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.

Farewell from Sharon

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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

Hard Hats on.

Last term (24.3.2010) we were getting to many big blocks up high, so I showed everyone how to build a tower with big blocks on the bottom and small ones at the top (and how it let you get really high.) As always my rule is "Hard hats on if it's over your head." So I had to wear mine as well.

Building a tower is a great analog of a child's education and indeed for building a countries future. If you invest in a solid base you can reach the sky, pull away the blocks at the bottom and anything you build is wobbly no matter how much glue you buy to make repairs at the top.

I remember a bit over ten years ago when working as the only trained teacher in a centre of 8 staff comparing the difference to a centre I had worked at with 5 out of 5 trained staff. Both got the same funding, but boy was their a difference in the result, despite all the love and efforts of my untrained colleagues.

I ended up retraining as a secondary teacher because wages even for trained teachers in early childhood were so low you couldn't support a family, luckily soon after pay parity across the teaching profession was finally recognised and I could stay in the field I love, a field where I know I've made a difference for many children.

In my career I've seen the blossoming of Quality Early Childhood across the country, especially in the last 6 years, as all centres have been required to have 50% trained staff, a goal that was meant to progress to 100% by 2012. I've been proud to help train those teachers both as an associate and as a lecturer, my students have made me proud in what they've gone on to do for children, armed with their new knowledge and skills.

Sadly I noticed last month the untrained teachers rate having to be raised again last to bring them back up to the minimum wage, that's where we were 25 years ago, having pay rises to help us keep up with the minimum wage, I pay my babysitter more than that.

The exponential growth in budget early childhood from minimum wage to a professional wage has been an investment that has attracted some brilliant teachers to and back to the profession, giving a solid foundation to our education tower, I look forward to the last needed blocks being put in place in the next year or so.

Sandpit Construction

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New 500pc ZOOB Set!

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ZOOB

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A Lego house

Last night James May's Toy story screened a lifesize house being made out of lego, it was so cool. So Sharon set up her laptop to the TV and we watched selected bits of it again on tv 3 on demand. "Wow, holy shoot, look at that!"
There was lots of great science, such as testing lego beams of different designs with weights till they collapsed, plus lots of inspired building.
It fitted in really well with the increasing interest and development of construction play we have had over the last few weeks.


If you want to watch it, T.V. three has it available until about the 21st of March 2010 for New Zealand viewers, you may want to check your broadband plan to make sure you have enough bandwidth to download it first.

More Highland

Highland dancing continues to be requested, and there's lots of "I'm going to be at dancing tomorrow," with mums telling us our dancers count the sleeps between lessons.

Eden, Katy, Billie, Abigail, Harriet, Charlotte and more.

We watched some pipe bands on youtube the other day to learn about how the music is made. We also had a go a marching, did you know Sharon used to be a marching girl, and so was her mum.

We must watch the dancers on Greenwood Community Kindergarten's Blog with our dancers, what will they think?

Power Drill

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Ollie's walking creature.

A gate hinge

Jonty's been making a gate. We got some hinges for him from our hinge box, but one fell out of his pocket in the playground, and the other got lost on the way home. So I showed him how to make a hinge with wood and a nail.

"Nah I want a real hinge."

So back to the hinge box, and this time the hinges safely into the bag, not the pocket.