Inspiring Minds Montessori PreSchool, Palmerston North

You are a King in our eyes!!
Our children were busy creating and decorating crowns as part of our learning about the King’s Birthday holiday. We talked about why Monday is a public holiday and explored what it means to be a king.

The crown-making activity helped children gain an awareness of the holiday while encouraging creativity and self-expression. The children proudly wore their crowns and looked very royal indeed!

During our discussion, we agreed that being a king is not just about wearing a crown. The kind of kingship we promote is based on kindness, helpfulness, equality, and equity. If you show these qualities, then you are a king in our eyes.🧡

This special day is all about standing together to celebrate diversity, promote kindness, and to help tamariki understand the importance of standing up against unkind behaviour and choosing kindness instead.
Throughout the day, children engaging in conversations and activities with our tamariki focused on friendship, inclusion, and the power of kindness.
In the afternoon, we explored the idea that we are all connected through friendship.The tamariki worked together on a big friendship poster where each child connected themselves to their friends using colourful lines and drawings. It was wonderful to see everyone contributing to the same work, showing that every person in our room belongs and is important.
Some tamariki also enjoyed colouring, cutting, and making patterns on pink shirt pictures, carefully using their creativity and fine motor skills🙂

💖 Happy Mother’s Day to all our amazing mums! 💖🌸

Over the last week, the children have been very busy preparing special surprises for Mother’s Day. They worked hard creating beautiful handmade cards and on Friday enjoyed baking yummy heart-shaped biscuits for their mums. 🍪❤️

The children were so excited and did a wonderful job keeping their surprises a secret until Mother’s Day! Through these activities, they explored creativity, developed fine motor skills, practised teamwork, and experienced the joy of giving and showing appreciation for the special people in their lives.

We are so proud of the care, effort, and love the children put into their creations. We hope all our mums had a beautiful and love-filled Mother’s Day! 🌷✨

Today we celebrated Sri Lankan New Year with the children!

We learned about Sri Lanka. Looking at its flag and where it is located in the world and talked about what the New Year symbolises, including its special customs and traditions. The children learned that lighting the traditional oil lamp represents prosperity, light, hope, and unity.

We talked about the betel leaf and its purpose in showing respect and seeking blessings from elders.The children were fascinated to watch a demonstration of how to scrape coconut using a coconut scraper and how coconut milk is made.

Before cutting the cake, all the children joined in saying “Suba Aluth Awuruddak Wewa” (Happy New Year).

The children also enjoyed tasting a variety of delicious Sri Lankan traditional treats, including mung kavum, milk toffee, kiri aluwa, kokis, and kiribath (milk rice).

A special thank you to Thavish and his family for generously providing the food, coconut, and the lamp.

What a fun and meaningful learning experience for everyone! 🌼

Over the week, the children were busy engaging in a range of Easter activities. They enjoyed pinning Easter bunnies, painting, making cards, and colouring Easter egg pictures to contribute to our beautiful Easter wreath.

We were also grateful to our families who brought in Easter eggs and hot cross buns to share. Thank you for your generosity!

The highlight of the week was, of course, the Easter egg hunt. The children had a blast searching for eggs in the garden, and everyone was able to find one. We’re not quite sure what was more exciting—finding the eggs or eating them—but there were smiles all around!

Wishing all our Montessori families a peaceful and happy Easter 🐣

🍀 Our classroom was full of green this wek as we celebrated St Patrick’s Day together Many of the tamariki came wearing green clothes, which is believed to bring good luck on this special day.

A big thank you to Amelia’s dad, Damien, who joined us to share wonderful stories and fun facts about Ireland and St Patrick’s Day
Ahe children gathered together and listened as Damien showed pictures and talked about the celebration.

We also enjoyed some creative activities during the day. Some of the children painted shamrocks, while others explored art and craft materials using different colours and textures.

A special highlight was tasting delicious Irish soda bread, kindly made by Damian. The children were excited to try something new and shared their thoughts about the taste.

What a fun and meaningful day of learning and celebration 🍀

Last week, we celebrated Lunar New Year together,
Children came dressed in red and other beautiful outfits. Red is a special colour that means luck and happiness, and our room felt bright, joyful, and full of excitement.
Children enjoyed a range of fun activities. Some traced symbols in the sand tray, while others made colourful dragons and paper lanterns. They showed great creativity, focus, and patience.
During group time, we shared the story of the Lunar New Year zodiac animals. We also made dumplings together! The children carefully folded and pressed the dough, showing wonderful control and perseverance.
We finished our celebration with a dragon dance and shared the dumplings with everyone. It was a special time full of learning, joy, and togetherness.
🙂

Christmas Wishes
The children have been spreading Christmas cheer by decorating the Giving Tree, bringing gifts, creating Christmas decorations, and even making Christmas cards. 🎄
The Salvation Army Band visited us to play some carols and join in with our action songs. They also showed the children how their instruments work, which was a wonderful experience for everyone.
Throughout the week, teachers talked with the children about the value of giving and the positive impact their generosity has on the children receiving their toys.
A heartfelt thank you to the Salvation Army Band, and thank you to everyone who supported the children in bringing a gift. At such a tender age, it is truly wonderful to see their generosity, especially when many sacrificed one of their own toys. The children helped load the gifts into the car by forming a human chain, which was a lovely moment of teamwork and care.
We then all enjoyed a shared lunch together.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year! 🙂

✨ We celebrated Diwali on Friday! ✨
What a wonderful day filled with fun activities and amazing experiences for our tamariki (children) and kaiako(teachers)!
The tamariki painted beautiful diyas and coloured vibrant rangoli patterns. The highlight of the day was having mehndi (henna) applied on hands — such excitement all around! We are so thankful to Elahi's Mum and Avir's Mum an aunt who came to help with the mehndi application.
The children loved choosing their own designs — from trains, love hearts for Mum, circles, triangles, and squares, to flowers and butterflies. Almost everyone had their hand painted!
We were also treated to some delicious Indian sweets and savoury treats from Elahi's and Avir's Family.
To conclude our Festival of Lights celebration, we lit each and every diya that the children had painted — a beautiful and glowing end to a joyful day. 🪔💛

What a special day at Inspiring Minds Montessori! Kaiako Alex brought in her three pet ducklings 🐥 for the tamariki to meet. Together, the children prepared a cosy space with dry leaves, went on a slater hunt, and learned how to be calm, gentle, and caring around these tiny visitors.

There was so much laughter as the ducklings tickled little hands while feeding, and the tamariki showed beautiful empathy, patience, and curiosity - noticing how the ducklings moved, ate, and interacted.

This experience sparked wonderful conversations about caring for living things (kaitiakitanga) and even inspired some beautiful artwork afterwards. 🌿💛