Hunter Park Kindergarten

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Bathroom colour

Armed with her power sander (We did provide, googles, mask and earmuffs) Janine, our president has been adding some colour to the bare patches on the bathroom wall, where the cisterns were lowered to make it easier for the children to flush.
So you may hear the children mentioning which colour toilet they've been too.

A very professional job, she even covers areas not to be painted.

Thanks Janine.

Party Animals

Every year we book farmyard zoo (for a start of summer trip) it rains and we have to cancel, so this year we decided to bring the animals to us, and booked Party animals. But guess what ? It rained. So we rescheduled and this week they made it (despite it being overcast) .

We petted them

Learnt about what plants goats like to eat, when we took it for a walk.

Kissed Mambo the Alpaca

Ollie was fascinated by the pins holding the fences together, and figured out how to pull them out and put them back in.

Rufus the donkey was a Jerusalem donkey, which related well to our Christmas happenings.

We introduced our giraffe James.

No rides on Wiz the miniture horse though.

It really was a smoochy Alpaca.

Naturally Jo found the goat a bridge.

and the goat found the garden.

Goats think sandpits are boring, no plants.

Com'on Connor let's find some food.

The animals stayed several hours then packed up and were very well recieved with some positive hands on learning.

Adrianne's birthday

It was Adrianne's birthday. Since she's been here, she has always organised a range of nutty, fun (and potentially embarrassing) presents for us. Now it was our turn. :)
We started with a small cake, and a special birthday hat she has to wear all day. (Like the ones she got us.)

Next came the umbrella incase of any water fights.

We got her a nice pottery pig and a rocket, because she likes pigs, especially kunekunes and she's always buying rockets.

Watch out kids!

Then we got her a bag of extra large balloons.

(Her favourite song is 5 red balloons, cause she gets to pop them.)

Then we got her a bag of even larger balloons, that you could use as punch bags.

Still got some puff left Adrianne.

A train whistle.

Another packet of balloons, very exciting rocket balloons. She likes rockets. Any puff left now?

Very exciting indeed. :)

Then we brought out her real cake. We called it Mr Hedgehog. But before we lit it we gave her a net to catch her breath.

Oy! We said to catch your breath!

Light the candles, gosh there's a lot of them.

Who are those fire bugs.

Okay blow them out.

Did we forget to mention they were relighting candles (Well ten were, I read instructions and it said max 10, Sharon is off camera standing by with the fire extinguisher just in case.)

After a few minutes she got them all out and the cake took a trip to the sink.

Then we finished off with a new bowling ball for her (another favourite game) a special light weight one.

And a lovely cookbook, that our spies told us she wanted.

Happy Birthday Adrianne.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Ho, Ho, Ho it's Christmas

"David do you know were the Santa hat is?"
"Sure and I can help you find a Jacket as well."
"Can you help me make some whiskers."
"Yes Mrs Knight has just dropped something off to us that would be perfect Caleb."
"Can we have some whiskers like Caleb?

Te Whāriki our curriculum says children should "experience an environment where they experience the stories and symbols of their own and other cultures."
As well as our tree (photo by Harriet) we've be reading lots of Christmas stories and looking at and or learning lots of Christmas songs.

One was good king Winceslas, were we acted out the song and learnt a little of it's history after I researched it online, relating it to our virtue of courages and service.

Often the songs have new words that expand the children's vocabulary, these lead to questions as the children share their ideas with their friends.

Away in a manger lead to discussions at Jo's mat about baby Jesus, with the children sharing their knowledge, about who they thought Jesus was, plus about cows, stables, ponies and learning about what a manger is.

The line "lead us to heaven to live with the there," lead to the children asking questions about and sharing their ideas about Heaven. Jo caught these thoughts.

"Heaven is Tangaroa, Tangaroa is the ocean and the heaven."
"Heaven is like walking on top of clouds."
"My bantem got killed at it was buried and now it's in heaven."
"It's up in the sky."
"My horse had a sore leg and it couldn't get up, so dad had to get his gun and shoot it."
"Heaven she's God."
"No cause God's a boy, he's got long hair, girls have long hair but boys can too, that's why you think he's a girl when he's really a boy."
"Heaven is in your heart cause my mum said."
"Our cat died because it couldn't wee anymore. we put it it a box and buried it with a rose on and now it's in heaven."

Next week we'll have a go at acting out some of the Christmas stories we've been reading.