What do the teachers get up to in the term break? Here's one thing we do!

http://www.maoritelevision.com/news/education/whanau-manaaki-incorporate-maori-worldview-kindergartens

Part of being trained and registered teachers is undergoing a planned programme of continual professional development to ensure we know current professional research in the area of teaching young children. This term break was our conference for all the Whānāu Manaaki Kindergartens and associated services. Above is a link to the theme and association direction for this conference. Titiro atū!

Māui the learner takes on a dramatic role.....

 You might have noticed lots of friends making themselves some special hooks while at Kindergarten.... so as to do great things with them just as our Mentor Māui does. Here we see Cerys and Ray who are keen Māui experts leading the play in dramatic reenactment if Māui stories... and have spent lots of time helping friends who like to sketch their own special hooks and making sure they know the tikanga and storylines.... It's great to have experts just handy don't you think?

Writing our own Māui Legends

 A wet week is a great time to explore an interest in detail.  We've been having a lot of discussions about the notion of Māui ( who we know well here at Northland Kindergarten) and how he can be seen  in a movie lots of friends have enjoyed ( Moana). We've been noticing that the tattoos on the Māui in the movie shows pictures of  Māui stories we know  in action ( and a few stories we don't as yet). We've been in a flurry of drawing and writing and re reading the legends, researching and book making as we revisit the legends, Some of us are sharing our work at mat time!

Articulating what we know

Kudos to Eleanor for sketching our mountain Te Ahumairangi today....
Those of you who have been joining us for mat time might recognise it! It's  a fab replica ( actually it's better) of the one we use when we got busy talking about our mountain and it's features.

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Our place to stand... the history

You might have heard if you've been at our mat time hui, or if your children have come home singing a song ( as some of you have reported as happening)..... we've been exploring a new song the team has devised as part of our project work about our geographical, peopled and historical area.  We've included signposts of the geography and the way the kindergarten began in Northland. If you don't know it yet from your child or children, here are the words. The team will record it soon as an accompanying soundtrack. We intend to use it as part of ceremony welcoming visitors to a mat time hui - or new people to our kindergarten community alongside 'tihei mauriora' which we use currently to say 'hi'!

Northland Maunga!

 Those of you who have joined us in session during the week might have noticed that this week we are ' all about mountains' at Kindergarten!

We've been thinking a lot about what makes Northland unique and the geography is one aspect. We've enjoyed the idea that legends give weather or inanimate features of geography a character sometimes. often with facial features that show an emotion! 

So when a huge group followed two girl's plans to make a really huge maunga, we really enjoyed the process. We loved measuring how high it was getting, working hard together to achieve an objective, and  connecting the work to a kindergarten regular event - simulating a volcanic eruption. When some of the children wondered if there were actual mountains nearby, we did some storytelling about this and research- legends and images of local places of interest. We love the idea of our Maunga being Te Ahumairangi ( which means whirlwind!)

After our work sharing what had happened that day and our group korero at our mat time hui about what we know about legends of mountains - all week we've had friends drawing mountains. Those that are nearby with recognisable features such as wind turbines, those from legend  which have features showing how the mountain character is thinking,  and those which reflect our research on volcanic mountains. Whew! we've been busy! Here's a sample of some of the work we have so enjoyed developing with those children who choose to express and investigate their interests using art media..... ka pai tō mahi!

poi

 Here's a more recent shorter project from last term... . feeding into this term........ what great poi and kapa haka work we have seen.........

Drawing Māui's exploits....

Māui here at Kindergarten and further afield...

Millie gives Maui a puzzle to work on....:)

Learners in a Bicultural Nation

The world of Māui!