christmas cheer, connection, and that strong sense of community we value so deeply. Thank you to all our families for joining us and helping make the day so special — we feel incredibly grateful to share these moments with you.

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a safe, happy holiday season 🎄✨

A Special Day Filled with Smiles! ✨🎄
Last weekend, a few of our team had the privilege of attending the Special Children’s Christmas Party at the Auckland Showgrounds — A spectacular Christmas extravaganza party for special children who live with life threatening illness, physical or intellectual impairment, domestic violence, or in underprivileged circumstances.

There were fun rides, games, and the most magical moment of all — watching children meet Santa and choose their own gifts. 💫 It was heart-warming to see so many beaming faces and families enjoying quality time together.
We feel truly grateful to have been able to play a small part in supporting this event, alongside so many other organisations and volunteers who work hard to make days like this possible. 🤝✨
Thank you to the organisers and everyone involved — it was an honour to witness firsthand the happiness our combined efforts helped bring to these amazing kids and families. ❤️
If you would like to learn more about this event or to get involved next year you can check out their website here
https://www.sccpnz.co.nz/

✨🪔 Happy Diwali! 🪔✨
On Friday our centre was glowing with colour, music and laughter as we celebrated Diwali — the Festival of Lights!
Our tamariki got to enjoy a vibrant celebration filled with:
🌸 Beautiful henna designs
🎨 Creating bright and colourful rangoli patterns
🍛 Tasting delicious traditional Indian foods and sweets like idli, jalebi & mango lassi
🎶 Exploring traditional Indian dress and music

A huge thank you to our wonderful parents who joined us to help prepare some of the yummy treats — we love celebrating in partnership with our families and community. 💛

It was a day full of joy, learning and connection.

Wishing all our whānau & community a warm and sparkling Diwali! ✨🪔

Blokes, BBQ & Beer (ginger!) 💙

What a cracker of a day! 🎉 Our tamariki had a blast celebrating the awesome men in their lives – dads, grandads, uncles, brothers, and mates alike.

There was fishing (the toy kind 🎣), a few rounds of croquet and darts 🎯, plenty of singing 🎶, delicious kai 🍴, and of course some cold ginger beers to top it all off. The highlight? Handing over the sweetest handmade gifts – proudly created by little hands for their big heroes. 💛

So much laughter, fun, and aroha in one afternoon – our hearts (and bellies) are full!

Kia ora whanau,

Last week, we treated our beautiful kaiako to a much deserved and very special breathwork session at the centre with the lovely Hailey.

Over the hour, the team learned simple but powerful breathing techniques, using a constant breath cycle (with no pauses), designed to support the nervous system and encourage lymphatic drainage.

After a busy first half of the year, it was the perfect opportunity for everyone to pause, reconnect with their bodies, and learn some practical self-care strategies. The session left the team feeling relaxed, refreshed, and a little bit more zen—and it was all topped off with a shared potluck dinner, plenty of laughter, and wonderful connection 🙏

We love bringing new ways for our team to recharge, so they can be at their best for our tamariki and whānau x ❤️

Here is Haileys Instagram if you are interested in learning more on her amazing work. https://www.instagram.com/heyhailey_nz?igsh=MW1yd21xOG5sMXpkbw==

🎄Feathers Christmas Party 2024🎄
Where memories were made and relationships were strengthened. Through the magic of Christmas we came together for the love of our tamariki!. So much fun and laughter shared.
Merry Christmas to our Feathers families and happy holidays to you all. May you all stay safe over the Christmas period and may nothing but love and happiness enter you door 🙏🥰🎄🎊

A highlight from today…

During moe time some of our older tamariki were engaged in play outside, the majority of tamariki were busy building huts. Emily came over to me and held me hand, leading me to the stairs. She wanted to show me a little honey bee that had stopped to take a rest.
Emily was worried that someone would stand on the bee and might get hurt, so I suggested that we move the bee onto one of the flowers in the planter so that the bee can rest safely and maybe collect some pollen. It wasn’t long before we had gained interest from lots of tamariki who could hear and see what we were doing.
I sat back and listened to what tamariki thought about bees and what they had to say.

“He's got wings on his back” - Tawhiri

“He will fly” - Keaton

“Like a princess” - Tawhiri

“Or like a fairy” - Keaton

“And a unicorn” - Tawhiri

“He will sting you” - Matiu

“He's looking at us” - Emily

“A bee eats flowers” - Mason

“He's washing his hair guys” - August

“He's putting sunblock on” - Tawhiri

“He makes pollen” - August

“I'm hungry give me some flowers” - Tawhiri

It was amazing to hear what ideas they already had about bees! We had a little chat about bees flying from their home called a hive, to collect flower dust called pollen to take home and create honey! We also talked about why the bee was “washing his hair”… the bee used her body to gather pollen and then was using her back legs to collect the pollen!

He aroha whakato
He aroha p**a mai
If kindness is sown
then kindness you shall receive

Here at Feathers learning centre we love to embrace all cultures. We see ourselves as an inclusive practice that celebrates the diversity we have here!
Celebrating other cultures in early childhood education is important because it helps children develop a variety of skills, including:
Open-mindedness
Children learn that there are many different ways of thinking, living, and expressing oneself, and that all are equally valuable.

Respect
Children learn to respect and appreciate the differences of others.

Self-esteem
Children from minority cultures feel seen and respected, which boosts their self-esteem.

Global citizenship
Children from the dominant culture learn about other cultures, which helps them develop a sense of global citizenship.

Cultural intelligence
Children and teachers develop the ability to adapt to different cultures, and understand cross-cultural issues and differences.

Our recent cultural experience was focused around the Indian celebration of Diwali (the light festival) where we had the opportunity to experience making Diya, rangoli, henna as well as dress in Indian cultural dress and eat traditional Indian food.

Feathers fun in the sun!
What a beautiful week we have been blessed with...
Lots of outside play this week. Getting a feel for nature and all the gifts it gives us!. Water, sand, flowers and sunshine.
Waterplay is always a hit and today it kept our tamariki busy for ages. Splashing, collecting, pouring, sprinking, dripping and tasting 😅
So much fun!.
Water play can provide a multitude of benefits for young children, which include improving fine and gross motor skills, personal and social development, cognitive development, hand eye coordination improvement, enhanced social skills and more. All this learning and development in the name of fun.

Here at Feathers we believe in the environment being 'the third teacher'. Both our indoor and outdoor spaces are filled with opportunities for learning. We also make the most of every moment incorporating what nature has to offer us, so spring is here and its brought the sunshine and flowers with it...
Outside our tamariki have been so busy enjoying the gifts that spring has brought us. We have been able to spend lots of time outside soaking up the sun and smelling the flowers. We've enjoyed gardening together, being the kaitiakitanga of this place. We've also been enjoying nature's gifts of sand and water. Theres been chalk drawing and hammering. Our tamariki using their senses to learn and play outside.

Inside our tamariki have been spending time building relationships with one another. Working together and side by side. Exploring the vehicles and their movements. Going shopping together at our local shop and enjoying each others presence. We have also worked very closely with the baby dolls, taking care of them by feeding them and dressing them.

All these experiences build a sense of responsibily and belonging within our tamariki. It helps them develop the strategies and skills needed to learn and play alongside each other and how to take care of one another and our world.
All in all another busy week here at Feathers, filled with fun, learning and lots of Aroha

Celebrating our awesome dad's at our Feather's Fathers day blue September event. Not only did we raise $256 for an epic cause (Prostate Cancer Foundation), We also got to spend the afternoon surrounded by great company and food.
A big thankyou to all our dad's who came along and helped to make this event a huge success!

It's important for us here at Feathers to build relationships with our parents and whānau, as we believe it takes a village to raise a child!. We share in the love of our tamariki and know that strong parent partnerships enable us kaiako to develop knowledge of children's home experiences, supporting higher quality learning interactions in the setting, and to help families develop the confidence and skills needed for enhancing their children's learning at home.