Nurture at home with Wendy

Happy New Year! It has been a busy term. Here is a snapshot of just some of the highlights. We also welcome __________ who is with us just for a short time just while care is needed- it has been a joy to have you as part of our lovely little group.

Some of our favourite waiata this term has been:
"Spring is here" by The Learning Station
"Pakipaki clap! by Kindy Rock"
"Spin your poi" Dr. Kate Riegle van West
"The Christmas Action Song" by The Kiboomers: - A 'Wish You A Merry Christmas' action song.

Favourite pukapuka included:
"Tu meke tuatara!: a little kindness goes a long way" - Lot's to find in this story - lovely to see the tamariki spotting various items and counting.
"Bluey-The Pool" Puffin Books
"We're going on a Moa Hunt" by Patrick McDonald
"First words in Māori" by Paul Tilling - lots of pictures to search and find.
"The Best Present Ever" by Neil Griffiths

We have been exploring the theme of 'growing up' and experimenting with many different occupations, learning about ourselves and our family. There were so many occupations to experiment with. To name a few, we tried our hand at being a 'toy maker' making bouncy balls, a 'scientist' experimenting with static electricity, gardener, florist, forestry worker, tent maker, farmer, shop keeper, medical experts, designer/ builder, mathematician, teacher and baker. We had a treasure hunt to find little figures wrapped in parcels - and talked about what these figures are wearing about their occupations or "what they might be doing". Tamariki thought of all sorts of wonderful deas in this theme including making a Lego rotating toothbrush, collecting berries for counting and sorting and teaching new gym moves.

We farewelled Mr L. You will also and your lovely family be missed but I wish you well for your continuing learning journey. You have also been a lovely part of our group. I will miss your enthusiastic and inquisitive nature. I am sure you will also do well with your enthusiasm in learning and interest in playing with and encouraging other Tamariki around you.

Favourite waiata:
"When I grow up" by Super Simple Songs (played on audio)
- this is a fun song for acting out different occupations: fire-fighter, baker, dancer and astronaut. (I think the favourite in our group was acting out the dancer!)

Favourite pukapuka:
"Sir Laughalot" by Tony Mitton and Sarah Warburton
This story was requested a number of times with wonderful enthusiasm. - A story about a character whose occupation was meant to be a knight fighting others, but he found he preferred to make others laugh and laugh with them. - Lovely to hear tamaiti re-tell parts of story as they grew more familiar with the story. We especially loved stomping along with the giant in the story too!

We have been learning about Germany/ travel, celebrating Father's Day and Daffodil day. We made German potato pancakes and German apple cakes. We made a traditional German 'Schultüte': a little cone shaped parcel filled with school goodies as a gift for tamaiti starting school. For fun tamaiti chose and filled it with lots of items that started with 's', plus some other items we thought the receiver might like. We re-made Mr L's favourite paper plane craft and had a competition seeing what country flag we could 'fly' our planes. As our planes landed on the different flags we learnt the different greetings of these countries, including hello in German: 'Guten tag'. We crafted pom-pom cuckoo's (inspired by the German 'cuckoo' clock).

We farewell Mr J. I have loved your lively nature. You and your lovely family are missed but I wish you well for your continuing learning journey. I am sure you will do well with your lovely, gentle way you have to connect and encourage others to join you on your adventures.

We welcome back Miss E. Lovely to have you with us again. You have a wonderful 'can do' attitude, keen to try a variety of activities and continue to get on well with our beautiful little group.

Favourite waiata:
'The sailor went to sea, sea sea to see what he can see' - fun song where tamaiti looked around and named some items he could see.

'Two little, dicky birds sitting on the tree, one named Peter, one named Paul' - This was a fun song to get our pompom birds 'flying' away.

Favourite pukapuka:
As many of the familiar 'fairy tales' were written by the German 'Grimm Brothers' we read a number of these. A favourite included 'Little Red Rding Hood, where we enjoyed dressing up as 'red riding hood and the 'wolf', making 'wolf' sounds and thinking about where our eyes, ears, and mouth are.

Here is a snap shot of our winter theme.

Tino pai, wonderful Mr L's thought to add an extra dimension to the snow man art, adding a drawing of family and reminiscing of a recent experience.

Lovely to see the enthusiasm when finding the hidden snowflake shapes inside the tiles for an iceberg game. We tapped out iceberg tiles with the letter 's'.

Mahi pai, Mr C inspired us to get out the pretend snow again and do some more delightful snow creations.

Kai pai, Thanks Mr J for your great inspiration to fit us all out with a helmet ready for some pretend 'ploughing in the snow'.

Favourite waiata:
"Snowflakes, snowflakes we love snowflakes" by Simple Songs (audio play)- This was a fun one for pointing to the different parts of our body - nose, toes, hands and knees.

"Dinosaur stomp" by Kiboomers (audio play) was definitely a favourite this season too - being requested a few times. Great to see the enthusiasm in dancing along to this.

Favourite pukapuka:
"Ollie and the Wind" by Rono Joy Ghosh - inspiring us to have a go at making our kites to see what the wind would do to them.

"The Snow Lion" by Jim Helmore inspired us to play hide-and-seek like this lion liked to do.

Some activities we did to celebrate Matariki, included making star shaped wands to practice waiata: 'tirama, tirama nga whetu/ twinkle twinkle little star', baking Rawena bread - making 'space ship' shapes, starry-space playdough and other art, making light lanterns using recycled tins and harvesting vegetables to give as koha for our whanau. We have been learning about the letter 's'. Thanks nurture@home for the seeds you gave us so we can plant for the new year too.

Some snapshots of the learning/ play we did with the dinosaur theme. We have been learning about the letter 'd'.

Below is an example of our learning environment set up for our dinosaur theme week. Our environment is adjusted regularly, with some items commonly available for some familiarity and other items/ craft/ sensory invitations rotated often according to children's interests/ needs/ abilities, themes and to keep our learning opportunities fresh.

Often items are brought out during the day - eg. items such as paints, cut and paste, fine motor activities and water play are brought out for the time we are actively using these.

Reminiscence Easter theme

Reminiscence of 'safari' theme

Reminiscence of vehicle theme