Easter Egg Hunt

Wednesday was a special day for the Fiordland Kindergarten kids. We had our annual Easter egg hunt. Some of our tamariki were so excited that they had trouble sleeping the night before (as their parents informed us.) The day started well for both groups of children, 

The Nature Discovery group cooked the visiting children a delicious morning tea of cheerios and  Milo and practised a surprise to welcome their peers.

The Nature Discovery group sing a powhiri to welcome their
peers for morning tea.

The group from Kindergarten listen to the powhiri.

The Kindergarten group were excited to catch the bus up to Nature Discovery.

When they arrived they were greeted by the Nature Discovery children and teachers with a wonderful powhiri. Oscar provided the accompaniment on the drum. The Kindergarten group were then welcomed to join their friends for morning tea, which they did with lots of enthusiasm and hugging.

The children share morning tea.

After the tamariki were filled up with sustenance, we split into three groups to go on three separate Easter egg trails to find what the Easter Bunny had left us.

 The object of the hunt was to find the coloured ribbon (clues) that the Easter Bunny had left behind. When we reached each ribbon we stopped and preformed an activity. These activities were lots of fun. There was dancing and singing, hugging trees, telling stories, making letters and patterns with natural art resources and making silly faces. All the while we kept an eye out for the coloured balloons that marked the hiding place of the Easter eggs.

The purple group

The Red Group

The Pink Group





Eventually all of the groups found the Easter Bunny's gifts hidden in an area marked by coloured balloons. They were hard to find, but our tamariki are expert finders! After having a break to share the spoils, we.all reunited back at The Shed. This time it was the group from the Kindergarten who sang a goodbye song to their Nature Discovery friends before heading back to Kindergarten on the bus.

The prize, a basket of eggs

Enjoying the spoils

Our Easter hunt wouldn't have been possible without the support of the families and community of Fiordland Kindergarten. A big thank you to all of the parents who helped us out today and a special thanks to the group of bunny helpers who set the track and the amazing bunny who hid the eggs in just the right places!

Thank you!

Post written by Tash

Checking out the toadstools

It is the season for fungus of all types and on Wednesday last week Mrs Shaw's Nature Discovery group went on a toadstool hunt. There were many different types of toadstools to be found by our eagle eyed children, and not always in places that you would expect to find them.

The tamariki had a lot of fun finding and comparing all of the different types of toadstools. Here are some photos of their adventures.

thank you to Mrs Shaw for the photos.

Post written by Tash

The twisty trees!

Today at Ivon Wilson park the evidence of the change of the season was everywhere.
It was cold and crisp this morning, everyone was rugged up warm in jackets and hats.
The tamariki found some wild blackberries during their explorations. We collected a bowl of them to bring back for lunch and we even brought some back to kindergarten for the other children to try.

Over the weekend we have had a lot of storms. We saw a lot of evidence of these storms when we visited The Pines today. We met our first surprise on the path. A large tree had been knocked over by the wind, completely blocking our way forward. We couldn't go through it, we had to either crawl under it or climb over it.

When we eventually made it to The Pines we were met with a lot of devastation. The storm had uprooted some trees, knocked some down and contorted others, there was even a tree shaped like a rainbow. What a powerful reminder of the strength of mother nature. The tamariki had a lot to say about the changes to The Pines. The first comment was made by Elliot, he summed up all of our thoughts when he said, "It's like a different country!" The other children soon added their own opinions: "The trees have fallen down."  "The thunder and the wind blowed the trees down." "I think a big storm (happened)."  "I think thunder or lightening or maybe dinosaur escaped." "I think someone might have curved it (the rainbow tree)"  "It's like a wee rainbow." "Maybe an aeroplane or helicopter crashed?"    Judy asked some of the children why they thought the rainbow tree was in the rainbow shape. Here are some of their thoughts: "The branches are hooked up with it so it stays curved." The tree is blown down, by the wind."

The blown down trees made a great provocation for our children to discuss. There was a lot of climbing over and under the fallen logs and some more discoveries were found, but we stayed on the edge of the plantation so that we could keep safe.

 

The heavy rain had helped some toadstools to emerge from the damp ground for the children to find. Some of our children reacted to seeing the toadstools by trying to kick them over. Although they are very poisonous, we explained to the tamariki that as visitors to this natural world, it is not our right to kick things over, just because they are poisonous. Instead we appreciated the beauty of the toadstools and if we touched them, we made sure we washed our hands afterwards.



We then found some other interesting fungus in the ground. This fungus had lots of little ants crawling through it, further affirmation that everything in the park has a purpose and is part of it's eco-system.

To finish of a fun morning of discoveries one of our wonderful parent helpers hoisted the children up the tree in a swing. What a great way to view the park as the birds see it, from up high.



Here are some more pictures of the things that we got up to today at The Pines. A big thank you to John, Judy and Adrian for helping us with our exploring.

Post written by Tash