Lollipops Aubrey Street

🌟 Save the Date – Puanga Celebrations! 🌟

We’re excited to share that our Puanga celebrations will be held on Wednesday 8th July. This is a special time for many iwi who look to Puanga to mark the Māori New Year, and we look forward to celebrating together with our tamariki and whānau.

✨ More details to follow soon — keep an eye out for updates.

Ngā mihi nui,
From the team 💛

🌿✨ Patterns in Play = Early Maths Learning ✨🌿

Our tamariki have been exploring patterns through loose parts, music, blocks, and nature. What looks like simple play is actually building strong maths foundations — noticing sequences, predicting what comes next, and explaining their thinking.

These rich experiences link beautifully to Te Whāriki, especially Exploration | Mana Aotūroa and Communication | Mana Reo, as children make sense of the world around them.

💛 He taonga te tamaiti — every pattern tells a story of learning.

All ready to snuggle up, read some pukapuka, enjoy berry porridge for morning tea and milo.

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Teamwork makes the dream work! Puzzles are so great as an activity on their own, they involve thinking through the problem in front of you and developing the coordination of your hands and fingers, spatial understanding and thinking and reasoning skills.

When you add in working on a puzzle with a good friend you also learn teamwork, turn taking and cooperation.

At Lollipops Aubrey St we have a wide range of puzzles to meet the interests and skill levels of all the tamariki in our care. The puzzle area is always busy 😊

It's the little things in life...

Today our Juniors teacher, Sam, found these really interesting flowers in the carpark which she found out comes from a tree called a hairpin banksia. Sam cut some flowers for the tamariki to look at and they thought it looked like pineapples 🍍
The tamariki were fascinated enough just with the interesting flowers, but imagine their surprise and delight when they found a caterpillar crawling from one of the flowers!!! The caterpillar was teeny tiny and had the most interesting way of moving. The tamariki were so gentle and absolutely captivated, they watched the caterpillar crawling about for such a long time!

In case you weren't aware, we are a collection point for pyjamas for the Kindness Collective PJ drive. Feel free to pop in and drop off some pajamas for children in need 😊
Pyjamas must be new, sizes 0-5 please

This year, we're supporting The Kindness Collective's PJ Project.

Up until the 12th June, we'll be collecting brand new pyjamas - our centre is a drop-off point if you'd like to donate in person, or you can donate online if that's easier.
👉 https://pj-project.raisely.com/evolve-education-group

Every pair of pyjamas makes a real difference - helping bring comfort, kindness, and a little extra warmth to tamariki across Aotearoa who need it most 🫶

Our centre is a drop-off point if you'd like to donate pyjamas in person, or you can easily donate money online if that's easier.

For our final post for New Zealand sign language week we have the signs for inu and kai (drink and eat). Considering how much we all love our food here at Lollipops Aubrey St I imagine this one will get used a lot by the teachers 😊

For those who are eagle eyed, you may have noticed that I have posted photos of the Preschool team and the Infants team but not the Juniors team yet. Despite all my best efforts that team is just so busy that I can't get them all in one place at the same time!!!

In lieu of a photo let me express my appreciation and thanks to a team that works incredibly hard and is dedicated to providing the best learning environment possible for all the busy toddlers we have in Kopa Tupu.