Kapa Haka
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.
Coolest Toy Ever!
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.
Piggy Piggy
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.
Dressed Up
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.
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!
Airdmhor Montessori Front Door
Teacher’s College has started up again, so I’m back in to Uni on Wednesdays. We had our first day last week and were told we would be going on teaching practice (TP) this week. Not much notice for me to tell my pre-school that I would be away for the next two weeks on TP.
For those of you not in the know. I am in my final year of a Graduate Diploma in Early Childhood Education. I’m studying at Canterbury University in their College of Education via their Centre Based route. This allows me to work four days a week at a pre-school and come in to Uni one day a week to study. You are actually only required to do 16 hours of work a week, but I have bills to pay so I do the full 32 hours plus whatever shifts I’m needed at the liquor store.
Anywho, twice a year I am required to go on TP at another centre. This is a great opportunity to observe and learn how other centres work and stimulate learning among their children. In other words a great time to steal others ideas to use in your own centre. The problem with this is you don’t get paid while on TP. So that leaves me out of pocket for two weeks now and three weeks at the end of the year.
Airdmhor Montessori Outside
So, I have been on TP for the last week at the Airmhor Montessori. This is the first time I have worked at a Montessori school and I am really enjoying it. This particular Montessori has moved with the times and adapted there policies to be more up to date with todays early childhood teaching strategies. This has made them less strict with the children allowing more self exploration learning through free play while still providing wonderful structured learning activities. Resulting in some truly magnificent children who respect their environment and others within it, are academically ahead of their peers. All the while having a fun time and enjoying their childhood.
Working in Kindergartens in Taiwan I was amazed at how much the children were academically learning, but also upset with the lack of social interaction that was taking place. Most kids enjoyed the classes while there attention could be held, but often got over tired or upset with not being able to focus more on what they personally enjoyed. Resulting in incredibly academically smart children who were happy at the beginning of the session but turned into robots with in an hour or so, only to spark back into life when a particular subject they were truly interested in would be discussed. This allowed the kids to learn great amounts of knowledge through rote learning, but quite often the children found it hard to adapt that knowledge to solve real life problems.
Airdmhor Montessori Classroom
After returning to New Zealand and working in pre-schools here I found the tables had been completely switched. Children were encouraged to learn through free play while the teachers were almost completely taken out of the picture and only used as observers and guidance. These kids have a fun time, but seem to be quite often under stimulated. They are still learning basic academic skills through play like maths through blocks and pattern matching games etc. But teachers seem almost scared to help push them to the next level. Afraid to use real academic strategies in fear that it won’t be fun for the children. I have noticed this almost unlimited freedom seems to result in a lot of behavioral problems with in the classrooms.
I could see the benefits of both cultures education systems, but believe neither were offering a balanced one. That is why my goal is to open my own centre and work towards offering children a balance learning opportunity. Thanks to Airdmhor Montessori my minds picture of how that center will operate is much clearer now.
Sand Covered Toes
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