Capital E are a Children’s performance company who travel around New Zealand putting on live shows. This year we booked to attend their show called “Seasons” at the TSB Showplace. The show “Seasons” transports children through song, music, and puppetry into the four seasons – raumati, ngahuru, hōtoke and kōanga. With a journey into natures world of living creatures. 

We were very lucky to be selected for a pre show visit here at Manu on Friday 4th June from the cast. They entertained us with musical instruments enabling the children to become familiar with a xylophone, banjo and a piano accordion. We learned sign language and how to move our bodies to the four seasons. Then we got a very close look at some of their puppetry.

This was an excellent introductory session to the show that we attended on Tuesday 8th June. After attending the show we visited a local playground. What a wonderful way to explore our community within the current season and build on our tamariki sense of belonging.

The Olympic Games couldn’t go ahead in 2020 due to the world wide Covid pandemic, instead they were held this year in 2021 in Tokyo Japan. We followed the games with great interest.

While following these events and celebrating the success of our NZ sportspeople. We held our very own Olympic events here at Manu. Our games provided our children opportunities to try different sports like weight lifting, boxing, long jump, hurdles, sprints, high jump and football skills. With our children learning to grow and develop skills both physical and mental. Some of these were: strength, speed, coordination, patience, determination, and resilience, as well as just having fun. It was great to see our children revisiting many of these events to practice their newly acquired skills.

This term we have been exploring music, dance and puppetry. Our tamariki have embraced the art of performance within an environment adorned by tutus, puppets, costumes and a puppet theatre. We have listened to stories and danced to music, and performed our very own performances of Peter and the Wolf. This has been a fabulous build up to our excursion to visit the Val Deakin Theatre to watch dancers perform “Peter and the Wolf”. What an exciting adventure this was with a bus ride to the ballet and a visit to the playground on our way back to Manu.

These rich experiences have helped our tamariki to develop confidence through learning to take a risk to perform in front of others. Enriching language with opportunities to retell stories and movement through dance. Our excursion was an opportunity to grow a deepening sense of belonging at Manu and the confidence to explore within our wider community.

This year we celebrated Puanga alongside a belated farewell to kaiako Maree who left us just before lockdown due to Covid 19. It was wonderful to see so many faces, past and present join us in this special event to share kai, stories, wish all the best to Maree and see in the Māori New Year. The sun was shining, the kindergarten was busy and a great time was had by all.

Arohanui.

Throughout term three we have been learning all about fire safety and following the “Get Out and Stay Out” fire safety programme. We are very proud of all the knowledge our tamariki have gained and the quick responses they have had to our fire drills.

In addition across the curriculum there has been puzzles, creative art works, and a lot of rich dramatic play within the kindergarten. As our resident young fire fighters have put out fires, practiced sliding down the pole and saved soft toys from high within the trees. Through their play they discovered that to perform successful rescues safely, it requires team work. Working together to solve problems as to how to reach high places. Especially important, if there was a real fire no matter what they must, Get Out and Stay Out!

In consolidation of our fire safety learning we arranged a visit to the New Plymouth Fire Station. This was a special visit for our tamariki and especially special for Harrison as his dad Sam works as a firefighter. During our visit the Fire Officers had a call out, this allowed us to experience just how fast the Fire Officers respond as they dressed and jumped into the fire trucks and with the siren on, two engines left the station.

The sun came out and it was beautiful winters day for our adventure to Cameron and Oliver’s. All it took was a short walk to the other side of Manu Crescent and we were there. We went to meet Queenie and Juliet the sheep first and gave them some sheep pellets to eat. Then everyone was off to explore at their own pace. There were a lot of things to do; climbing ladders, balancing on ropes, sliding down grassy hills, climbing up to a tree house, picking kiwi fruit, finding walnuts, looking for chicken eggs, playing football, swinging and even climbing on a jungle gym and bouncing on a trampoline.

What a wonderful way to explore our community and build relationships. Thank you Cameron, Oliver, Sophie, Anne and John for allowing us to come to your wonderful place.

What a fabulous day we had exploring Brooklands Park amongst the beautiful autumn leaves. This was a change to usual forest Friday adventures in the community orchard Shepherds Bush. We started our day by catching a city council bus to Kaimata Street park entrance. Just inside the park we came across a giant pine tree in which we tried to measure by everyone holding hands around the trunk of the tree. Wow! it took sixteen tamariki to measure around. We headed down the track and across the bridge to where the giant ginkgo tree is. Then back to the path to the bowl to have fun playing in the piles of autumn leaves. After this we headed to the conifer tree grove to collect pine cones and found many interesting discoveries of fungi to explore. We had our ropes and the plan was to use these in a secluded part of the park where we had used these previously. Time was running out and we made a decision to use an alternative spot that was closer to our meeting place. All tamariki were very keen to have a go demonstrating great balance and confidence. Tino pai rawa atu! This was a great way to finish off our Forest Friday autumn adventure in Brooklands Park.

What a beautiful day we had for our annual visit to Vogeltown School to participate in a “Tryathlon”. The emphasis is on ‘Try’ encouraging all tamariki to take part. Our tamariki pair up with a senior member of the school to complete the coarse. This is a wonderful tuakana/teina relationship. We are very fortunate to have this strong link with Vogeltown School. As this enables our tamariki to become familiar with the school and creates smoother transitions for those children who will attend. It also allows older siblings to be involved. Excursions of this nature assist in building connections within the wider community and further enhances a sense of belonging.

Americarna has become embedded in the culture of Taranaki. This annual event has grown over the years. Having an American family with us this year made our celebrations even more special. A special thank you to Amber for arranging Mr Ian Lind to bring his beautiful car to kindergarten for the children to explore. Big thank you to you Ian Lind for making this possible. Another big thank you to Summerset Mountain View retirement village for inviting us down to watch more Americarna cars and generously buying ice blocks for our tamariki to enjoy. Many of our whānau spent time on the weekend exploring the large parade of cars together.

One of the strong relationships we have fostered within our community has been with Gordon the librarian on the library bus. Gordon arrives and parks outside the kindergarten every Thursday fortnight. This is a relationship that has been ongoing for several years now. We have seen the old original bus replaced by the smaller compact bus and share this service with local residents. Gordon happily sources books requested by kaiako and tamariki supporting current interests. Our tamariki enjoy this literacy language rich environment which fosters their love for stories and books.

Gordon is also a voluntary fire station officer in his spare time and has become a great resource with fire education. He has taken time to speak with tamariki about fire safety after fire drill practice and supplied us with a fire safety DVD and education resource materials for both whānau and tamariki.