yay!

Chris Hipkins MP was live.

5 hrs · 

"At lunchtime today I signed up to the "Have a heart pledge" committing Labour to restoring the funding the National government has cut from early childhood education over the last 6 years, reducing teacher:child ratios and restoring the goal of 100% qualified teachers."

:)

Plunket workshop

 Hi all -
Just a note to say that this Thursday's workshop facilitated by Plunket is going ahead as planned.... 6.30pm at Kindergarten  ... we'll see you there hopefully!

Why movement skills are really important...

The below is a quote from Gill Connell, - the team know her as  a wonderfully gifted Professional development provider. She has also written books on children's movement patterning and skills.......

How does playing hopscotch help a child with handwriting?
We sometimes see children sitting in strange positions when they haven't yet mastered their ability to move one part of their body independently from another. We call this homo-lateral development. Handwriting requires children to hold one side of their body still (to hold the paper) while the other side moves and forms the letters on the paper. If this has not yet been developed, children (and adults) will sometimes sit themselves in contorted positions in order to control the other side of the body. Doing activities that help develop this skill (we call it midline development), by moving using opposition movements - crawling, climbing, marching, monkey walking etc will help. As well, practicing movements where one side remains still while the other moves - like hopping, waving, scissor cutting, hammering to name a few can help this develop. 

For more info on this here's a link to her blog.
http://movingsmartblog.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/why-hopscotch-matters.html

We're having a butterfly week....

 We are so enjoying being proud parents of a brood of Monarch Butterflies..... we've waited as all our caterpillars turned to chrysalis's....  and at last they are coming out. We have lots of friends spending long periods of  time this week observing and so many of us have been checking in lots!
Here's one of today's releases into the wild......

The first Plunket workshop is nearing!

Hi all.....

By now you will all have seen the notice at the sign in sheet foyer, the parent communication pockets, the whiteboard in the cloakroom and on our blog about upcoming Plunket run  sessions for parents. 

The first of these is scheduled soon ( the 22nd of Feb) and is centred around 'Moving on from Nappies'. This workshop  explores the signs of readiness, strategies to help your child succeed in the transition away from nappies, and explore what might be some of the challenges for parents and children during this time of transition. 

It's held at Kindergarten from 6.30 to 7.30 pm. 

We are approaching the point where the facilitator will make a decision whether the workshop is viable as we need a minimum of 6 attendees to ensure it goes forward. 

There's a registration list for this free workshop at the sign in sheet table. Currently we don't have enough registrants. 

Please let us know by email or phone or by writing your name on the list if you want to come to allow us to report to Plunket.

Kind regards, 

The teaching team.