Haere mai! Welcome to Mairtown Kindergarten's blog.

Nau Mai Haere mai. Welcome to Mairtown Kindergarten's blog.


21 Princes Street, Kensington, Whangarei, New Zealand

Phone: 09 437 2742

Email: mairtown@nka.org.nz

Monday 14 December 2020

Christmas Tree Walk 2020

 

We have been lucky at Mairtown Kindergarten over the years, to have had some wonderful teachers and teaching teams that have paved the way for some lovely traditions we now have at Mairtown.  One of these is our now annual Christmas Tree Walk. 

In our current climate of change, and that of 2020, we are appreciative that we have been able to continue this tradition this year. 

“Traditions are the memories of those before us, breathed to life when we carry them on.”

Kennedy Ryan, the Rebel King.



In continuation of this beautiful tradition, we use materials that are naturally sourced to make our Christmas decorations, supporting our kindergarten kaupapa .  This year, harakeke manu were woven with the support of tamariki, who helped split the harakeke and weave the small manu.  Once finished, tamariki decorated the manu with beautiful gold and silver paint and a little glitter.  Manu, in particular the tui, play a large part in Mairtown traditions, aside from being part of our kindergarten logo, tamariki receive a “Tui” when they leave Mairtown Kindergarten – these are all “unique” and different, as were the beautiful manu created for the Christmas tree.










In addition, the tamariki have been learning Christmas carols for the past few weeks.  Every whānau time tamariki have been practicing their singing and actions for a performance that they will give to the community of volunteers at the church.




A positive and happy environment that is set by kaiako reflects on tamariki and their sense of belonging in the centre. "Belonging is nurtured through social interaction with kaiako and other children and by respecting the achievements and aspirations of each child’s family and community (Ministry of Education. P.31, 2017).



Today, we were able to go and see our beautiful magical Christmas tree, alongside many others that have been created by different community groups.  Lots of excited Mairtown tamariki walked together from kindergarten to see our tree in the church.  
 






The women from the church, who provided us with some lovely refreshments and shared a Christmas story with us all, warmly welcomed us.  We then sang together our Christmas carols to show our thanks to them all.





We were so happy that lots of our amazing whānau were in support and were able to join us for this trip.  We appreciate as always the wonderful support we receive for these special occasions. “Whānau can be involved in themed activities for the occasion to encourage community mindedness to acknowledge a kinship with one and all." The expectation is that each ECE service will use Te Whāriki as a basis for weaving with children, parents and whānau its own local curriculum of valued learning, taking into consideration also the aspirations and learning priorities of hapū, iwi and community" (Ministry of Education, p. 8, 2017).












“The magical dust of Christmas glittered on the cheeks of humanity ever so briefly, reminding us of what is worth having and what we were intended to be,” - Max Lucado







What was it you most enjoyed about the Christmas Tree Walk?

The Christmas trees! – Sienna-Rose

The  fairies and I saw strawberries – Marlee

The lights and I saw some sheep! – Hazel,

Me too, on the tree they were decorations – Sienna-Rose.

The Christmas trees – Indi

Looking at the Christmas trees, they beautiful – Joshua.

The Christmas trees with the fluffy pompoms. – Maci

The Christmas trees – Lennox.


"Rituals play an important role in society. Rituals remind us of what is important and provide a sense of stability and continuity in our lives" 

(Cathy Stucker, 2009)


Christmas time with our tamariki is a magical experience, as they encounter all of its wonders.  I feel lucky that we are able to continue this tradition, and we are able to share it with our new tamariki, whānau and teaching team.  From all the team at Mairtown Kindergarten, we wish everyone a magical and safe Christmas.

Ngā mihi nui

Sarah



Monday 7 December 2020

Nau mai, haere mai ki te pātaka kai o Mairtown!


Late last year the kaiako at Mairtown kindergarten started to talk about the idea of starting up a pātaka kai that we could be kaitiaki of. The Pātaka Kai/Open Street Pantry Movement is a resident led, grassroots, crowd sourced solution to immediate and local need, rescuing food and encouraging the co-sharing between neighbours to strengthen communities.  Whether a need for food or a need to give, this movement facilitates neighbours helping neighbours, building community. 


Those who wish to contribute may do so at their own discretion when convenient.  Kai has a role of nourishing whanau tinana and wairua, while reducing stress and promoting the values of koha and manaaki.  This is a way of celebrating as a culture, as an iwi, as a people.  It's about that whole sense of manaakitanga.  This is a judgement free movement.  This is not a new idea, our ancestors have done this in many shapes & forms in the past.


In May we purchased a beautiful upcycled pātaka kai from the amazing team at the ReSort Store in Whangārei. Once it was back at kindergarten it was time to get it ready for the road side. A little waterproofing and a beautiful sign and it was ready to go. 



Our pātaka was opened as part of Harvest Day, a very special annual celebration during Matiriki where whānau are able to share their abundance of what they have at home and in their māra, alongside heartfelt and positive affirmations for the receiver. 



In the beginning the pātaka was a little scarce of kai, due to covid-19 our māra kai was empty and we had only just begun planting kākano/seed for the next season. We were very lucky to be given a box of “Little Gardens” by New World. Once they had grown to a decent size they were placed with the pātaka for whānau to take home and grow.


Amalia, Izzy & Jye - 3 of our top gardeners and kaitiaki of our māra kai.


In October we connected with the fabulous team at Whakaora Kai Taitokerau / Food Rescue Northland. These stars have diverted 110.9 tonne of food from Taitokerau landfill in the last 12 months. This reduces both carbon emissions and toxic leaching into water sources. Its as simple as signing up and ordering kai as it becomes available. There was a lot of korero with the tamariki about food waste at this time.



"It's so people like adults, your Mum or your aunties or if your neighbours want some they can have some. So other people can take it home. It's not good to waste food because you can share it in the pātaka kai" 
- Izzy 

"We have one so people can get some food without having to buy groceries if they don't have money. The food comes from the neighbours and all of the people in the country."  
- Harper

"To leave food for people who don't have enough food. It's for sharing kai. People who have too much kai them put it in the pātaka kai. If you had lots of apples you could share it to the pātaka kai because if you leave them they will disintegrate. When you share it feels great because it make my heart happy, and there hearts are happy too." 
- Ethan

"It feels nice to share because some people don't have food, doesn't have houses and  food and some people have to steal for food., but if we share they don't have to." 
- William 

"It's for sharing food in. Our kids take the food and eat it for dinner. I've got apples I can bring them in last week cos if they get old they will get mouldy. It makes me feel good when I share my food cos I like it." 
- Paul

"It's for food, it goes outside so the Grandmas and Poppas can make kai for everyone. I like to share because they, everyone are hungry. It will be in the rubbish if we don't share our kai"
- Kaia


Practicing sustainability empowers children to construct knowledge, explore values and develop an appreciation of the environment and its relationship to their world. This lays the foundations for an environmentally responsible adulthood. Children should be at the centre of our sustainable goals, we must educate the next generation to ensure sustainable development.


Helena delivering eggs to our neighbour who kindly gifted us fresh putiputi from his garden. 

Harper and Izzy offering seedlings to our lovely neighbour.

With the help from Whakaora Kai Taitokerau the pātaka was overflowing with goodies but it seemed that people were hesitant to take what they needed. The idea is - Take what you need and leave what you can.  There is no criteria, there is no koha tin or money exchanged for anything. Go have a look, if you need something, please help yourself.  If you can leave something, know that your community thanks you.


“Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou ka ora ai te iwi

With your basket and my basket we will sustain the people”


Joshua and Joash putting their home baking in the pātaka kai.

As summer comes there will be an abundance of veggies and hopefully home baking for Christmas. Thank you to our whānau who have already taken the time to bake with aroha and share the love with our community. What a beautiful way to show our tamariki what Christmas is about.  


Members of our community using the Pātaka Kai.
 

If people do want to get involved with their local pātaka, I encourage them to add a couple of extra things in their shopping trolley every now and then or bring in veggies from their māra kai. We all know the Christmas season is hard, and this is a great way of giving back to your community.


Sharing with others, without expecting anything in return is a beautiful thing to teach. No matter how small an act of kindness is, it can have a huge impact on others lives. Watching the faces of our tamariki when they stock up the pātaka, and then seeing people from the community taking food is so very heart warming. 

We thank our community for the bottom of our hearts for supporting this wonderful kaupapa.
 


Me mahi tahi tātou mo te oranga o te katoa

We should work together for the wellbeing of everyone



Nga mihi nui


- Hanna


Sunday 15 November 2020

Obstacle Course Learning

 


It is amazing to think we have reached the halfway point in Term 4 already, but what a great time to reflect on the learning interests of our tamariki over the past 5 weeks. One repeated, enjoyed and developed interest for a number of our tamariki this term, the obstacle course, has remained a consistent favourite at Mairtown over a period of years. I thought I would take this opportunity to highlight the awesome learning tamariki gain as they engage repeatedly in this fun activity, watching, experimenting and taking risks; stretching themselves and each other during repeated experiences over an extended period of time.












Hanrahan and Duncan (2019) explain  children need ‘managed’ opportunities to explore and engage in risky play, as this will enable them to manage future risks independently and to develop an understanding of safety. Exposing children to a range of opportunities to engage in risky play promotes their ability to assess risk and learn how to self-regulate. The development of these skills supports children’s growing confidence to manage risks as they mature into adulthood. A positive outcome of a risky play venture can be the delight in overcoming fear and mastering a specific skill, whereas a negative consequence can be failure or physical injury. While skill mastery and overcoming fear are rewarding in themselves, failure from risky play endeavours also helps children learn to cope with disappointments, building resilience and promotes self-confidence.

Our obstacle courses at Mairtown are created using a range of loose parts, including A frames, planks, wood rounds, tyres,  ladders, jumping mats, boxes and a rope bridge. These are constructed, de-constructed and re-constructed in different ways and incorporating different features of our outdoor area. In this way they continue to provide challenge and variety while also promoting the establishment of a degree of familiarity and repetition, important for tamariki working towards developing their mastery of skills. A child must first learn fundamental skills before they can acquire speed, increased confidence, and mastery. It is through repetition that possibility becomes ability. Learning requires electrical energy to create neural connections. The less ‘automatic’ something is, the more energy is required to create the connection. In children, these neural connections are only beginning to be formed. Repetition is a necessary building block that allows them to strengthen the connections in the brain that help them learn (Montessori Academy 2016).







 Every time we watch tamariki interacting with an obstacle course, we see them analysing the various challenges involved, forming an assessment and making choices as to their strategies, their route, their speed, and the degree of risk they are prepared to experience at that time. It is wonderful to watch as they grow in confidence, moving with increasing speed and visibly growing in self-confidence, gradually using the resource in more complex and imaginative ways. It is especially rewarding to watch the learning cycle unfold as a skill or tactic is demonstrated to an uncertain tamaiti by their more experienced tuakana, who, after building their own skill level and self-confidence, then steps up to become tuakana to the next teina. The desired outcome of participating in risky play is for children to grow into adults who have competent decision-making and risk assessment skills and who are able to consider the wellbeing of others while celebrating their own endeavours (Curtis, 2010).There is nothing more exciting for a teacher than to see tamariki making you redundant!!












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Gametime.com (2020) provides a great descriptor of the wide-ranging learning benefits of obstacle courses, which include…

Strength and Balance: When children encounter the obstacles in an obstacle course, they develop and enhance strength and balance. The strength and balance skills developed on an obstacle course transfer effectively to other sports like soccer or gymnastics.







Memory and Problem Solving: In life and school, kids need to be able to remember lots of information. While engaging with an obstacle course, children learn how to solve problems based on sequencing information and actions. Obstacle courses help children solve problems as they learn how to manoeuvre up, over, or through challenges They also learn how to adjust to changing conditions, and memorize the fastest way to progress through the course. These skills will help them throughout their life.



Sensory Processing: An obstacle course is a great opportunity for children to develop sensory processing skills. For example, they encounter linear (up and down), sagittal (side to side), and rotary (spinning) inputs as they run through the obstacle course. Learning these senses, and how to adjust to them, helps them develop motor skills, coordination, and adaptation.







Motor Skills: Fine and gross motor skill development is essential during childhood development. Fine motor skills help children learn how to hold a pencil or grip small objects. Gross motor skills help children walk, run, jump, and climb. Obstacle courses are the perfect environment for children to learn and enhance these vital motor skills that will benefit them for a lifetime.


                                            





Coordination: Complex coordination, sometimes called bilateral coordination, involves moving separate body parts at the same time to complete a task. Think about the many muscle groups and body parts required to climb over a barrier or weave through an agility obstacle. Obstacle courses provide a lot of opportunities for children to develop complex bilateral coordination. Developing these coordination skills improves overall health and fitness as well as supporting literacy skill development, helping kids for years to come

Another important aspect of our flexible obstacle courses is the opportunity they offer tamariki to become the constructors of their own learning environment. As tamariki become active participants in choosing the course’s components and location, and solving the various problems which are always faced in ensuring the course is safe, stable, challenging, usable and enjoyable for a range of skill levels, their sense of agency is enhanced. Keiki early learning (2019) describes a sense of Agency as being able to make choices and decisions to influence events and to have an impact on one’s world. To help build a child’s sense of agency, we should recognise that they are capable of initiating their own learning and empower them to make their own choices and decisions. Having a sense of agency in the early years is very much linked to each child’s sense of belonging. A sense of belonging develops when a child has developed trust both in the adults around them and the environment. Developing a trusting bond with infants and children is driven by our image of the child. The offering of choices and supporting each child’s sense of agency sends a message to the child that they are strong, capable and curious with capacity to make choices for themselves. Fostering each child’s sense of agency is more than providing them with choices. When children have a sense of agency they feel more in control of themselves and develop an understanding of their influence on the people and spaces around them. When we listen with respect to children’s voices, their words, and their ideas we model trust and collaboration showing them that they are heard and their ideas matter.




                                            

Our tamariki thrive on the challenge of making a course sit stable and level on our environments many uneven surfaces, the shared decision making around the possibilities, choices and order of challenges, the responsibilities of ensuring the connections are secure before the play begins, and the self-regulation necessitated when exercising those patient muscles as the wait for all systems to be go, and them negotiate their way co-operatively around a course being used at different speeds and in different ways by a number of tamariki.















In an empowering environment, children have agency to create and act on their own ideas, develop knowledge and skills in areas that interest them, and increasingly, to make decisions and judgements on matters that relate to them. (Te Whāriki 2017)

One of the natural joys of utilising our natural resources and environment as an integral part of our obstacle courses is that there are always those beautiful opportunities to stop, explore, discover and share ideas about their natural world as they move around

"No, look, It's an ant!"
"Hey, It's a spider!"
                             

To sum up, I believe our obstacle courses reflect the statement within our Mairtown kindergarten philosophy statement, that literacy, numeracy, physicality, science, social science, and the arts are interwoven throughout our learning environment. We honour the holistic manner in which tamariki learn and grow. We support tamariki in developing their social and emotional learning through enabling then to experience the values of turn-taking, sharing, resilience, risk-taking and empowerment. And we in turn are filled with pride as we watch them grow and see themselves as the amazing learners we know them to be.

When children take risks they start to open up to the world and realise their capacity to shape it. There’s magic in that for them and us. (Karen Young, 2016)

 "This is so scary, it is the scariest bit but I can do it! Wow, this is so balancy, but I didn't fall down!" Nikau

"Do you want to watch me - this feels different, it is soft" Lennox

"I will fall...I did it - I can do it!" Jackson

"There's more than one way - I can go this way and they can go that way" Tori

"We need to make a jump here - I need to jump!" Owen

"How do you do this? Wow, I can do it. This is wobbly, I like it, I'm going to do it again!" Lennox

"You have to wait while they go past but then you can go again" Joash

"Wait, I'll check - Stable!" Taikura

Mauri tū,

Mauri ora

An active soul is a healthy soul

Mā te wā

Anne

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