Mangere Bridge Kindergarten Community Blog: A term speeds by

Thursday, April 10, 2008

A term speeds by

Hi again, it has been a very busy term at Kindergarten so far. We have attended some professional development (Reggio Provocations and Gifted Children Conference) and been on another mountain trip this time visiting Mt Roskill, Mt Eden, Mt Albert and One Tree Hill. Unfortunately due to the road works for the new motorway our bus couldn't make it up to Mt Roskill so it turned out to be 3 mountains instead.

Last week Carol, Pat and Jemma spent Wednesday and Thursday at a Centre of Innovation Hui at the St Francis Retreat in Hillsborough. We enjoyed meeting up with the other Round Three Centres of Innovation participants and working together on preparation for the final report which is due towards the end of this year- our final year of research for Centre of Innovation.

Friday we went on a visit to Mangere Bridge School with all of our morning session children. It was great to see some of our Kindergarten children who have moved to school and it is great for the Kindergarten children to experience what happens at school before they start.

We especially enjoyed rolling down the hill in the playground! Great for strengthening the vestibular system. After visiting school we climbed our mountain. This is one of our favorite places to go because it is so high. We climbed over the cone and up to the ridge where the kumara pits are and could see for miles. We really enjoyed being back at Kindergarten with the children after being away for two days at the Hui.

After climbing our mountain in the morning we also had a fancy dress disco at Kindergarten that night. We had a great time dressing up and seeing everyone's costumes.

Yesterday, Wednesday 9th April we officially opened our new Centre of Innovation Visitors Room. The day began with the blessing at 7:30am followed by breakfast and shared lunch later in the day with our families. Today was another visitors morning session with 4 teachers visiting for sharing our research and fresh cookies for morning tea!!!

We have set the dates for further visitors mornings for teachers to visit and learn about our research on transition to school. These dates are planned for May 14th, June 17th, July 31st, August 12th, September 17th. These are between 9 a.m. and 12 noon. To register, please email us with your details or if you have a PD day contact us and we can negotiate coming to present.

Through fundraising from our parents and community at the end of last year we have been able to purchase some new monkey bars which the children have really enjoyed. Monkey bars are a valuable piece of playground equipment as they provide opportunities for movement and development of physical skills -upper body strength and crossing the midline - which are essential for developing success in reading and writing.

These are just a few of the exciting things that have been happening at Mangere Bridge Kindergarten this term. We are looking forward to the holidays and a busy Term 2.

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Crossing the Border

We are so excited - our Book "Crossing the Border" is in print and is available from NZCER Press. We celebrated with a launch on August 2nd with our kindergarten families and community as well as the wider educational community who have been so supportive through this long research process.

We would like to acknowledge the following people for their support for our book:

The Centre of Innovation project outlined in this book took place over three years and the resultant research ethos and testing of innovative ideas has become part of the culture of Mangere Bridge Kindergarten. Initially the inspiration was to create an environment for successful transitions for our children and families and the more we learnt the more possibilities we could see. We built our research on earlier learning from work with the Strengthening Education In Mangere and Otara Project (SEMO) and with Educational Leadership Project (Ltd) and are indebted to Wendy Lee for her dedication to research in early childhood education. We are also grateful to Sue Dockett and Bob Perry for their inspiring work around transition to school in Australia.

The teaching team Carol, Pat and Jemma would like to say a huge thank you to the Centre of Innovation (COI) programme which gave us the opportunity to research in depth our innovations around transition to school and to work so closely with Margaret and Sally, co-authors of this book. We have grown enormously as researchers and academics nurtured by their outstanding support. We also appreciate the friendship and collegial support of the centres of Round Three COI; Botany Downs kindergarten (especially Bronwyn, conference buddy and critical friend), Greerton Early Childhood centres, Wadestown Kindergarten and Bush Street Kindergarten, Rangiora who became our Hui buddies; and in particular Anne Meade for her dedication to children’s learning. Roskill South Kindergarten (Round one, COI) led the way for us and we are extremely grateful to Karen for supporting us in our application and on our journey.

Transition in all its forms continues to have a life of its own at Mangere Bridge kindergarten. The research has continued well beyond the initial COI project and the teaching team has recently initiated a relationship with another school, across the bridge, extending our transition relationships outside of our own community.

The school buddies have a special place in our acknowledgements as without their friendships with the kindergarten children one whole chapter would not have been possible.

Our long journey has sometimes taken our attention away from home and we would like to thank all of our families for being so supportive over this time.

Also the teaching team would like to thank the Auckland Kindergarten Association for their support; past teaching team members Kathy, Frances and Sarah; Alexandra and then Avis who so ably replaced us whenever we needed a reliever; Ann Hatherly from CORE Education; Nola Harvey from the University of Auckland for support in dissemination and the Faculty of Education Research Committee at the University of Waikato for overseeing ethical approvals. Our original administrator, Stephanie, was so enthusiastic about the idea of this journey, and our current administrator, Ingrid, continues this tradition; thank you both.

All the authors believe the strategies, philosophies, and pedagogies contained within this book are not only limited or relevant to a single transition from early childhood to primary but rather can be applied to transitions throughout education. Within the research we identified the importance and interconnectedness of relationships: relationships with the children and families, with the schools, with the local community and into the wider education community.

This book is the result of those relationships. We are all indebted to the children and families of the Mangere Bridge community who trusted us and have unstintingly contributed their enthusiasm and commitment to the project. We wish to acknowledge all those who have contributed time, energy, enthusiasm and feedback to the research, especially the teachers and community of the local schools, Mangere Bridge School and Waterlea Primary School. Warm thanks go, too, to Aline-Wendy for her contribution in writing the foreword.

The transition research continues

Several of our projects are still in action and form an integral part of our transition partnership with teachers, children and families. We have continued the buddy project and it is now three years old. We have had fabulously positive feedback from parents and the new entrant teachers.

We are still active reporting on transition experiences and research at workshops and dissemination opportunities Our book is now in print. It is the culmination of a very long transition journey and a huge workload.

Our four research articles have been published in:

Early Childhood Folio number 13: 2009.

The second article Google "International Journal of Transitions in Childhood Vol 3 2009" and you will find it there.

The third article has been published in "Dispersing Waves: Innovation in early childhood education" 2010. A. Meade Editor. This is the final COI publication.

Another article recently published in Early Childhood Folio:

Transition portfolios: Another tool in the transition kete. Vol18 (2).

To contact us for further information you can email us at mangerebridge@aka.org.nz

The importance of reading

A. Some interesting facts from a recent conference
Boys will speak 7000 words a day, girls will speak 20,000
If a child knows 8 Nursery rhymes by the time they are 4 - they are the best readers
It takes 1000 stories read aloud before a child learns to read a book alone
Series books are the "trainer wheels" of reading - supported practice that is not too hard but are fun to read.
Students who have the biggest vocab are the best readers
Fantastically fun book list
Don't open this book
Down the back of the chair
Harry and the Dinosaurs
Kiss Kiss Yuck Yuck
George and the dragon
My Friend Bear
The Pirate's Feast
The Tale of the little Mole who knew it was none of his business
Watch out Big Bros' coming
Where's my Teddy

Thursday, April 10, 2008

A term speeds by

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The transition research continues

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The importance of reading