Clay pinch-pots

This term we have decided to bring our clay indoors and have set up a more permanent area for the children to explore and investigate with it. Clay is a wonderful malleable material, fascinating in its own right, and a great resource for children to express, communicate and make their ideas visible.

Earlier this week, Kim introduced a reference book and picture examples on clay pinch-pots to the children, with some really beautiful results.

Heres' how to do it:

1. Hold a ball of clay in both hands, cupped together.

2. Insert your thumbs into the middle and gradually push your thumbs out on each side.

3. Continue hollowing out the ball with thumb and fingers and smooth any bumps.

We decided to push in some beads – stunning!

Here are the pot drying - I'm sure you agree they look gorgeous.

Jacob takes great pride in showing us all his finished pot.

Children’s interactions with clay are strongly muscular: they press, bend, squeeze, twist and tear.

Clay is a fantastic 'open' resource with no set way of using it, yet provides a sensory experience that helps extend imagination and creativity.

As the week has gone on we have seen children revisiting creating pinch-pots independently and have also seen them experimenting with different ideas, creating other complex and intricate structures.

I love the edge pattern on this piece of work!

It is great to see families working on clay structures together.

"Clay invites a new way of understanding art. Children tend to associate art with drawing and painting, and think of themselves as artists in relation to their enjoyment and skill with drawing tools. When we offer children three dimensional media, we invite them into an expanded definition of art" (Pelo, 2007)

Christine

The 'Square Dance'

Inspired by some modern art titled the ‘Square dance’ by Kazuya Akimoto, we decided to introduce this piece to the children using the media of pastel and ink.

The square dance has many wonderful shapes and patterns for the children to explore and consider. There are straight lines, rectangles, squares, squares in squares, squares divided by lines to make triangles, and lots of repetition. We invited the children to investigate the dynamics of these shapes using the pastels and ink

 

Using two sorts of media together (pastels and ink) the children were able to observe what happens. We asked questions such as “what happens when the ink meets your pastels?” – for some children it took a lot of trust to paint over their whole picture with black ink – but the results were worth it.

As the ink settled into the paper, and the white pastel shapes shone through, many children were astounded and surprised, exciting many. Visually this experience is like magic.

Charlotte “That’s awesome”

Lucy-May “What’s happening…how’s that happening?”

Detroit “I didn’t know that would happen”

Tyler “Look, I can see the white – look”

Hui-Nathan “Look it’s drying out, you can see the shapes”

Exploring pattern, line and shape

Making new discoveries

Celebrating success

 “Every art has a kind of language and its logic. In music, it is very clear. Of course, to use this language correctly in artwork doesn’t necessarily mean that the art is superb, or worth appreciating. There are far too many pieces of music which are correct in grammar that cannot attract our aesthetical attention” (Kazuya Akimoto).

Grace

Some of the finished work:

Charlotte

Dihansa

Detroit

Hui-Nathan

Christine

Silver accreditation and healthy heart award

How exciting! Last week at Kindergarten we had a visit from Sport Northland, who came to award us with a silver accreditation for active movement. As a Kindergarten team we have made a commitment to include active movement in all areas of the curriculum. Active movement is everywhere, for instance walking or cycling to Kindergarten, skipping, jumping, dancing, kicking a ball in the park or rolling down hills.

Well done everyone, and a big thank you to Donna for working so hard on this project over the past year. Also thanks to Sport Northland and Roimata for their encouragement, support and advice.

Rona from the Heart Foundation also popped in today to award us with our Healthy Heart Award. This is called a Whanau award and shows that our families/Whanau make a conscientious effort to provide healthy snacks in lunch boxes. Thank you to all our parents and Whanau for your support with this.















"Active movement is engaging in quality physical movement experiences which develop and enhance the spiritual, emotional, social, cognitive and physiological growth of the child. Active movement embodies the whole child". (Sport and Recreation NZ, 2004)

Christine

Welcome to term 4

Welcome back to all our children and their families/Whanau, we are going to have a great term 4!

We also welcome Heidi to Mairtown. Heidi is a student teacher in her second year with the Open Polytechnic. We are lucky enough to have Heidi with us for the next five weeks, so come and say hello and introduce yourself.








A quick update on our art auction, after all the costs we have raised an amazing $1600. Well done everyone, this is fantastic and will be such big help in funding our outdoor development. Thank you once again for helping to make this such a successful event for Mairtown Kindergarten.

On the subject of outdoor development, we have had some work taking place during these last holidays. Around the Whare a stunning mosaic pathway has been laid and two macrocarpa benches have been made. We have had contractors Steve Bowling in to complete the work, and lay the grey, green and white stones individually to make up the koru design. 

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Zoë "I like how it goes around the little house. You can also twirl around on it".
Eva "It looks like pretty...I like the seats".
Kye "I like all the stones".
Grace "The patterns are really nice".

We have some more planting around the pathway to do which will hopefully be finished in the next week. Please add your comments, we would love to hear how you think our outdoor environment is looking and progressing.



Christine

Art Auction Fundraiser

Last night saw us all at the Old Library hosting our annual fundraiser, this year an 'art auction'. Several weeks ago we sent canvases home with parents/Whanau and friends and asked them to get creative. Local Northland artists also kindly donated some work, leading to a huge variety in art; from photographic prints, clothing, stitched canvases to sculptures - there was something for everyone.

The children at Kindergarten also created spectacular works using Hundertwasser and Joan Miró as their inspiration.




It was a hugely successful and enjoyable night. All our donated canvases got sold. There were even a few bidding wars, some between family members!

There are so many thank yous we need to say. The families, Whanau and friends of Mairtown Kindergarten are amazing, we obviously could not have done this without you taking the time to complete your art and turn up to bid on the night. Also a huge thanks to Anna and Tracy who spent most of Friday arranging the art on the walls - it looked fabulous. Thank you to all our parent group for taking photographs, placing road signs on verges, helping set up.....the list goes on. Thanks to Glenn our fabulous auctioneer for the night, he was great at keeping everything going smoothly and adding his own sense of humour to the occasion. Thank you to Richard, Joel and Kirsty for organising and manning the bar and to Phoebe who held up each piece of art so we all knew what we were bidding on. I am sure there are many other thank yous I've missed out, lots of people arrived saw a job that needed doing and got stuck in - everyones contribution was what made it such a successful evening.

We're not sure just how much we've managed to raise yet, we will keep you all uptodate, but all profits will go towards upgrading our outdoor environment at Kindergarten.

Christine