Doing the Monster Mash

What fantastic art work is being created here! Seabren and Dominic got very enthusiastic about making monster pictures. You guys sat at the paint easels for a long time (developing perseverance) creating monster painting after monster painting. Your work is individual each painting is unique. You have chosen a range of themes, scary, octopus, glowing to name a few. You embellished each one with different colours and forms. Your creations are wonderful, you are practising skills in working with forms and colours and learning a lot about art/creativity. Way to go guys lovely work!

A week at Manaia Kindergarten

We thought we would give you a sneek peek at all the exciting learning happening at Manaia Kindergarten over the past two weeks. Check out particularly a special practice run for a fashion show... Children dressed by our children's dress fashion designer Eleanor. We plan to show you more of that at a formal gathering at Manaia Kindergarten. Watch this space...
In the meantime enjoy all the fabulous insights into our inquisitive minds.

Tj's Campervan

A couple of weeks ago, Tj brought his family campervan in to show us. Tj had been talking about how he enjoyed going away in the Campervan for holidays. The children got to look through the campervan which they really enjoyed. Tj told us some things he loves about the campervan:
"It can go far away. I love the bunks. I like to go to Sandspit because there is a big beach and a big,big,big ferry boat. My campervan is big like a truck, it is as big as a truck. Daddy drives the campervan up our big hill first because it is bigger than our Ute."
Wow thanks Tj and your family for sharing your campervan with us.

Kinder Olympics

On Friday we went to our very own Kindergarten Olympics! What a great day we had. We competed with seven other kindergartens, in a range of activities designed to stretch our physical skills and align our brains. We had lots of fun moon-hoppering, soccer goal scoring, sack racing, crawl tunneling, balancing, throwing bean bags and parachute tossing. We held a medal ceremony at the end and everyone received a medal. Well done Manaia children! The day was put on by Sport Northland, our thanks to them for organising such a great event.
Working with physical skills helps muscles to develop, and the brain to switch on, encouraging our children to become agile helps to prepare them for school and life.

Show Day and KidsExpo

Last weekend was an opportunity for Manaia Kindergarten to be out in the local public eye and showcase the amazing work the children engage in at Kindergarten.

Parua Bay Show Day
What an amazing event our neighbouring school put on. The community rallied around and joined the school on a brilliant sunny Saturday morning. Many of our children were there enjoying art work created by our older school friends, checking out the animals - lambs, sheep, calves as they were walked around the showring. Then we gathered around the Show Day truck and put on a performance to school children, parents, and teachers. Dee worked with the children on the stage to support their dancing.


Kids Expo
What a fabulous event. So many families from around Whangarei joined in to give their children many new experiences. There were bouncy castles, trampolines, bike rides. Inside included an Active Movement center, Tanya Batt story telling, and a creative centre to try new art experiences. There was food to share and displays from all Kindergartens in the Northland Association. It was great to see what other Kindergartens are doing in their curriculum.

The proceeds of this family fundraiser are going to the Samoan Relief effort and will help to re-establish centres of education for Samoan children.

wacky wednesday

Pizza Making

It was a great day for Pizza! Tineke, Aylas mum came to help us make Pizza. What a lot of work goes into a Pizza, thanks for preparing the pizza dough Tineke. We had to very carefully toss the dough from hand to hand to make a ball. Next we stretched the dough out to make a base. Beverly knows a lot about making Pzza and she explained to us that we needed to treat the dough gently so that it rises. Once our bases were made we put all of the toppings on. We had to cut and chop lots of vegetables and use the grater for the cheese. It was quite a process! We learned lots of things about making pizza, we had to be patient, take turns, make choices, try our hand at cutting vegetables. We also had lots of healthy toppings to choose from like mushrooms, tomatoes, capsicums, cougettes, chives, onions, as well as meat and cheese. This was great as it links with our vegetable garden. We did get to take home some delicious pizza mmmm. Thanks Ayla and Tineke for all of your help.