Hukanui Marae trip!

This Wednesday was the day that children were waiting for. Our children were so excited for this day, we were counting down about a week ago!

We have done a lot of preparation prior to the trip, learning about the parts of Marae, what is involved during the pōwhiri, and read some books about Marae.

I think one of the most exciting parts of the trip was going on the bus!

Waiting to get on the bus! 

                                                        Arrived at Hukanui Marae

                           
                                    One child said "Look! It is same as the photo! He is smiling!"

                               Doing a Yoga pose helps when waiting for a while to keep calm.

                                         Having morning tea together.

Our children had a fantastic time there at the marae. The kapahaka performance was amazing to watch, and this always gets the children so excited. They talk about how they want to be in Kapahaka when they get older.
We learnt about the history of the Hukanui Marae.
This marae is the oldest marae in the Waikato region.
The meeting house is called "whare nui".
The two panels at the front in whare nui signify god.
The current Maori King is Kingi Tūheitia.
The Hukanui Marae has the Kōhanga Reo attached to it.  Thank you for the wonderful singing, the children from the Kōhanga Reo!

On Friday, we talked about some of the patterns we saw at the marae. These are called kowhaiwhai.

Some of them have Koru patterns, crescent shapes, and oval shapes. The pictures of kowhaiwhai had 3 different colours. We talked about how these mean something culturally.
Red means blood.
White means promise for future.
Black means earth.

The children had a go at creating their own kowhaiwhai.

We will take more photos once their kowhaiwhai is completed.

What a fantastic week we have had! I am so proud of how everyone respected the marae and people at the marae. Well done everyone!

Learning about the gateway

This week, we have been learning about our gateway, and exploring the stories behind what each carving represents.

I introduced this brown bear called "Brownie" to the children first and said that Brownie has a problem to solve and wondered if the children could solve his problem.

Brownie had a picture of the gateway, but he was not sure where this was located in the school. Some children described where the gateway could be. This was a great exercise for using prepositional words like "It is at the front of the school", "No, it is at the bottom of the school." "Is it at the back of the school?"

With the gateway picture in hand, Brownie and the children went out to see where this could be in our school.

One of the children led her way to show us where it is...

                                                      "Hotumane is looking at me!"

As we came back from visiting the gate, we talked about each carving. Children looked at each photos of the carving, and we put them together like a puzzle to build the gateway. This was quite a fun activity, and again it provided a fantastic opportunity to use positional language.

On Friday, we again visited the gateway to explore. Children enjoyed touching with their hands/fingers, and some of them even felt it against their cheek.
This time, it was great to hear some children sharing a little bit of knowledge about some of the carving features. It is easy to recognise the fantail, the lizard, and the tāniwha. They love the facial expression of the koruru.

Each child decided to draw one feature of the gateway, so that we could construct our room 2 gateway together. We are still working on this, and it will be very exciting when we put our gateway together to go on the wall!

Swimming in life jackets!

Our Tuesday instructed swimming was a little bit different from what we have normally been doing....

Children put on the life jackets to get started!

Why is it important to huddle? 

-To keep warm

-For the plane or helicopter to be able to see the people 

This activity was a little challenging for some children but an awesome activity to learn about the use of life jackets. The instructor started splashing water on the children  as they were huddling they needed to stay huddling with each other. 

Our children are becoming very confident in the water as they are learning different skills with the instructors every week. They practice their learnt skills or keep practicing those skills on our free play swimming days as well! 

Keep up with your great work everyone! 

Sunflowers

This week, we have been learning about sunflowers. We have visited the kitchen garden, and found a few little baby caterpillars. The children were so excited about finding them, and studying them.

                                        If you look carefully, you can see a tiny caterpillar in this photo!


We also talked a lot about how sunflowers grow from a seed, and put the photos of the life cycle of the sunflowers in order. It was fantastic to see how children negotiated their ideas and talked why they thought which photo could come next.
We talked about what the sunflower needed to grow: the soil, water and the sunlight.
We also acted out being a seed and grow into a sunflower!

On Thursday, we drew pictures of sunflowers. We looked very carefully at the shape of the sunflowers, and how the petals were formed.
On a black piece of paper, the children used a lighter coloured pencil to draw the sunflower, and then follow the lines of their drawing with a glue.
                         

I could see the amazing concentration as the children traced the drawing with a glue bottle. They worked very hard at manipulating the glue bottle as if they squeezed too much, there would be too much glue on the line. It required hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and developing perseverance. It was wonderful to see the children giving this new activity a go and keep trying! 

The next day, as the glue has dried, and has became raised black lines. The children then coloured their sunflowers with soft pastels. I talked about how we could use the soft pastels and they do make our hands dirty! and it is ok!!! Being messy is a part of art processes! 

This unique activity really showed the children's creativity. I loved the colours they used and how they mixed the colours by rubbing fingers onto the paper. Some used the tips of their fingers and others used the palm of their hands when colouring a bigger area. A sensory activity is an important part of learning through play as the children explore the materials, feel the texture of the pastels onto the paper, how it can be used, and have fun through using all of their senses! 

Our Room 2 Sunflowers!