Whānau newsletter from our Kindergarten Association.

Elections!

Northland Kindergarten

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Hi all - hope you are having a safe and restful weekend. Just a note to highlight the upcoming elections. You might have noticed some display materials in the cloakroom encouraging us all to vote. Here's a quote from the Association website..."
At Whānau Manaaki, we're passionate about building a better future for children, whānau, caregivers and friends who are part of our extended family. That's why we're encouraging everyone to get out and vote on Election Day. Casting a vote says that you care about the future of our country - including our early childhood education services"
In our cloakroom is a spreadsheet of key education policies as per the various parties. Check out the Association website for this type of information....so we can best support the learning of our precious tamariki.
http://www.wmkindergartens.org.nz/policies-__I.24641

Special education. what is happening?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/96019278/disabled-preschoolers-waiting-months-for-first-early-intervention-service-appointment

Here's  a message for all of the voters who care about children's learning......  a link from stuff of late with a message in this area and a link to our community too.....

Wonderful works of art

  Our tamariki have been hard at work creating spectacular art works - here's a few examples from the last week or so using so many different mediums, clay, palette and acrylic paints, collage, construction, tile and screen printing......... ka pai tō mahi!

Why we love to offer learning opportunities in different curriculum spaces and in different ways....

 Why should children work at vertical surface  based work sometimes?

Shoulder/Elbow Stability-

the use of larger vertical surface such as chalkboards, marker boards etc allows children to use bigger arm movements tat encourage strength and flexibility throughout the joints and muscles of the upper extremities. Even the hand gets a hefty boost of strengthening as it works against gravity to keep making vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines. 

Midline Crossing

When a child is writing or drawing across a large vertical surface they have to cross the mid-line of the body with the dominant hand to reach all of the spaces. This is great practice for children who are struggling with mid-line crossing nd establishing a strong hand dominance. 

Wrist extension

Vertical surface writing naturally puts the wrist in an extended position which encourages hands stabilization for better pencil grasp and control of writing  utensils. 

Visual attention and hand/eye coordination

working on a vertical surface brings the task closet to the child's eyes. this helps kids who have difficulty maintaining visual attention to activities and can help to encourage hand- eye coordination, s the child has a better view of what they are doing!

Spatial awareness

when a child workson a large vertical surface it make directinal terms ( up down left right )  much easer to undersand becase the child can relate the words to his very own body.

sensory

working at a vertical surface may be beneficial for fidgety children who work better in a standing position than sitting at a des, 

core strength and posture. 

working in a keneling or standing positon at an upright surface gives children a good dose of core strengthening opportunity.  The only choide to work is to engage those core bac muscle to maintain upright posture. 

AGM

Hi all. A reminder our AGM is on Monday here at kindergarten at 7.30pm, Hear all about the committee's year and the year from the teaching team's perspective too. Have a coffee and nibble and enjoy! Everyone is invited.

Fun with puppets!

You might have noticed lots of our tamariki very busy  using puppets as a way to tell a story of late, our puppet theatre has a busy schedule! To support this work we invited the Stringbean puppet company to come along and show us all about how a marionette puppet might work. It was so much fun! Keep on story telling ngā tamariki? I wonder if you might make your own puppets to try out?