Our Christmas Party 15 December 2009

Today Fairy Claire came to our Christmas Party in the gorgeous garden belonging to St Andrews Church.

Making a wish is serious business!

Star Boy was lost but we helped Fairy Claire find him in a tree!

Everyone had a great time!

A Christmas Gig Friday 4th December

On Friday we were invited to sing to the 'Old Folk' at the Care and Craft Club at the St Andrews Parish Centre.

Wearing Santa hats we sang and danced the songs that we had been doing this year at Kindy.

The old people there were delighted to see the fresh young faces of the children and enjoyed our time there very much.

The children sang really well and didn't seem fazed at all by the audience!

In the top photo we are singing our Dingle Dangle Scarecrow song!

Five Fierce Pirates are striding out to sea in the lower photo!

Botanic Gardens Sculpture Exhibition 2 December

On Wednesday 2 December a group of us from Kindy went by bus to the Sculpture Exhibition at the Botanic Gardens in Manurewa.

The first thing the children saw when we walked into the building was an exhibition of small sculptures. They loved them.

But when they went through the glass doors to the outdoors and saw some of the sculptures that they had seen in our book at Kindy, their excitement grew.

We were amazed at how interested they were in the sculptures, talking about them, feeling them, walking around them.

But morning tea was the first item on the agenda!!

...and watching the baby ducklings was a close second!

We didn't manage to see the whole of the gardens or all the sculpture exhibits. We all saw different parts of the show and gardens but all thoroughly enjoyed it and plan to take another group next year.

The time came to go home in our bus all too soon! Although it was a rainy day no one seemed to notice!

GRAND OPENING of the 'Hidden Garden"

Today Tuesday 1 December saw the Grand Opening of our new 'Hidden Garden'

Dressed for the occasion we pulled back the red velvet curtain and cut the ribbon!!!

Then everyone went under the curtain to admire the flowers and vegetables that are growing bigger as we watch!

Admiring all the plants is hungry work so we feasted on strawberries (not grown in our garden though) .

Thanks for coming everyone!

The Tin Man leaves his shoes behind in our new garden!

Hey look - the Tin Man has left his shoes behind in our new garden....

and they have plants growing in them!

Jack from Jack and the bean stalk visits our garden!

Millie, Jack, Christy, Eva and Emily G made Jacks for the beanstalks growing in our garden! They drew them, cut them out (with a bit of help if needed) and watched as they came out of the laminating machine ready for the garden.

Some of the 'Jacks' didn't want to go in our garden and went home with their creators at the end of the morning. BUT luckily we had four left to go on our plants!

'My Jack is going on this bean,' said Eva.

Here they all are climbing up the beanstalk to get to the Giant's Castle! We will have to make one of those next week!

Maddie brought in a possum to visit the strawberries in our garden. Just as well it was only a puppet!

Scarepossums in the Hidden Garden!

We have discovered that the beautiful strawberries in our new vegetable garden are getting eaten by something! We think it might be possums

So today lots of the children got together and made

SCAREPOSSUMS to scare the possums away.

After lots of discussion about how to scare them

away the recycle centre was raided and all the

shiney and dangly things that could be

found were threadedor tied onto

our SCAREPOSSUMS

At end mat time, after admiring

our handiwork, we set off to

put our SCAREPOSSUMS in place!

The children poked the SCAREPOSSUMS into the

soil by the strawberries.

LOOK OUT YOU POSSUMS!

Stay away from our garden!

Jack's Pteradactyl Story

The Pteradactyl flew into a storm with thunder and lightning.

Then the sun came out.

Then a fierce tyranasaurus came along with his fierce eye.

He smelt the pteradactyl with his nostril and ATE him!

The fierce dinosaur then sat down and watched TV

The End

Here's the author, Jack, holding his book that he assembled himself. The illustration on the front depicts a dinosaur with a crack in its head as indicated by the arrow. It's a real dinosaur not a skeleton.

Grandparents Morning Tea

All the grandparents of the Kindy were invited to morning tea today Tuesday 3 Nov.

LOTS came along!

We started with a mat time.

Lucy and Eva had news and then we did a song or two!

The children had to stand to have their morning tea because they had very kindly given up their seat for their Grandparents!

Afterwards the Grandparents joined in playing with the children in the playground!

All aboard!!!

Thanks for coming to our Kindy today!

Planting our new plants!

Off to Plant Barn to buy new plants for our new garden!

Planting in the Hidden Garden...

Toyah grew some sunflower seeds at home, and now they are big enough to plant out in our Hidden Garden.

Digging some small holes for the seedlings

What shall we build by the curvy slide?

We've got a space by the curvy slide where a tree died. We think we should build a 'hut' there ...but what sort?

The first thing we did was to move our frame house into the area so the children could visualise the space we were talking about.

We've been doing some research about buildings and plans.

The children have been drawing plans and building their plans with blocks.

We are going to experiment with some units of measurement this week.

Photo by Nicole S

Our 'Hidden' Garden

We are developing the north east corner of our playground. We are planning to grow some edible and plants with interesting smells!

The Wizard of Oz