SEEN Learning Collective

Don't you love it when you manage to stop yourself from saying the stupid thing just before it slips out of your mouth?

I am enjoying a cuppa tea and a slice of cake in the sunshine while my 6 year old is deeply engaged in that sometimes mythical-feeling independent screen free play.

The novelty factor of Toy Library toys is golden ⭐

And to think I almost robbed us both of this moment by saying
"you're too old for that"
"that's too big"
And other such nonsense things

It makes me wonder why do we stop playing as we get older, a tragedy that seems to be occuring younger and younger for children these days.

Did we stop presenting opportunities for play?

Did we replace joyful play with competition and hobbies with performance expectations?

Did the play move online?

Did we just get too busy and run out of time to play?

What a fitting name for our new base 💞

Today was our third session of our Creative One Day School in Putāruru, for children aged 6 to 10.

This cute old house was placed here at Putāruru Baptist Church after the men came home from war - a safe space for women and children to gather and support each other as families navigated changes and challenges. Named the friendship house, highlighting what a powerful thing a friendship can be!

And now we are fortunate enough for SEEN One Day School to use this beautiful home, once again, as a safe space where friendships are born.

On Tuesdays the house is filled with the sounds of children playing, creating, laughing and enjoying this home away from home....and today blasting rockets high into the sky. 🚀

Enquire now for our next cohort starting 25th of August. Limited spaces available.

Something magical is coming to Rotorua this Christmas…

This November, SEEN Learning Collective is bringing a little more creativity, colour and magic to the Christmas season.

We’re inviting whānau, schools, ECEs, businesses and community groups to create a Christmas tree for the SEEN Christmas Trees exhibition.

Choose from one of our five categories:
Once Upon a Tree
Christmas Through the Ages
We Are Rotorua
Earth’s Treasures
Marvellous Miniatures

You’ll find trees inspired by the people, places, stories and imaginations that make our community unique.

Join us at the Lynmore Scout Hall from the 27th to 29th November for a joyful community exhibition celebrating Christmas imagination, while raising funds to help SEEN support children through creativity, connection and belonging.

Tree entries are now open. Find out more and register via the link.

Tag someone you would love to see create a tree!

SEEN Christmas Trees SEEN Christmas Trees is a Rotorua Christmas exhibition celebrating creativity, community connection and festive magic while raising funds for SEEN Learning Collective.

The most terrible (and fantastic) advice I was ever given - "It's not your job"

And the job in question? Incorporating emotional literacy and wellbeing into my teaching 🤯 A few weeks later I quit.

Supported by some beautiful mentors, teachers I admired, and my poor Mum who listened to me rant and rave for many hours, that outrage was channelled into something more positive.

What if we could teach without the red tape?

What would we do differently?

SEEN was created, as an opportunity to teach the way we felt was right, in our hearts.

Where our priority was:

💚 Building deep, supportive relationships

💚 Giving our "seen" kids a place that felt like theirs

💚 Having a small, mixed age group that felt like a true community and honored individuality

💚 Empowering children, allowing freedom for their natural curiosity and creativity to lead learning

💚 And yes! Supporting children's well-being and social and emotional development

Consider it our kindness rebellion 😉

As parents it can be difficult to find time for ourselves, but it is so important!

On Wednesdays I have enjoyed going to "Get Up and Van Gogh" an adults art class at The Arts Village with Ria

I highly recommend Ria's art classes if you're looking for a magical place to inspire creativity, for your children or for yourself! Ria is great at empowering individuals, creating a welcoming community, and encouraging a playful approach to creativity.

This time allows me to return to my own teaching, feeling inspired, creative and ready to support others, pouring from an overflowing cup.

Today was a fantastic workshop in colour theory, which was quite timely as we will be mixing colours in class this week to create mazes for our colour scanning robot.

Robot Exploration at the SEEN One Day School

Serious focus, creativity, collaboration and perseverance in action!

If you have a creative kid who would benefit from our hands-on learning approach, in a small, welcoming group of awesome kids, check out our website for more details.

We have a couple of spaces available for you to join us in Term 3.

We had lots of laughter at Drama Club today, with our different bird-inspired characters up to all sorts of cheeky antics!

It was special to hear children's personal stories about their encounters with different birds. We worked together to exaggerate the stories for dramatic effect, and comedic value.

I'm not sure I will ever be able to look at a parrot again without smiling 🥰

Laughter is such a powerful tool for building connection!

One thing I have noticed about resources is that the feel of an object is more important than the accuracy of what it represents.

Children are delighted to have access to crystals, china teapots, handcrafted items and natural materials. This gives a variety of textures and weights, and has a sense of "preciousness"
(is it just me or does the word precious always have to be read in Gollum's voice 😅)

Today my young storytellers at Seen Drama Club worked in small groups to create their own stories from this quite random (thoughtfully curated) assortment of props.

Stories featured dragons, monsters, a group of scally-wag thieves, and a cheeky sheep that ate all the money!

We don't need to have the perfect prop for every possible scenario. Props are there as an invitation

✨ to create interest and inspire imagination

✨ to serve as a symbol "hey let's pretend these pom poms are dragons eggs"

✨ And bonus points if they touch the heart, objects that ground us, that feel nice to handle and make what we are doing feel special

We have a few spots left, if you have a creative storyteller aged 5-9ish who would like to join us on Thursday afternoons for a little bit of magic

💚 Firstly because it never fails to bring squeals of delight. And I believe childhood should include experiences purely just for the joy of it.

💚 The wow factor! Helping children foster a relationship with science as an exciting subject, and showing the magic that exists in our world. (Am I allowed to use science and magic in the same paragraph 😅)

💚 Children get to be experts and share their previous knowledge and experiences. Man, learning can be full on sometimes! We can't be in unchartered territory all day. We are consolidating knowledge and building confidence.

💚 There is different learning to pull out. Today we were talking about actual volcanoes, not the chemistry at play. This was one activity, amongst volcano diagrams, baking lava cakes, constructing lego volcanos. Showing a concept in a few different ways builds deeper understanding of the idea. And our learners will each connect more strongly with different activities.

💚 And of course underneath it all, our activities serve as an opportunity to work together, share an experience and express our ideas.

Think this learning style would appeal to your child? Send us a message to find out more about our One Day School for quirky, creative kids. Operating in Rotorua and Pūtaruru.

Kia ora! I'm Emma

I was born in Mamaku, but grew up mostly in the Waikato, before moving to Rotorua in 2025.

I am a self-proclaimed quirky kid, creative dabbler, soon-to-be Homeschool Mum, and teacher at SEEN Learning Collective.

My favourite thing about our classes is seeing the friendships that blossom when we bring like-minded people together to create community. There is something so special about that moment when someone enters our space and finally feels seen. I love witnessing the instant connection that follows, when one quirky kid meets another, who "gets" them.

I love my job! I wear many hats at SEEN. Teaching is my real calling, and the passion I have for our kids motivates me to push through the admin eventually 😅

Anyone who knows me, will tell you, I love to talk!

So if you are keen to learn more about our new class opening up in Pūtaruru, feel free to give me a ring. I am a 90's kid, I even answer the phone to unknown numbers 😉

It's much better to connect with a proper chat, and then you don't get buried in my emails. (Opps.)

☎️ 022 595 8209