Grace Kindergarten

Kia ora Grace Kindy Whānau

This week we jumped into our term topic "Ko wai au? / Who am I?"
We started with "Ko tōku whānau / my family." Who are the members of our families? We discovered our families are all different! We have been observing what faces and bodies look like and how we can add these features to our drawings of our families.

Remember to send us a family photo so we can add this to your child's book too!

At bible and prayer time we have been exploring our identity as children of God. God adopts us into His family as a precious child when we believe in Him. We have been enjoying a new song that you can sing and dance along to here. - https://youtu.be/s5MeNT1GEAI?si=cPpXEuTCXIPpJsnH

Next week we are looking at our friendships, how can we be a good friend to others and what do we appreciate about our friends at Kindy.

Next week is a pepeha week.

Kia pai tō rā whakatā

Kia ora Grace Kindy whānau,

This week marked the start of a brand new term (how are we already in Term 3?! 🤯)

As we have been welcoming some new friends to kindy, we spent time revisiting our Kindy Treaty, focusing on the Fruits of the Spirits 🍎 and how we can show these every day at kindy.. We also practised our emergency drills 🚨 to make sure we're prepared for the term ahead.

In Rainbow Group this week, we focused on writing our names and learning the days of the week. We have some super exciting things planned for Rainbow Group this term.

Next week, we'll begin our new term topic “Ko Wai Au?" (Who am I?) We’re looking forward to exploring identity, family, and what it means to be Gods Children!

Last week was our final kindy week of the term before Fun Week!

We had a big week revising everything we've learned this term about the life of Jesus. We talked about what it means to follow Jesus, how the Holy Spirit helps us grow to be more like Him through the Fruit of the Spirit, and what God has planned for us in the future.
On Friday, we learned about heaven and Jesus' promise that He is preparing a place for us. The children had so much fun imagining what their special rooms might look like, and there were lots of wonderful ideas and beautiful drawings—many featuring their families!

It has been such a joy to learn and grow together this term, and we can't wait for all the fun that Fun Week will bring!

As we continue to explore the Life of Jesus we have arrived at Jesus' death on the cross. This week we have been following Jesus' footsteps as he approached the cross. We have seen Him wash the disciples feet, share the last supper and pray in the garden. We have been thinking hard about why Jesus needed to go to the cross. We have been talking about our sin, like when we lie or hurt other people or don't listen to our mums and dads. We did an experiment where we had a glass of water and as we named sins we dropped some colour into the water, we could see that the water got darker and darker. How could we make the water clean again? In another glass we had bleach, representing Jesus who has no sin. As we poured Jesus' cleanness over our dark water, it became clean again. When we believe in Jesus and his death on the cross in our place, He makes us clean and we can be friends with God!

Matthew 1:21
A e whanau ia he tama, me hua e koe tona ingoa ko IHU: no te mea mana e whakaora tona iwi i o ratou hara.
And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Next week is a news week.

Kia pai tō rā whakatā

Kia ora whānau,

Last week we continued our “Life of Jesus” topic and talked about how Jesus wants us to treat others. We referred back to some of our previous learning about the Fruit of the Spirit and our Kindy treaty to give us some ideas. Some great ideas were: showing love, being patient, and being gentle - taking inspiration from bible stories such as the Good Samaritan.

After brainstorming and discussions, we all agreed that the Fruit of the Spirit is a great place to start when wondering how we should treat each other. We prayed that God would help us use the Fruit of the Spirit in our play and reminded ourselves that we can always pray to God to help us if we don’t know how to respond to a certain situation! We also had a visit from our puppet friends Moana and Maui who needed some help from our Kindy friends about how to treat each other the way Jesus wants us to.

We are looking forward to the rest of our term topic and what learning it holds!

This week is a pepeha week.

Kia ora Grace Kindy Whānau,

This week, we continued our learning about the life of Jesus. We focused on Jesus’ teachings and what they mean for us today. Together, we explored the stories of the Wise Man who built his house on the rock and the Foolish Man who built his house on the sand, the Good Samaritan, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

The children really enjoyed learning about these stories and discovering the important lessons Jesus teaches us about kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and making wise choices.

Kia ora whānau,

This week as we continue exploring the life of Jesus, our focus has been on the incredible miracles He performed. We talked about what a miracle is — when something impossible becomes possible — and how it takes faith to believe for it. We also shared with ngā tamariki that Jesus performed miracles because He loves us.

Ngā tamariki learnt through interactive slideshow of Jesus’ first miracles, re‑enacted the moment Jesus calmed the storm, and watched the “miracle” of feeding the five thousand come to life through story and play. It has been such a beautiful way to help ngā tamariki see Jesus’ power and love in action.

Kia ora whānau!

What a special week we have had at kindy! Alongside all of our exciting birthday celebrations, we have been learning about Jesus and His disciples — discovering who they were, why people chose to follow Jesus, and what it can look like for us to follow Him in our everyday lives.

During our Bible and prayer times, we have been joyfully dancing and singing along to familiar worship songs, as well as practising and memorising our memory verse together.

It has been a wonderful week filled with learning, laughter, worship, and celebration! ✨

Kia ora Grace Kindy whānau!

This week we continued exploring our term topic, “The Life of Jesus.” We learnt about when Jesus moved from Egypt to Nazareth at the age of two, and we talked about how He might have felt during such a big move. The children came up with some wonderful ideas, including feeling scared, nervous, and excited!

We also explored the story of Jesus being baptised. We talked about what baptism is and why people choose to be baptised. It was quite a big topic to discuss, but the children did a fantastic job sharing their thoughts and ideas.

We have also started using the song “Haere Tonu” as our tidy-up song at kindy, and the children have been doing a great job cleaning up when they hear it!

Kia ora Grace kindy whānau,
Last week at kindy, we focused on the idea of problem-solving, exploring questions like “What is a problem?” and “How can we fix a problem?”

We did lots of fun puppet shows and acting out different scenarios, which the tamariki absolutely loved!

We’ve also been introducing an easy four-step process to help tamariki when they encounter a problem:
1) Calm down and take some deep breaths
2) Say how we’re feeling
3) Think of some possible solutions
4) Try one solution

We created a set of cards with these steps and have been supporting the tamariki to use them throughout the week. If you’d like a set to use at home, please let a teacher know—we’d be happy to make one for you 😊