As a result, I haven't been blogging while I've been setting up each child with a file on it, along with a bmp photo, and a voice greeting. (It turned out to be a multistep process to convert large jpg to small bmp that look okay.) Now it's ready to go, the children have been enjoying getting to know it and what it can do. (Like send a voice mail to the other children at the kindergarten.)
We were lucky enough to get a new big flat screen, but this meant a little bit of conversion work was necessary to fit it to the display it came in. So off came the slightly small front panel and up went some high quality card and velcro.
A big thankyou to the team at IBM, Riverdeep and little tikes for the donation and the time spend setting it up and at the training day.
A big thankyou to the team at IBM, Riverdeep and little tikes for the donation and the time spend setting it up and at the training day.
The forest had many different trees, serving many different roles we talked about as we explored.
To be able to stare up the trunk of nga rakau roa ki roto i te ngahere and wonder were the top is.
The vines reminded one boy of the rigging he's been putting on the masts of his pirate ship he's been making over the last two weeks.
We could hear te tangi o nga manu in the trees, and sometimes see their nests (kohanga) and the birds them selves.
As well as giants the forest had ferns and moss. "he whakapai uruora" we go towards goodness through the help of those around us.
One particular favourite was the spider webs, as we passed them our parents were prompted by the sights to start sharing stories, our community of learners sharing their knowledge.
Some trees were just so big you had to see what was on the other side.
Small caves drew us in to find who lived in them.
We invited local story teller Mary and her husband Peter to come share stories and songs with us. She tucked a horse into bed with the help of one strong boy.
Learning in Early Childhood is learning in context, hands on, real life. 
I got a chance today to add in one of the stories we missed posting earlier in the year.
Jo caught this dogfish/shark over the Easter break and knowing the children's interest in the sea following our rocky shore trip explored it with the children. One child shared his knowledge of how sharks swim by showing the others in the water trough we set up.
The texture of it's skin was fascinating as was the firm and soft spots of it's body. 
Guided by photos from the internet and the fish book we got from the aquarium Jo then opened up the shark in response to the children's interest to see inside it. 
It was challenging to identify the fresh parts compared to the perserved specimen in the photo's but I drew on my zoology back ground to help Jo and explain about the different parts relating them back to the children's bodies. 
I also tried my best to give the names in Te Reo Māori, such as te whane ate, te puku, te niho, also tying in our favourite waiata "Mako."
We found the new rollers float.
One boy called me to show me he'd made the hose into a two laser, he went on to make it into a three laser, a five laser and a spread. He described how one path was high pressure and another low and then how after he'd adjusted it they were the same pressure, explaining his reasoning by describing how the high pressure water squirted up higher and farther than the low pressure.
He and his friends wanted to know what would happen if we pulled out the dam, I asked them for their hypothoses and then we tried it to experiment and observe. But the wood had swollen in the slots and was now firmly wedged in. 
A new experiment began as they tried different ideas to remove the dams, drawing from a range of sources and knowledge bases including at one stage sharpening a saw to help it cut by hitting it with a hammer as seen on Sponge Bob. This lead to a demonstration of how to sharpen a chisel.
I found the vibration effects on the water from the saw fascinating. David 
The next day we called Lucknow, waiting on line for them through out the morning but all we got was away from keyboard and no reply. 
Instead we practised looking at ourselves in the web cam, which was very entertaining as it behaves differently to a mirror. 
With a new date and a specific time before 11 am (after they tried to Skype us during our children's lunch) sorted out we got connected on Monday 10.11.08. Their children asked our gecko experts and our teacher David about Geckos and then our children chatted to their teachers getting used to the idea of a video link while they had group time.
