A magical day in Fiordland

 It was an absolutely beautiful and magical day down beside Lake Henry today.  We looked at our reflections in the lake and we saw a  big rainbow trout swim by.

Autumn time we discovered is a time for huge magical looking  toadstools,  Sam and Millia had a close look at the white spots on the top.























Malachey thought the Gnuffs (little forest gnomes of Fiordland) might like to listen to some music.  We used cones and the logs from around the fire to make music.

We decided that we would like to have musical logs all the time and that we couldn't use the logs by the fire that we used for the safety bubble so we went up to the Gnuff forest and sawed up some more logs to use and carried them back to the shed.  

They were HEAVY! But team work meant that we could do it.

Nature Discovery Book

We have written a book about our Nature Discovery Programme, it contains amazing photos, international research and our own research on the benefits of this programme.  If you are interested in purchasing this book please contact Kindergartens South on 032140237.

Autumn Fun

Even though we have been exploring Ivon Wilson Park for four years we still manage to find new places that we haven't seen before.  Today we discovered a new and exciting bush area, the children named it Prickly wood because growing in it was blackberry bushes.  Inside Prickly wood there was some trees losing there leaves and we had fun rustling in them which of course attracted the Fantails, one nearly landed on Wade!  Back at the shed we made Damper and checked the stoat trap, there was nothing inside maybe next time.

Our Fiordland Fantail Friend

Wednesday 20th March

When we first arrived at our special spot amongst the pine trees, a fantail came and flew all around us.  

It was flitting for branch to branch and at times would fly very close to us.  It was beautiful to watch it and we sat watching it in wonderment and awe.  We thought that it was dancing for us. 

Grace said, “The fantail we saw, it singed some songs for me and Chloe.  It opened its tail and closed its tail.  It keep flying to two branches, down low.  I liked it when they opened their tails, it looked like a fan.”

Grace and Chloe pretended that they were fantails dancing.  The held some pin needles in the hands for their wings, darting around like the fantail did earlier. 

Their game continued and they built nests to lay their eggs.  Cody and Xavier joined in by pretending to chop up worms for their dinner.

Chloe said, “I used trees for the wings, I was being a fantail.  I was laying eggs, I had one egg.  Cody and Xavier got chopped up worms but we didn’t like them.”

Grace said, “The pine needles were our wings and I flapthem like birds - fantails. I sat on the nest with Chloe to keep the babies warm.  Cody got worms for me and Chloe. He got long worms and chopped them up so we could eat them.”

The beauty of Nature Discovery is being able to get up close and observe the birds and bugs that live in our Ivon Wilson Park.  

We often have fantails follow us  around the park and they flit and dance around us, sometimes getting quite close. We wonder if we will see the fantail next week?

Down in the Pines

There was so much to learn and discover today at Nature Discovery.  The children enjoyed looking at all the nursery spider web nests, we even got to see a little baby spider crawl out the tiny holes.  We have lots of questions about these nests and hope do more investigations on them.  Malachey's Dad was kept busy helping children make bows and arrows and then he showed us how to make a flax dart fly it was amazing.  Reid learned that it is okay to crawl on your hands and knees up a steep hill and was very proud of himself when he made it to the top.  Down in the pines there was a range of insects for us to look at, millipedes, black beetles and huhu grubs to name a few.  No one was keen to eat a tasty huhu grub...maybe next time. 

Rock Jumping in Fiordland

Students from Fiordland College were at Ivon Wilson Park clearing and cleaning up the park as well as using the mountain bike track.  While we were at the Gnuff's house, Matiu and Jacob from Fiordland College stopped to give us something they had found in the park. They had found Charlie's photo and whistle that had come off his jacket the week before.  Charlie was so happy to get it back as he thought that it was lost forever. He kept blowing the whistle to make sure that it still worked.

 While at the Gnuff's house, Grace and Chloe thought that the branches were poking out and could poke our eyes.  Chloe said, " We used the clippers to cut the branches because they might poke me in the eye." Grace and Chloe assessed the risk to others and themselves and found a solution to minimize the risk or danger to others.

 After morning tea we decided to go to the "Roly- poly hill" where we have fun running up and down the hill and rolling down it. Greer said, "I am running down the hill. I liked I cos it was sunny. Grace, Chloe and me run down and Ella stayed up there."

 "We found the pinecones that were sharp and green.Then they were brown and they were at the top of the branch.  The green ones were at the bottom at the end of the branch." said Cody.  It is always amazing to find different things in nature and the children are very observant, noticing any little thing had is different or new.

 We decide to go to the large platform to feed any ducks but instead of ducks we found college kids learning to fish and not a duck in sight. Instead we tried jumping from one rock to another.  It was a bit scary to make that first leap but everyone took up the challenge, being encouraged by their friends. Charlie was very determined to make it to the other rock, he finally had success after the third try.
Charlie said, "We were trying to jump to the rocks. I jumped on the ground by the rock and then I jumped on to the big rock. It was fun cos it was so much fun. It's cool cos it's fun. My friends did the same as me."

Grace said, "We were jumping at the jumping rocks.  It was fun cos I liked it, it was easy, I've done it before. Charlie and Chloe landed on the floor when they did it the first time."

On our travels we collected pinecones, leaves and gum nuts for Children's Day on Sunday 3rd March. We put them in a pile under some trees to use on Sunday.  When we got back to the shed, the College students had dropped of 2 bags of pinecones for us.  Some we will keep for our fire and some for Children's Day.  Another great sunny day in Fiordland.

We found a hedgehog

John helped us reset our stoat trap.  He showed us how it worked and we learned why we don't put our fingers near a set trap when it chopped a piece of wood in half.  We hope that it will catch stoats and rats that kill our beautiful native birds, and eat their food.










As we were walking along the new track we call "pine cone track"  we found a tiny baby hedgehog that had died.

We looked at it very carefully, it's spines were still a little soft so we decided it wasn't very old.  It's tummy was furry like a cat.  It had a very long snuffly nose to find insects, and little claws for scraping insects out.  When we looked closely we could see some eggs, and some tiny maggots.  We moved it carefully off the middle of the track and made a place for it to rest.  Next week we will visit it again to see how it has decayed.