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Happy Thursday to all our Pre-Kindy families. The rainy weather has certainly brought the temperature down, which is such a refreshing change! Today we were largely indoors, apart from a brief 30-minute play in our giant sandpit. This was a great opportunity to release some of our wiggles and jiggles and provided us with a great chance to utilise our upper body strength and coordination skills on the monkey bars, or our arm and leg muscles on the undercover swings.

We also had one of our favourites today – Arakan with Mr Daniel. Chi had fantastic ball catching skills today when Mr Daniel threw a small ball and she caught it – great work Chi! Jaxon adores Arakan and grins/laughs so much during the class.

In addition, today the children enjoyed the following play-based learning experiences:

  • Creating Kiwi bird collage (feathers, felt, paper and paste) as a sign of acknowledgment that in New Zealand today, it is Waitangi Day, a day that commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, which is regarded as the nation’s founding document. We also watched people perform the Haka (a type of ancient Māori war dance) and listened to a rendition of a traditional Maori song – “Pouwherua”. Both Maia and Ivy seemed familiar with these performances/songs.
  • Practising our puzzle completion skills. The benefits of children working on puzzles is that the task increases hand/eye coordination. In addition, completing a puzzle, even the simplest of puzzles sets a single goal to achieve.  Children must think and develop strategies on how to achieve this goal.  This process involves problem solving, reasoning skills and developing solutions which they can later be transferred into their personal/adult life. The accomplishment of achieving a goal brings so much satisfaction to a child.  Overcoming the challenges involved in solving a puzzle really provides a sense of achievement and pride, and boosts self-confidence and self-esteem. Marlie, Ivy, Elie, Zander, Oli, Indi, Asher and Lily were all engaged in working with puzzles today.
  • Blue Playdough with green, blue and white coloured rice, rolling pins and small sea creatures. After Lily had rolled her playdough out to a large, thin, circular circle shape, she exclaimed that it looked like the ocean, and that she had made it for the associated sea animals.

Please enjoy today’s photos. We hope you all have a lovely evening. Stay safe and dry!!

Love from Miss Donna and Miss Livia XX