News
29 August 2024
A month full of Cultural Celebrations and Learning!
Kia Ora! This month has been full of exciting activities and cultural celebrations at our preschool! We celebrated Cook Islands Week and Tongan Language Week by learning about greetings, colors, numbers, and the days of the week from these cultures. The children enjoyed making Tongan “Otai” and learning some Cook Islands language from one of our dads. We also had a visit from the librarian who entertained the children with puppet stories and songs. A highlight was our parent evening where we discussed raising resilient children. Parents learned about language development and strategies for managing common behavior issues. The children had fun with our homemade Olympic Games, where they created and awarded their own medals. We also raised awareness about asthma with the Sailor Asthma Show, presented by Aimee Gaestro. The Kapa Haka group from St Mary’s School performed for us, and it was a fantastic experience. Be sure to check out the videos! Our oldest children visited St Mary’s School to see what primary school is like and what they can expect. It’s been a busy month, and we look forward to more enriching experiences for the children. Connections to Te Whāriki (ECE Curriculum) Learning Outcomes: Belonging: Connecting with people, places, and things in their world Contribution: Using skills and strategies to play and learn with others Communication: Enjoying and creating stories
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27 August 2024
Sustainability journey - part 2
What and how do you re-use, recycle and upcycle things you find lying around? How creative can you get with a bunch of things that could be thrown away?
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27 August 2024
Our Olympic Games
Our Tamariki had an amazing two full weeks of Olympic games! We started off with an opening ceremony and torch baring and then held different sports events each day.
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26 August 2024
A month full of learning!
In August we have been busy exploring and learning more about so many different things! Kauri Room have been visiting Anderson Park, which is right across the road from our centre! The children loved having this opportunity to go out of the centre with their peers and teachers and explore using all their senses and gross motor skills at the children’s playground. Part of our local curriculum is ensuring Tamariki are being offered opportunities to explore their wider community, and with Anderson Park being right at our doorstep it is the perfect reason to get out and about! Pohutukawa Room have been focusing on supporting children’s social and emotional competencies, which is part of our philosophy. There has been lots of fun for Tamariki engaging in group learning experiences, and with the lovely Napier Spring weather just around the corner, outside has definitely been the place to be! The sandpit has been a big focus this month, we have children problem solving, working together and experimenting together as they have dug, created volcanos, rivers and construction sites, just to name a few. As the world has been watching the Olympic Games in Paris, we have been supporting the New Zealand athletes and having our own Active Explorers Greenmeadows Olympic Games! This has been such a fun time for all rooms, we have watched some of the games together, supporting our New Zealand teams, as well as hosting our own events. Kaimahi Andrea brought in some of her Taekwon Do equipment and the Tamariki were keen to show off their knowledge, as some children practice boxing at home. It was lovely watching the tamariki kick and hit the focus pad and try on the boxing gloves and helmet. We have also had a ‘Wheels Day’ as well as basketball, bean bag throwing, gymnastics with beam, rhythmic dancing with ribbons and jumping off the boxes! What a busy but fun August we have had!
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23 August 2024
Little Scientists Surface Tension experiment
This week for little scientists we looked at surface tensions- this is when water droplets form on top of surfaces.
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15 August 2024
Gold Healthy Heart Award
Here at Lollipops Britomart, the journey to achieving the Healthy Heart Gold Award has been an inspiring and collaborative effort, reflecting our commitment to the health and well-being of every child in our care.
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13 August 2024
Matariki at Lollipops Pukekohe
Celebrating Matariki has been a great opportunity for our little ones at Lollipops Pukekohe to learn the language and cultural traditions of the Māori culture.
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12 August 2024
Supporting your Child's Early Literacy
There are many ways that whānau can positively impact their child’s early literacy development by creating opportunities during day to day interactions. Here are just three of the ways you can help support your child on their literacy learning journey.
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07 August 2024
Celebrating Matariki at Active Explorers Greenmeadows
In July the centre’s focus was on learning more about Matariki, the Māori New Year. Matariki is a time of remembrance, to come together and celebrate and share kai. At the centre, Kaiako were supporting children’s sense of culture and identity through each room learning more about Matariki and what Matariki means.
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06 August 2024
A Month full of fun, learning, and getting out in our community!
At the very beginning of the Month, we decided that we needed to seize the moment and start our excursions back up which see us go on regular weekly excursions in our local community here in Mana.
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01 August 2024
Celebrating Cook Island language week
Kia orana, This week we celebrated Cook Island language week in many special ways
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31 July 2024
Hōngongoi July 2024
Written by Kaiako Nicola from the nursery The Tamariki in the nursery are developing their communication skills every day. I really enjoy talking to whānau in the morning and hearing what the tamariki have been communicating at home.
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