September 13th, 2009
Filed under: Pre-School, Rants, Work | Tags: mcdonalds, propaganda, ronald
Propaganda Machine
While the site was down, the pre-school where I work had a visitor. A nice clown that came to read books and sing about the importance of using your seat belt while in the car… whether you’re driving near or far. Anywho, as you’ve probably already noticed from the picture, this wasn’t just any clown this was Ronald McDonald! I can’t believe they let this guy in the door, talk about getting them when their young.
He did a great job of entertaining the kids and even talked to them about what they liked to eat. He said he liked apples? Make no mistakes, all these kids knew that this was the clown from McDonalds. While it sounds like he is promoting healthy eating by saying he likes apples, all he really doing is pumping the kids and parents full of propaganda that McDiddy’s is a healthy fun and family oriented restaurant. In reality no one should be eating at McD’s let alone any child! Do yourself and your children a favour and stay away from the golden arches and all their fast food friends.
September 10th, 2009
Filed under: Web, Work | Tags: resume, theme, wordpress, Work
My Online Resume
Found this cool WordPress theme online called
Time to Revolt. It’s so cool I just had to use it on one of my sites. Unfortunately I didn’t have a site that suited it, so I made one. Let me introduce you to my brand new online
resume!
Not exactly perfect for your average persons resume, but for me it’s great. A bit of a laugh never stopped me from getting an early childhood teacher job.
July 30th, 2009
Filed under: Pre-School, Work | Tags: book, kapa haka, māori
Kapa Haka
For Māori Language Week we have been doing all sorts of fun stuff at pre-school. Probably the coolest was getting the Kapa Haka group from Burnside High School to come in and do a great performance for us. The kids got a little scared when the boys started sticking their tounges out and swinging their Taiaha around, but they were put at easy afterwards when they came and shook their hands and even gave them little Poi that they had made for them.
I also wrote a small book in Te Reo Māori called The Sandpit, which I have been reading with the children. I’ve uploaded a copy here for your viewing pleasure. Keep in mind in my hard copy version the shovel at the start of the book can come out and be used to lift little flaps that cover the objects in the sandpit. You get the idea.
July 21st, 2009
Filed under: Pre-School, Work | Tags: auction, fund raising
Coolest Toy Ever!
As most of you lot know, I spend my days working at a pre-school here in Christchurch. Well over the last few months we have been doing various fund raising activities to scrounge up enough cash to change our outdoor areas into a more natural exploration experience rather than a very sterile playground. We have sold professional photos and portraits of the children, stationary etc.
To switch things up a bit, over the last couple of weeks we have been asking families to donate their unwanted household goods to us, so that we could in turn auction them off on New Zealand’s favourite auction website Trademe. We managed to collect quite a few objects and organised them into 40 auctions. All auctions started off as $1 reserve, so some of them have been getting a fair bit of attention. The ride on train set you see in the picture is upto $70 at the moment with 24 watchers.
The current auctions end on Friday the 24th of July, so if you are keen for a bargain or just want to support my pre-school click here and check out the auctions for yourself. Don’t forget to bid generously.
UPDATE – Our first load of auctions ended tonight. We managed to get $660 minus about $50 in Trademe fees. That’s better than we were expecting and will go along why towards transforming our outdoor areas.
April 17th, 2009
Filed under: Pre-School, Work | Tags: children, dress up, kids
Piggy Piggy
It’s school holidays here in New Zealand, but pre-schools are still open. That means it’s work as usual for me, well kind of. We are putting on different special events every day to give the children a treat. Tuesday was Dress Up Day, all the kids got to dress up in their favourite costumes. As you can expect we had a lot of princesses and Bob the Builders.
I decided to join in with the fun, so I got dress up as well. I dressed up as a pig. I used my brother’s pink Puma track suit, Shen you’ll have to enlighten us all on how you became in possession of a pink Puma Track Suit. I also cut up an old egg carton for the nose and a box for the ears. Ivy made me an adorable little piggy tail out of some old fabric she had lying around.
We’ve got some more cool days coming up like, Bike Day, Disco Day and PJ and DVD Day. Should be a fun 2 weeks.
March 2nd, 2009
Filed under: Pre-School, Work | Tags: children, dress up, Work
Dressed Up
To help bring in new children to Lollipops we held an Open House on Saturday. This let parents bring their children into our center and have a look around. They get to see the classrooms, resources etc. and also meet us the teachers. Well they got to meet the other teachers, not me.
The reason they didn’t get to meet me was because I was dressed up like a giant cat (Lollipops the Cat) standing on the street corner directing traffic. To my surprise, I actually had a great time doing it. With the full face mask it’s not like anyone could see who I was, so I went wild. I was raising the roof, doing the running man, air guitar, blowing kisses and waving. I got heaps of honks and waves from passer byes. It was a shit load of fun.
February 26th, 2009
Filed under: Pre-School, Reviews, Web | Tags: children, song, video
Songs For Kids
Came across a site call Fliggo which lets you set up your very own video sharing website, kind of like Youtube. Of course I had to give it a go, so I made a site called Songs for Kids. I intend the site to be used for sharing songs that you can sing with your kids, be it at home or at kindergarten etc.
Right now I have one video of me singing a song Look in the Book Bag, so if you’ve got kids, work in early childhood education or just want a bit of a laugh, then check it out. Also, feel free to join my site and share your videos of songs for kids!
Wow! That’s terrible. Not only is McDonald’s an unhealthy eating option, it’s just garbage full stop. McDonald’s cardboard ‘food’ soaked in oil can’t touch the food that can be prepared at home, for considerably less.
I’m shocked that McDonald’s are still using their Buckle Up campaign as a cheap ploy to get into school’s to push their disgusting trade.
This sort of thing should be banned at a government level. And while they are at it they should outlaw the child bait these places use known to us common folk as Cheap Movie Tie-in Promotional ‘Toys’.
I hope you took it upon yourselves to show the young ones a good example and kick him out the door!
(Speaking of the Young One’s, I suddenly have a desire to dig out my Young One’s DVD’s!)
Nice way to promo your site
Didn’t realise you were up n running again… Actually wanted to reply to this anyway. You’re right, it’s pretty filthy and quite blatant promotion. I saw an interview with an ex-Ronald McDonald impersonator once and it was disgusting… they had to make the children chant “McDonalds, McDonalds” and all sorts.
Actually this is the guy I saw: http://www.mcspotlight.org/campaigns/history/confessions.html
It was in the documentary “McLibel” about the case in the UK where McDonalds sued a couple of handing out anti-McD pamphlets.
Anyone know where I could get my hands on McLibel here in NZ? That sounds like an interesting Doco… Wouldn’t mind watching it.
Can’t remember if you are in Christchurch or not, but if you are then Alice in Videoland on High St has a copy!
If Obama’s speech wasn’t allowed to be shown in some schools, certainly this clown should be banned from the list.