Becky works on her skills in balance, strengthens her upper body ready for handwriting, gets a practical lesson in how a pulley works and reinforces her disposition to persist and perservere even when it is hard and you don't suceed straight away.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
More adventures
Lots happening this week, so here's some more movies, a little experiment to see how many children to hoist a teacher with our new 8:1 pulley set up, some of the bird life around the kindergarten (Tui, piwaiwaka, silver eye), a snowball fight, some builders and their discussions at smoko, and a roading gang discussing the difference between a police car and a taxi.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
What's in a word?
A past parent recently asked me, "what really is the point of teaching children Te Reo Maori, they'll never use it in the real world, they'd be better learning something like French or Mandarin."
It's a good question to which there are many answers.
One answer is words, think for a minute how you would say "nuclear missile" to an ancient celt? "Spear that strikes mountains as lightning strikes trees?"
When you learn a language you don't just learn sounds that come out of your mouth but concepts and ways of thinking, new ways of seeing the world that other languages may simply not have the words to express. Remember hypotenuse? Perhaps that's why New Zealanders are seen as so creative, because we combine within ourselves ideas and words the rest of the world simply doesn't have access to.
A big part of learning to be an effective teacher is learning the language of teaching, most jobs have it their own special jargon and ways of thinking, that's one reason why a person straight off the street can't expect to be a fully effective teacher without training any more than I could become a world class chef overnight, even though I cook.
But what about jargon, what about your everyday words, the words you use every day! When did you learn most of the words and concepts you've spent the rest of your life relying on, the words of society, friendship, courage, contribution, exploration, communication, belonging and wellbeing?
In Early childhood of course. That's why it's so important to have a rich vocabulary around your children, but it must be in context. Children of this age are concrete thinkers, they learn best when they physically experience the concepts that go with the words. That's why I often prefer the label conceptary education to describe us that simply Early Childhood Education.
It's also why we have to ensure in our quest to keep kids safe we ensure they still get the full and rich experiences they deserve and not wrap them in bubble wrap. Kids need quality and quantity, experiences should be repeated so they can return to them and grow their understanding as they explore. Check out these snippets of some of the exploration this term.
Hear the words in the videos. "now it's my turn", "come back", think how you now use those words, think about what they're learning as they say the words that will set them up for life.
It's a good question to which there are many answers.
One answer is words, think for a minute how you would say "nuclear missile" to an ancient celt? "Spear that strikes mountains as lightning strikes trees?"
When you learn a language you don't just learn sounds that come out of your mouth but concepts and ways of thinking, new ways of seeing the world that other languages may simply not have the words to express. Remember hypotenuse? Perhaps that's why New Zealanders are seen as so creative, because we combine within ourselves ideas and words the rest of the world simply doesn't have access to.
A big part of learning to be an effective teacher is learning the language of teaching, most jobs have it their own special jargon and ways of thinking, that's one reason why a person straight off the street can't expect to be a fully effective teacher without training any more than I could become a world class chef overnight, even though I cook.
But what about jargon, what about your everyday words, the words you use every day! When did you learn most of the words and concepts you've spent the rest of your life relying on, the words of society, friendship, courage, contribution, exploration, communication, belonging and wellbeing?
In Early childhood of course. That's why it's so important to have a rich vocabulary around your children, but it must be in context. Children of this age are concrete thinkers, they learn best when they physically experience the concepts that go with the words. That's why I often prefer the label conceptary education to describe us that simply Early Childhood Education.
It's also why we have to ensure in our quest to keep kids safe we ensure they still get the full and rich experiences they deserve and not wrap them in bubble wrap. Kids need quality and quantity, experiences should be repeated so they can return to them and grow their understanding as they explore. Check out these snippets of some of the exploration this term.
Hear the words in the videos. "now it's my turn", "come back", think how you now use those words, think about what they're learning as they say the words that will set them up for life.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Welcome to Term 3
This term we will be focusing on the virtues of Perception, Beauty and Creativity. We've already been researching various philosophies to find out what beauty is.
On the subject of philosophy we've just spent the last week relooking at our own philosophy statement responding to a challenge from our education manager.
Things we might include in our kindergarten's philosophy statement include why we were set up, what we want to achieve and what values are really important to our service and community. If anyone has and thoughts on what we should include in our philosophy statement, do let us know.
This term we farewelled last terms reliever Michelle off to a permanent appointment at Ellen Stevenson, and welcome Becky back who will be relieving till a permanent teacher is appointed.
I was lucky enough to have a principle roll in Oliver over the holidays, thankyou to everyone for your wonderful feedback on how well this went.
Sonya our student from Auckland University will be with us till the 20th of August when Elsa from EIT will be joining us till the end of the term as our new student teacher. Sonya's been introducing lots of ideas on recycling and papermaking.
This week we've been celebrating te wiki o te reo Māori, more news on this to come.
Last week we had a workshop with the wonderful Tanya Batt on storytelling and movement, a big thankyou to our hosts Waipawa kindergarten.
Over the term break we enjoyed our conference with many interesting speakers including a presentation we did on blogging and e-Profiles. We will also be presenting to our school and ECE colleagues at the Transition /ENET group on the 12th of August.
I've also been asked to help out with the high school science fair so I won't be here next Wednesday.
We have lots of new faces who've been settling well, welcome to all our new friends and families.
We also had many visitors, Bridget a student from St Josephs researching our history for a school project, new enrolments and children coming in for transition visits, do pop up.
Speaking of visitors we'll be welcoming the team from ERO near the end of the term and Zappo will be returning to present his show in the last week.
This term there's a couple of minor trips we'll look at. We've been invited by Cefyn to visit his art studio at Pukeora, we'll try to link in with school to view their performance for the Ngati Whai festival, and we expect to head out to the daffodils.
Our fundraiser for the term will be an Art Auction, probably on Thursday the 23rd of September.
Hopefully I'll have the final figures for the Hangi fundraiser next term. The final plans are nearly ready!
On the subject of philosophy we've just spent the last week relooking at our own philosophy statement responding to a challenge from our education manager.
Things we might include in our kindergarten's philosophy statement include why we were set up, what we want to achieve and what values are really important to our service and community. If anyone has and thoughts on what we should include in our philosophy statement, do let us know.
This term we farewelled last terms reliever Michelle off to a permanent appointment at Ellen Stevenson, and welcome Becky back who will be relieving till a permanent teacher is appointed.
I was lucky enough to have a principle roll in Oliver over the holidays, thankyou to everyone for your wonderful feedback on how well this went.
Sonya our student from Auckland University will be with us till the 20th of August when Elsa from EIT will be joining us till the end of the term as our new student teacher. Sonya's been introducing lots of ideas on recycling and papermaking.
This week we've been celebrating te wiki o te reo Māori, more news on this to come.
Last week we had a workshop with the wonderful Tanya Batt on storytelling and movement, a big thankyou to our hosts Waipawa kindergarten.
Over the term break we enjoyed our conference with many interesting speakers including a presentation we did on blogging and e-Profiles. We will also be presenting to our school and ECE colleagues at the Transition /ENET group on the 12th of August.
I've also been asked to help out with the high school science fair so I won't be here next Wednesday.
We have lots of new faces who've been settling well, welcome to all our new friends and families.
We also had many visitors, Bridget a student from St Josephs researching our history for a school project, new enrolments and children coming in for transition visits, do pop up.
Speaking of visitors we'll be welcoming the team from ERO near the end of the term and Zappo will be returning to present his show in the last week.
This term there's a couple of minor trips we'll look at. We've been invited by Cefyn to visit his art studio at Pukeora, we'll try to link in with school to view their performance for the Ngati Whai festival, and we expect to head out to the daffodils.
Our fundraiser for the term will be an Art Auction, probably on Thursday the 23rd of September.
Hopefully I'll have the final figures for the Hangi fundraiser next term. The final plans are nearly ready!
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