Mangere Bridge Kindergarten Community Blog: learning in the outdoors

Showing posts with label learning in the outdoors. Show all posts

Monday, November 10, 2014

Kindergarten Awareness week Day 1- Keeping Ambury Farm clean and rubbish free.

Today is the first day of Kindergarten Awareness Week and the focus is "Sustainable communities".
Ambury Farm is very much a part of our community and today we took the rubbish bags and went through the areas where there had been enjoying the farm barbecue and play areas to make sure there was no rubbish left. Ambury Farm is a regional farm park and visitors must "Pack in and Pack out" i.e. take their rubbish with them but some hadn't and we found a big black bag of rubbish.

Early on we watched the truck come and take the lambs away to be food!!This is a working farm so sometimes the questions and events are hard to answer!!especially for city kids who think meat comes from the supermarket.

Then there was just time for a juicie on the rocks before we walked back to kindergarten.
We found after such a hot sunny day we really needed to water our garden too.

Monday, February 10, 2014

First Day Back at Ambury Farm

It was clear and hot for our first day back at Ambury Farm. We did a round of the animals to check out any new arrivals.

We had a look in the hutches of the chickens for eggs but no luck. Then we went to see MR Big and Baby G. Mr Big was very disappointed we didn't have food!! but it really looks like he doesn't need any more.

Lastly there was time for morning tea before we began our walk back to kindergarten. On the way we saw Caitlyn driving the tractor with the manure spreader - it helps the grass grow. She's a great tractor driver.

We had enough time for a juicie - in the shade, not on our usual stopping place at the rockpile and a play in the paddock then across the ladder and back to kindergarten for lunch. We were all pretty tired after our big day at the farm.

Monday, November 25, 2013

The Natural Phenomena conference - Wild woods, Whangarei

This weekend we were lucky enough to be chosen as workshop presenters at the Natural Phenomena conference held in the Wild Woods just outside Whangarei. It is just an amazing site - in a glade surrounded by tall tress, Puriri, Kauri, Kahakitea, and Lacebark. The keynote speakers presented in a marquee and we presented under the trees in 'The Rockery" on log stools.

Griffin Longley, CEO of Natureplay WA, Australia and Steve Gurney, adventure athlete were both fantastic speakers providing inspiration and provocation to get children outdoors. Did you know children are doing 2000 steps less a day than the minimum required to avoid obesity!!!!

The organising committee - a committed group of volunteers did a fabulous job and the food was fab too. All in all a wonderful Wild Woods professional development experience.

Next year pencil in the 4th weekend in November for another great conference in the outdoors.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Kindergarten at the farm - the Rocky Shore

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Monday, May 7, 2012

Back at the Farm - the first time this term

We love being at the farm and today was our first day back after the holidays. We had lots of children with us who have just joined the morning session and for them this was the first time at Kindergarten on the Farm. We needed to learn the rules at the farm and the children who are old hands were happy to help the new children learn:
No chasing animals
Wait at the gate till an adult comes
Don't touch the electric fence!!!
No climbing on fences, gates or rock walls.
Great remembering everyone.
First we checked out the sheep yards where Garry was organising to sort the sheep and drench them too.

We really like watching the everyday jobs around the farm and this time we learnt about wool too as Janine was taking some bales away. The wool was a bit smelly but will make great jumpers, scarves or socks the children thought.

Once we had had mat-time we went off for a bit of an explore in the bush area close by. It is a fun place to find bugs or climb trees.

Next stop we wandered off to the animals to check out pigs (and give Sou E a scratch), turkeys - the babies Skywalker and Talula have grown since we were here - and then into the chickens to wonder if we could see any eggs. No luck today.

While we walked along suddenly there was a rainbow above us. It looked stunning and one of the children suggested we could slide down it. It did look that close.

Lastly there was just time for a scramble over the rocks on our way home through the paddocks. Rock climbing is a highlight of the walk home. It's tricky climbing with a bag on your back but it's good balancing practice too.

The walk home is just part of being at the farm now and we have fabulous walkers who amble along chatting and playing and ENJOYING the walk.

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