Mangere Bridge Kindergarten Community Blog: enviroschools

Showing posts with label enviroschools. Show all posts

Friday, November 30, 2012

The Enviroschools Bronze certificate ceremony at Sylvia Park School

Our representatives - Pat, Taina and two children went off to Sylvia Park School to accept the Bronze certificate.

First came the ceremony.

Then there was time to wander the new sculpture exhibits at the school and then time for lunch. We are delighted to receive the certificate the officially recognises us as a Bronze Enviroschool Kindergarten.

Monday, October 15, 2012

We are back! Term 4 begins

We have been on two weeks holiday and now we are back. Everyone was very busy and excited to be back. There was much excitement as the children perused the broad bean garden and found lots and lots of beans. It has rained lots in the holidays so the gardens were well watered and everything GREW!! Once the children had picked the pods then they raced off to the food table to put them on the table for everyone to share. Some thought they were Yum - some not so much!!

Some like MJ were delighted to be back to the clay to create new works of art --

And others were happy to be back climbing on our new balancing rope.
We were all pleased to see each other again after two weeks.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Mangere Bridge Kindergarten is a Bronze Enviroschools Kindergarten

We have worked through the Bronze reflection process and became a Bronze Enviroschools Kindergarten on 14th August. It is the culmination of a years work and we are delighted to have completed the Bronze process.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Our native garden at the farm

Last year we helped Janine plant a native garden at the farm. We have been once to mulch it and today it was time to mulch again. First there was time for a little fun, launching into the air.

Then we walked past the frame to our garden. Time for some more fun climbing before we went through the gate and over the paddock.

A bit of work and it was done. Thanks to the boys at the farm who shifted the mulch in the mule down to the paddock, it would have been a big job for us to get it there, those bales are heavy and it took quite a few of us to lift them.

This experience links well to the Enviroschools philosophy of planting native trees and learning how to look after them.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Looking after our trees at the Farm

We are an Enviroschools kindergarten and when Janine suggested we help plant a stand of trees and then come back to mulch them we were delighted to be able to do so.

We began our usual Monday at the farm by watching Gary the farmer work in the yards - always something we enjoy. Then we wandered around to check out the piglets - there were 12 of them in with their mum and we love seeing how they are getting on each week.

We did get a little sidetracked at a favourite place where children love to practice jumping into the air and "flying"

Finally after some food and a drink of water it was time to cross the paddocks to 'our tree planting spot' and see what work needed doing.

Gary had left two bales of straw for us to use and we got to work and mulched the trees to protect for the summer. Hard work but fun and then it was time to walk back over the paddocks back to kindergarten.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

We are an Enviroschools kindergarten

We are an Enviroschools kindergarten and as part of the kaupapa of building a community of learners we have included the sustainable jobs in the job list. Now the children help to bottle the worm pee, empty the worm food into the worm farm and put the compost into the compost tumbler. They take these jobs VERY seriously and really want to be the one on the board to do these jobs.

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