pass the beetroot

Winter science

Rippa Starts

Playground upgrade

The playground upgrade is getting into full swing so expect to see big changes when we get back from term break. We've also found a few interesting artifacts which we've used to strengthen our links with past children at St. Josephs. Meanwhile the children have been busy helping Aaron with the start of the build.

Visitors

With the government first cutting professional development funding for a year and then restricting funding to literacy and numeracy and finally slashing millions of dollars worth of funding from kindergartens, including funding for provisionally registered teachers it's just lucky we still have our own networks of learning.

Teaching children literacy and numeracy material when they haven't worked through the necessary developmental milestones to make a strong foundation for it tends to be have poor results, and negative long term consequences like a leaky home or the results of other ill informed and poorly thought through policies.

Even when children have had the time taken to build a solid foundation big shifts underneath their learning can cause it to fall over just like an earthquake, the shakier the foundation the more likely this is to happen.

Known as transition drop, shifting to a new environment can be a big knock to a child's confidence and abilities, so we work hard to cushion the shift through transition visits, building links and relationships with the 18 local schools we feed too, keeping links with past children, and making links with new ones.

Recently Jo was invited to present on transition to a class of teachers and trainees at Massey on the work we've been doing here and the learning we did with Monica Cameron when transition development was still funded.

Appleton heard about this and asked to visit us, braving the skyrocketing petrol prices that have been hitting many rural families hard to spend an afternoon sharing ideas on transition and the many other areas currently off the funded list but necessary for quality education. We even shared some literacy and numeracy ideas as they are important pieces when included in the whole puzzle.

It was really lovely to see Hilary, Shona, Viv, Annette and Megan and as well as sharing our ideas and learning we picked their brains as thoroughly as we could in an afternoon as well.

A big thankyou to them for taking the time and expense to come all the way over from Dannevirke to see us.

Batons

Hangi

More to come

Lines People

Weaving

Snow Ball fight

Despite no snow we decided it was cold enough to have a snowball fight.

Today Lochie asked if we could have another one and this time, Sam, Caleb E, Callum, Tom (wicked aim and great dodging, knows how to hold his shots till you've thrown), Lochie (more great aim and good moderation pulling shots really well), Ollie and Charlie had a go.

Dodging lead by Tom who was an expert and tempering your throw for younger friends especially when in too close became the important lessons of focus today. We stopped for the occasional stung cheek or ear, if needed had a cuddle and then decided to keep going or do something else. We kept at it for over an hour till our arms were sore and we were to tired.

In the afternoon we shifted to bat and ball.

Electric Learning

Watching the video below you can see why the research shows every $1 spent on Early Childhood is worth $13 spent later, when you see the learning that can take place with $15 dollars worth of batteries and around $80 of science kits.

The children here are learning to read circuit diagrams, solve problems, investigate, research, share their findings, observe, collaborate and find a life long love of learning.

Pulleys

Following on from lifting the rocks I decided last week to try out my new learning around pulleys and was soon joined by lots of helpers. The idea seems to be if you pull up twice as much rope you only have to pull half as hard. (See links on previous post.) So I set up what I hoped would be an effective pulley, modelling the trial and error nature of the experiment as I tested different setups. Then it was all hands on board to hoist each other up.

It still needs some work, but I'd like to set it up so a child can lift something with the pulley they couldn't on their own. One problem might be is there a difference between lifting and holding the weight. Maybe gears and brakes might have to be used?

Moving rocks

Watch this video to get an idea of how much weight one man can move on his own, you'd be surprised.




You might also want to learn about pulleys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T7tGosXM58&feature=related
or levers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us2KfO_yrPA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW7ztbwJKBk&feature=related
and screws, inclined planes, circular levers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1hjiOp6FEU

Teamwork

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LEGO

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Teamwork at the Slide

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