Newsletter - July 2011

Welcome

Welcome back Oscar Sandford and his parents Emma & Jason, and Zoe Wallis and her parents Vany & Michael. A big welcome to James Gordon (younger brother to Courtney); also to Simranjot Kaur and her whanau Harjinder Singh; and to Zoe Carter (younger sister of Daniel). (Please remember to bring in your immunisation certificates).

Farewell Nathaniel and his family who have moved to Te Puke and Siobhan McFadyen who has started school at Pahoia. Daniel Carter will be starting school in the next term as well. We wish them all the very best.

Students

We have had the pleasure of Rebecca and Nini full time for the past 4 weeks. Both these wonderful students leave to pursue their next learning adventure on Friday 8th July. We wish to thank both of you sincerely for all the hard work you have put in here towards your studies. The children and teachers will miss you both.

Thank you

Thanks again to Jan (Kara's mum) who always helps us each morning with our set up and often our end of day tidy up, and to Andrea Rae who has been sweeping our floors at the end of our busy day! Your help is very much appreciated.

Thanks to Catherine Schnackenberg (an ex Pukeko Corner Kindy mum) who owns the local florist. Catherine is regularly donating very beautiful paper, ribbons tec, for us to use. Please support Catherine and her team by purchasing locally as she continually supports our learning and teaching environment here.

A big thanks to all the parents and families who constantly bring in boxes and bits and bobs for our children to use. We are very grateful.

What's going on at the corner?

Our healthy eating healthy food focus has been a wonderful learning experience for the children and some of their families. Our children have grown in confidence and independence, being able to mix and prepare bread ingredients, problem solve why the bread didn't rise, what to do and what not to do (one day Kim forgot to add the water!!). The children can identify the stages the bread is at when it's cooking, just by looking into the glass part of the bread maker. They know how to choose which kinds of veg and fruit make the nicest juice. They can butter their own bread, and choose ingredients that are healthy and satisfying.

Our children are trying new foods despite believing that they don't like it!!! They can confidently use potato peelers and small (but sharp) knives with minimal blood spillage. They are identifying foods that they really like and foods that they really don't. They are confident learners who challenge themselves daily!!!

Baby Watching

We have been watching Tamara grow since she was a foetus. She is now 9 months old!!

We are amazed with Tamara's milestones. Each time Cathy and Tamara come for baby watching Tamara has reached yet another growing point. She has 7 teeth now, which to the children's delight enables her to eat different kinds of food, almost like the food they can eat (very important to children) as it shows her being big!! She crawls really quickly and has began to interact with the children by touching them and exploring their shoes and clothing. She is beginning to stretch out her legs (in crawl position) in readiness for walking. Our children are now anticipating Tamara's next milestone. They know Tamara very well.

Pauline McFadyen (Siobhan's Mum) is pregnant with her second child. She has kindly offered her belly, for the children to check its growth. We will be watching our newest baby bump soon.

Profile Books

Profile books are yours to take home whenever you like. Your teachers work especially hard with your children to ensure their learning is documented beautifully.

Please add your own stories/photos to the profiles at your leisure. It is always a thrill for us to see and for your child to show off...

Please remember to bring back the book so your teachers can place in any new learning stories for your children.

Disco

Our disco was so much fun. We danced and danced, we ate lots of food and sang a few tunes on the microphone. We enjoyed ourselves and all our families who joined us for our night time dance party!!!!

Some children had ideas about sleeping the night!!!!

A BIG THANK YOU to Nini (our student), who gave us the biggest sound system we have ever had!!!

Thank you

Very much for your support with our no nut foods at kindy. These include peanut butter, nutella, nut muesli bars. Our children who have nut allergies are seriously affected. On behalf of all the teachers and families concerned we thank you all very much for your unwavering support.

Lexham Park

Our relationship with Lexham Park is ever growing. Lexham Park is visiting us very soon. They will come for the morning. Our children enjoy our residents so much. It is a beautiful combination of life. Come and join us as well if you would like an awe inspiring experience and a cuppa.

Absent

If your child is going to be absent from kindy for the day please ring and let us know as soon as you can.

If you are going to take and extended holiday with your child, can you please let Di in the office know or Gina.

You may from time to time be asked to sign a frequent absence form as part of Ministry of Education requirement. Please check that your contact numbers are updated and correct, as many times the teachers have tried to contact families and some numbers we have are now changed.

Christchurch raffle

We wanted to help support an early childhood centre in Christchurch. So Grandpa Gary made a lawn mower, Natalie (Jim's mum) made and donated a very beautiful blanket, and Pauline McFadyen (Siobhan's mum) donated her massive tupperware kit. The teachers spiced it up with a few treats. It is a huge prize to win.

The tickets are only $2.00. Please help support our cause.

Our Christchurch kindergarten is called South Brighton Kindergarten. They are part of the Canterbury Westland Branch. Most of the homes in this area are in the red zone, though the kindy is operational and sound.

Our raffle is for the children to choose a few special things that they would like to have at their kindergarten. It also relieves some of the fundraising pressure from the teaching staff.

On the raffle is a photo of the children and their teachers for you to see where our prayer, love and support is headed.

Caterpillar Feet

Last term Karen (a rep from Tauranga City Council) visited us here at kindy to talk about a program called 'Caterpillar Feet'.  This program is designed to get schools walking. Currently the walking school bus is part of this road safety campaign and now we are. We are often walking in our community, so ....This is an opportunity to document our visibility when we are out and about.

If you would like to join us on our walks in the community please see one of your teachers. Your help would be very much appreciated.

Rugby

We watched the first 15 verse Taupo on Friday 17th June at Moore Park. The weather was wet and a bit cold. However the Lord shone down on us, when we left kindy and then shone again when we returned back. Many of our children managed to win rugby balls, when they participated in a game at the field. Thank you to Jan and Lester for bringing Steamy the Steamers moscot to kindy for us to meet.

Give us a Clue: 

The Clue Box is something we introduced in the later part of last year. The children enjoy sharing their special item. They find something from their home environment and think of 3 Clues to describe it. They get great delight out of reading out the clues and seeing if their peers can guess what they have put in the box. This game is a great connection between home and their kindergarten environment in conjunction with great opportunities to test our their cognitive skills.

Pukeko Corner term dates for 2011

Graduates Day (our children who have left for school recently)              Monday 18 July

Term 2       Monday 2nd May                           to                 Friday 22nd July

Term 3       Monday 1st August                        to                 Friday 14th October

Labour Day - Monday 24th October

Term 4      Tuesday 25th October                   to                 Friday 16th December

Celebrations

Happy Birthday         Tom Freeman 4 years old 4th June

                               Siobhan McFadyen 5 years old 1st July

                               Daniel Carter 5 years old 22nd July

                               Jessica Rae 5 years old 31 July

                               Madeline Taylor 4 years old 31 July

Congratulations         Pauline McFadyen is pregnant

                               Sai & Josh are expecting another baby soon!

If your child or a member of your family is celebrating something special, please let Gina or Dianne Ward know and we can put it here!!