Hunter Park Kindergarten

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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Astronomy lecture series well worth a view

I've been privileged to attend the astronomy lecture series touring from Napier down to CHB the last few Fridays. It concludes this Friday the 26th of November 2010 and is well worth attending even if you missed the first two on galaxies and the solar system.

Roll up to the Waipukurau club at 7pm, entrance $10.

Hopefully if well supported they'll be back with more.

Cat visitor

A really lovely cat has been visiting us last week, very friendly and playful.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Protest in Napier part 3






The third part of the videos I made for parents who couldn't get to the protest against ECE cuts in Napier. Rick Barker concludes the rally.
Say no to cuts, say no to back door increases in teacher child ratios causing cuts to quality.
(These are my views and not necessarily those of our association.)

More speeches from the Napier Protest.

As I tried to explain to Chris afterward, most people can cook, but when they try to cook nutritionally great, tasty meals, for large numbers of strangers, in a restricted time frame, catering to special dietary requirements, fussy eaters and more without training disasters happen.
Then there is evaluating what and how you did as you plan for your future meals.
Teachers are ordinary everyday people, but they have specialist training.
Parents and families know their own kids and are an important part of their health care and education, but you need training to cater to large numbers and specialist needs, to detect subtle problems, and act on them.

Yes I know when my child has chicken pox but I still take them to the doctor.

Chris argued that some aren't getting anything, better they get something than nothing. While I agree we should aim for 100% participation, I don't agree cuts are the way to achieve that goal, regardless of how you manipulate the statistics and argue cuts are increases.
Yes Chris gruel will keep you alive but please sir we want some more.

Chris said it is about choices, well time and again the national government has found money for pet projects like national standards (even though it is widely regarded as faulty and redundant as duplicating existing assessments.) I know my children's school assessments have always been clear , picked up what has needed to be done, and as a parent I've always worked closely with my children's teachers to develop support programs for my children at parent teacher interviews. If it's choices I would rather have no cuts to ECE than money wasted on implementing the dubious National standards.

Anyway part 2, remember to watch part 1

The views expressed in all three of these posts are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of our association.




Napier Protest


With many families already having commitments to the CHB show not every one who wanted to be in Napier this Saturday could make it, regardless there was a huge turn out in from families across our association and others with a message for the government about the massive cuts that began affecting kindergartens and others from the 1st of November 2010.
Here's some video of the day for everyone who couldn't make it. (Speeches are edited down to key points, sorry about the jumpiness of my filming. It also needs a backing track, so please put some music on while watching. )
please also excuse the spelling error, I meant to say "hear" not here.
I also meant to say reduce the quality of teacher child ratios.

Friday, November 12, 2010

college musicians

Nicola organised the college's junior musicians to come and play for us.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Car Cleaning

It takes trust to park your car at kindergarten, several parents joking asked if they could but no one took us up on our offer of acceptance, Adrianne did however....hmmm

So what happens when you park your car at kindergarten next to a bucket of warm soapy water and clothes, unlocked!

Boat and siren more gas pressure

Warning take off headphones, hands on ears when you see the notice, the second half of this video is very loud, air pressure makes sounds.



Adrianne also brought a putt putt boat, the water vapourises to steam which as a gas tries to expand to fill a larger volume, but being contained instead becomes pressurised until it can pushes out the water, providing the locomotive force for the boat.




Sound is pressure waves in the air, sometimes sound waves are so loud we can feel them through our skin.

Why not google air pressure and see if you can find some youtube videos with more ideas about air pressure.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Compressure and pressure



Adrianne brought a rocket car for us at the show. I brought along my pump and we put it together. The compressed air forces the water (or air depending on what we put in) out the back.