Active Explorers Greenmeadows

This morning we were had another lovely mat time with Louise from Hear This Education. The Tamariki remembered the 'cover our ears' song, I wonder if they have been singing this at home at all?

Louise reminded me of all the things we can do to protect our ears, such as:

- cover our ears
- turn and walk away
- turn the music down

We also spoke about how when we speak to people we need to make sure we don't mumble, and that we look at the person we are speaking to so they can hear and understand us.

We have one last session with Louise in a couple of weeks. The Tamariki have really enjoyed having these special mat times over the past 6 weeks, it has been a great tool to support the children's learning with looking after their hearing.

To end our Matariki celebrations, in the Kauri Room, we explored the star Waitā, through exploring some of the gifts from Tangaroa. Penina & Robyn collected sone natural resources, such as driftwood, pumice and shells from Westshore.🐚🐚
We spent the first part looking and feeling the different textures of the resources, then continued to make a mobile, which you will see hanging outside, making connections to Ururangi, the star which represents the weather.
The tamariki explored threading, which supports fine motor skill development, early numeracy through counting and size recognition, turn-taking.
we were very excited to see our work being displayed outside.

Mānawatia a Matariki whānau ✨✨

Today in the Kowhai room, tamariki tapped into their creativity using some blue sparkling paint ice blocks! This experience was a great way to connect to the matariki star - Waitī, as we explored ice and water, watching it slowly melt and create blue droplets onto our blank pages. It was fun for our tamariki to be able to see the cause and effect of their sensory play, while creating some beautiful matariki masterpieces!