Aratupu Preschool & Whānau Hub

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Aratupu Preschool & Whānau Hub

Aratupu provides high-quality affordable early childhood education for children 0 - 6 years. We have a strong emphasis on Māori culture and language.

Our curriculum is designed to meet the needs of the whānau in our community and focuses on building effective and supportive relationships with children and their whānau. Our Preschool and Nursery offers:
Nurturing and caring interactions
Respect and recognition that all children are individuals within a wider whānau
Fostering children’s independence and children know they have a place
Opportunities for physical activity, healthy eating and developing self care skills. We offer 20 hours ECE for 3 and 4 year olds. We provide a cooked lunch for children in the preschool. Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 2.30pm, all year except for 2 weeks at Christmas and all statutory holidays. Aratupu is licensed for 39 children. Teachers are qualified early childhood teachers. All staff have a current First Aid Certificate. Preschool (2 - 6 years) 30 children with 3 teachers. Nursery (0 - 2 years) 8 children with 2 teachers. Our teaching team is supported by an on-site Centre Manager. Aratupu offers a network of services for families, including:
On-site Whānau Support Worker, whānau room, parenting courses, child and parent groups, contracted skilled facilitators, and access to all Christchurch Methodist Mission services.

12/09/2026

Moments from this week - We celebrated Father's Day with a cooked breakfast on Tuesday. It was lovely to see whānau, tamariki and Kaiako connecting. We enjoyed baking muffins on Friday, the tamariki love helping to bake and enjoying what they have made. We saw many beautiful pūrerehua grazing on the blossoms of our plum tree. The tamariki were physically challenged by trying to jump over a pool noodle from the balance beam. There were many successful jumps, as well as some fails. Tamariki brushed themselves off and waited in line for another turn, to try again. Such a great resilience building activity and also an opportunity for them to make a prediction about how high they could jump, testing their physical abilities. Even though the roadworks out the front are annoying, the tamariki love looking out the gate to see what's going on. It's pretty cool being able to see real diggers and machinery right out our front door.
We are preparing for te wiki o te reo Māori next week and practicing hard for our waiata concert.

05/09/2026

Spring is here!
We have loved being out in our natural environment this week, marvelling at all the beauty that this season has brought so far. Our plum tree is in full blossom, filled with pūrerehua, pi and manu. We have spent many moments exploring and just watching nature.
We are also loving paper planes, dressing up and building. All open ended play with many possibilities. Dressing up encourages imaginative play, social competence and creativity. When tamariki are dressed up, they can be whoever they want to be. There is no right or wrong or final outcome, so is often a safe choice for tamariki when deciding what they would like to do.

29/08/2026

Moments from the week.
The tamariki love acting out the Ngāi Tahu pūrākau (traditional Māori story/myth/legend), The Battle of the Birds (Te Pakanga Manu). This promotes learning about our local iwi and area and is also an amazing opportunity for tamariki to grow their confidence and empowers them.
With the weather being warmer we had water play available. Painting with water is a favourite activity. We also had a range of physical challenges and activities to support creativity. On Friday we coloured daffodils for Daffodil day.

22/08/2026

Moments from the week ...
There were so many highlights; slime with coloured balls for a sensory experience, woodwork for hand-eye coordination, climbing trees for risk taking, chalk drawing for creativity, making sand castles for cause and effect, watching through the back gate at our neighbours friendly dog for a sense of community and making rēwena for kai and culture and also deliciousness 😋

15/08/2026

Moments from the week.
Ngā tamariki used what they found in the environment to get creative. I discovered a collection of logs, rocks and reels, all strategically place to create a masterpiece. Ngā tamariki worked together and did some heavy work, they persisted with the task and kept engaged for a sustained time.
The wind was another source of learning, as ngā tamariki chased tissues that floated up, twisting and twirling. This produces copious amounts of laughter and fun.
Our tinana (body) is always an interest and we have ngā pukapuka (books) available for tamariki to engage with. Kaiako will often support tamariki to understand what the pictures and words mean. It's great that our tamariki want to learn about their bodies, how the work and what keeps them healthy and safe.
As always, we encourage social competence and kindness and respect towards all living things.
😊😊😊

08/08/2026

Moments from this week ... A visit from Rusty the dog and learning about dog safety, watching the snow fall and going outside to catch it, looking through the fence while the trees were being trimmed and listening as the loud machinery munched it up, finding puddles in the sandpit and splashing in them, reading learning journey books together, and creating with the blocks.

01/08/2026

I captured this moment of one of our tamaiti helping another tamaiti to walk along the balance beam. We love seeing our tamariki supporting each other. "They are demonstrating social skills and the ability to take responsibility for fairness in their interactions with others" (Te Whāriki, Early Childhood Curriculum).

24/07/2026

The tamariki have been challenging themselves this week on the trapeze bar. Some have been learning to do flips, others to climb onto the bar and swing, while some were figuring out how to hold their own body weight. There have been many tears as they worked through frustration at not being able to do what they want on the first try but there has also been perseverance to keep trying, determination to not give up, courage to try something new and the amazing feeling of success when all the hard work pays off. They learned about letting their body rest and recover to be able to do more work and refuelling with kai and water to energise and hydrate. We also learnt about fairness as we needed to take turns, sharing our ideas and collaborating with others, as well as encouraging our peers and cheering them on. What a great week of learning 😊

21/07/2026

Our clever Kaiāwhina made these delicious and nutritious chicken pop pies for lunch today. They were filled with chicken, kumara and mixed veges, all blended to a creamy filling. For pudding they had banana chocolate chip muffins (made by the tamariki) and yoghurt. What an amazing lunch, our tamariki are definitely fed well 😋

18/07/2026

Tamariki loved helping plant the strawberries this week. It won't be long until we have some juicy, sweet strawberries to enjoy 😋
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Address

97 Harewood Road
Christchurch

Telephone

+6433526816

Website

http://www.mmsi.org.nz/early-childhood

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