Kia ora koutou,
I hope all is well with you and that you all have managed to have a fantastic break during the holiday season.
Summer is still around the corner, and I hope everyone is enjoying this season.
For this month, we would like to welcome Amelia Herath, our new child at Karori Kids. A warm farewell to Indie, Gia An who are now off to school. We wish them all the best in their endeavours.
Busy Kids at Karori Kids
1.Lunar Festival
This festival has been a great focus for celebrating culture, language and identity.
JD and Regan brought in their home experience at Karori Kids. The Kaiako worked together to introduce and refresh children’s learning about Chinese Lunar New Year. Resources such as lanterns, gold coins, red pockets, and other visual aids were shared amongst tamariki and kaiako. Engagement in drawing and colouring dragons was also popular. Making and eating dumplings was another exciting activity that we did for this festival.
Learning Outcomes (Te Whāriki and NELP)
1a.Belonging
Goal 3: Children experience an environment where they feel comfortable with the routines, customs and regular events
1b.Communication
Goal 3: Children experience an environment where they experience the stories and symbols of their own and other cultures
1c. Priorities (NELP) New Zealand (2020)
Objective 1: LEARNERS AT THE CENTRE
Have high aspirations for every learner/ākonga, and support these by partnering with their whānau and communities to design and deliver education that responds to their needs, and sustains their identities, languages and culture
2. Treaty of Waitangi
Honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi plays an important role in the akoranga we do at Karori Kids. It is evident that we acknowledge and embed the principles of Te Tiriti throughout our practice. The treaty of Waitangi was celebrated with our tamariki through stories, dance and revisiting our Karori Kids Treaty.
2a.Belonging Goal 3: Children experience an environment where they feel comfortable with the routines, customs and regular events.
2b.Priorities 5: Meaningfully incorporate Te reo Māori and tikanga Māori into the everyday life of the place of learning
3. Valentines Day
Valentines Day was celebrated through understanding its meaning. The tamariki
engaged in painting, colouring and making cards with love hearts. This day was also used as an opportunity of expressing love and care to their peers and families.
3a.Communication
Goal 3: Children experience an environment where they experience the stories and symbols of their own and other cultures
3b. Enjoying hearing stories and retelling and creating them.
4. Going for Walks
We continue to go for regular walks as this activity provides a lot of positive experience for our tamariki. This is also not to mention that this activity is popular amongst our tamariki.
4a. Keeping themselves healthy and caring for themselves | te oranga nui
5. Looking after our Papatūānuku
We continue to engage our tamariki in looking after Papatūānuku: gardening, cleaning our surroundings and planting. We are in the stage of harvesting and our children are super excited! These opportunities provide our tamariki the hands-on access to the natural world and provides learning through all their senses.
5a. Making sense of their worlds by generating and refining working theories.
Workshops/Seminars
JD and Regan will be attending three sessions for Te reo Maori Course
Gina will continue to have ECE Managers Networking.
Regan, Mercy and Gina will attend PD on the 9th March at Te Rito Maioha about curriculum.
Upcoming Events:
March
Fish and Chips Night. Farewell party for Tracy, Friday, 1st March
Teacher-Parent Interview, Monday-Thursday 25th-28 March
Sports Day- Tuesday, the 19th of March
Good Friday- Friday, 29th of March (Centre is closed)
April
Easter Monday- Monday, the 1st of April (Centrte is closed)
Teachers Only Day- Tuesday, 2nd of April 2024
Anzac Day- Thursday, 25th of April
Internal Evaluation
“How is the language, culture and identity of all whānau empowered at Karori Kids?”
The findings showed that kaiako are on embedding and sustaining stage in empowering the culture, language and identity of our tamariki and whānau.
There are areas that are reflected in the parents' feedback: -there is a desire for increased acknowledgment of mana; expressed a preference for the inclusion of greetings in the children’s first language and aligning children's learning experiences with their cultural background.
The action plans will be continuously included in the team’s goals to enhance teacher’s practices to further empower our tamariki and whānau language, culture and identity.
What’s new for the year 2024?
Our whānau board has now been moved to the art area board which is bigger and accessible for our tamariki. This gives an ample space for our kaiako to extend the children’s language, culture and
We have also created a board for our whanau to inform about the activities for the day. It is also an opportunity to share the language, celebration of our tamariki, whānau and kaiako.
Karori Kids Philosophy
We have also reviewed Karori Kids philosophy to find out whether the teaching practices are aligned to the Karori Kids philosophy and it revealed that the teaching practices of the kaiako are embedded in Karori Kids Philosophy. Furthermore, the findings display some of the virtues of the kaiako. These virtues are: love for work/aroha mote mahi, respect/whakaute, kindness/atawhai and relationships/hononga.
We will introduce and reinforce these virtues to our tamariki by choosing one virtue termly.
General
Thank you to all the parents and committee members for the invaluable support in 2023. Karori Kids would not thrive without your dedication. As we embark on the journey of 2024, we eagerly anticipate another year of collaboration of growth. Together we aim to continue making a positive impact to our community, nurturing our children s potential and fostering a culture of learning and support.
“Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi"
With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive