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Celebrating
our achievements
Relationships are EVERYTHING!
Christmas boredom busters
Skills, experiences and helpful hints
ISSUE TWO December 2010
geraldine.kindergarten@blogspot.com
NEWS & VIEWS issue no.2
Great
Teaching makes
community. AS THE YEAR draws to a close it is a
time to celebrate and reflect on our
Great achievements and create new plans for
improvement in the year to come. We
education. are presented with some challenges as
we start 2011 with the current financial
Great climate in early childhood looking grim,
and the education sector as a whole
kids! fighting to sustain a quality learning
environment for all. I am reminded as
I write this of the ‘Teachers Matter’ conference we attended at the
beginning of 2010, where Karen Boyes said encouragingly, ‘Teachers
make all professions possible!’ It is important to remember how
valuable teachers are to our society. We are often quick to make
teachers responsible when things are going wrong. We forget to
thank them for the amazing job they do educating and socialising
our next generation each day. We are so fortunate in the small
community of Geraldine to have many qualified and experienced
teachers to support us and guide our children from kindergarten
through primary and secondary school and into our workforce.
What a great place to raise children!
OUR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING IN 2010 The teaching team have
been involved in professional learning this year, completing courses
GERALDINE KINDERGARTEN with Karen Boyes on how the ‘Habits of Mind’ (and our curriculum
News & Views Magazine Te Whariki) link with the new New Zealand Curriculum framework
25 Wilson Street, Geraldine 7930 for schools, through the key competencies. Teachers came away
HEAD TEACHER: Tania Boland from this course inspired by such a dynamic speaker and were
PHONE: 03 693 8888 affirmed, knowing we are offering high quality teaching and
EMAIL: geraldine.kindy@xtra.co.nz learning experiences to the children of Geraldine Kindergarten.
BLOG: www.blogspot.co.nz The course allowed us to dig a bit deeper into the current theories
Geraldine Kindergarten on teaching and learning and consider what areas of our practice
we needed to critically explore.
DESIGN & PRODUCTION
We continued this exploration through CORE Education. We have
Saltmine Design
24 Hislop Street Geraldine 7930 focused on sustaining our assessment and planning for learning
practices, using ICT as a tool to support children to see and reflect
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Fi McCafferty
on their own learning. By using ICT, children are able to view
PHONE: 03 693 8237
EMAIL: fi@saltmines.co.nz
themselves as the ‘experts’ and as capable, confident learners.
We know that the children of today, who will be citizens of the
from the EDITOR |2
Te Whariki
New Zealand
Early Childhood
Curriculum
In early childhood, knowledge, skills
and attitudes are closely linked.
These three aspects combine to
form a child’s working theory.
Children are developing more SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION:
elaborate and useful working
theories about people, places and
things in their lives. These working
theories contain a combination
‘The rocket flew up with water
of knowledge about the world,
skills and strategies,
YEAR 10 SCIENCE extension students from Knowledge. They are also using techniques
attitudes and expectations. Geraldine High School visited us and shared such as listening, questioning, predicting,
several experiments with our excited making comparisons and remembering to
Kindergarten children. create and build on their working theories.
The experiments gave the children New Zealand’s Early Childhood Curriculum,
opportunities to explore scientific concepts Te Whariki, sets out the following goals under
such as elements, gravity, forces, electrical the strand Exploration – Mana Aotaroa:
circuits, and chemical reactions and changes. • Children learn strategies for active
Participating in these experiments exploration, thinking and reasoning;
encourages children to use Habits of Mind • Children develop working theories for
such as Questioning and Problem Posing, making sense of the natural, social,
Remaining Open to Continuous Learning, physical and material worlds.
Thinking Flexibly and Applying Past
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‘They made a
volcano and it was
a foaming volcano.’
Transitioning to school
TRANSITIONING TO SCHOOL can be EXPERIENCES
an emotional time and a little bit FAMILIARISE YOUR CHILD WITH:
scary for both children and parents. • Nursery rhymes and fairy tales
We thought that with the support of • Poems
our contributing schools we would • Looking at books together - talk about it,
give you some handy hints to help read lots of books, develop a love of
give your child the skills they will need reading and have a set time for reading
to make the experience less overwhelming • Having fun with rhyming words
for everyone. Thank you to Winchester, • Talking to together - it takes a lot of
Geraldine and Woodbury schools for your practice to learn to speak and listen as
collective ideas. well. Use every opportunity - in the car,
SKILLS mealtimes, at the shops etc
WORK WITH YOUR CHILD TO LEARN TO: • Spending quality time with an adult
• Holding conversations/social interactions
• Greet someone verbally with eye contact
• A lot of oral language
• Recognise their own name
• Singing
• Write their name in upper and lower case
• Fine motor co-ordination
letters i.e. Emma
• Basic math - counting, sorting, comparing,
• Begin to recognise some alphabet letters,
ordering, patterning, matching
names and sounds
• Writing - practice writing a letter, make a
• Hold a pencil correctly (triangle pencils
sign or a card
available from the Warehouse Stationery)
• Use scissors OTHER HELPFUL TIPS
• Go to the toilet by themselves FOR YOUR CHILD:
• Catch sneezes and coughs (in the crook
of their arm) • Be able to tie up their shoe laces or
• Be independent and able to open and have the option to wear velcro shoes
organise lunchboxes, dress themselves, • Be able to blow their own nose properly
carry and pack their own bag • Know how to wash hands correctly by
• Sit on the mat with a group of children using soap and water for 20 seconds
• Count to ten • Have their name on everything
• Know shapes and colours • Have a backpack large enough to
• Have knowledge of social skills and carry everything in
boundaries • Have a drink bottle with water
GAEL WILLIAMS
LEARNING IS FUN so be a learner every day |6
SOCIAL SCIENCES:
Wise words:
He aha te mea
nui o te ao?
What is the most
important thing BEING AN EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER relationship building is very important
in the world? I have had the fortune to watch a lot of on every level to ensure that our three-year-
He tangata, he three-year-olds meet and play with other olds develop to become confident and
tangata, he tangata. children at kindergarten. Mum and Dad are competent learners in the 21st century.
It is the people, excited but anxious at the same time. Often
Children entering kindergarten are learning
it is the people, it’s the first time that the child has been
what it’s like to interact with different kinds
it is the people. parted from their sibling and often questions
of people, new places, and wide ranging
arise like‘Will they like it?’, ‘Will they eat?’,
experiences. They approach those
MAORI PROVERB or ‘Will they play with the other children?’
interactions with courage and curiosity
Of course it’s not always easy to be parted rather than judgment.
from those so close and assumptions can’t
Children will choose where they will play,
always be made, in whatever role we play,
who they will play with and alongside, and
that we will know what to do. Adults are
will come across situations that will
learners, too, bringing their own
challenge them. Their language will develop
expectations and aspirations to their
as they problem solve, build strategies to
child’s learning environment. Therefore,
work with others and share what they know.
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