Kei Tua o te Pae

21 OctoberToday I was sitting at the puzzle table and several children were looking through their folders. Fergus was watching the other children and then asked me to help him look for his folder.

“Where’s my folder? I’ve got two folders now, cause Mum paid for another one,” he said.

He found both folders and got out his new one first. “Where’s my other one?” he asked. “Cause this one’s only got one page and I want to look through my other one.”

Fergus found his folder, and then he and Willia…

Observing and listening in to mathematical symbols, tools, and practices includes watching and listening in to adults and children engaged in a range of mathematical activities. It also includes noticing cultural and local conventions to do with ways of classifying and describing patterns and relationships, using ideas like number, shape, space, time, and distance. In the exemplar “Preparing a budget and playing with numbers”, a group of children and their teacher are using mathematics for a pur…

Child’s name: Tia

Date: 16 August

Teacher: kuia (grandmother)

A learning story

Belonging

Mana whenua
Taking an Interest

Tia woke at 6.30 a.m. I met her in the hallway and asked her if she wanted to come into my bed upstairs. She said yes. I told her there was a surprise up there for her and she was to leave the light off. We climbed into bed and I asked her to look out the window. The surprise was the Southern Cross pointers, which were still bright in the sky. I told her the traditional n…

Non-verbal communication skills include expressing feelings, ideas, and questions in a wide range of ways. Teachers who know the children well learn to “read” the signs of infants and toddlers. Children learn to communicate using a wide range of media: the exemplar “Drawing and chanting together” gives examples.

“Introducing the computer” is an exemplar about children being introduced to one type of information technology. More exemplars about information technology are included in Book 20, and…

Child: Tia

Date: 16 August

Teacher: Grandmother

 
 
Examples or cues
A Learning Story

Belonging

Mana whenua
Taking an Interest
Finding an interest here – a topic, an activity, a role. Recognising the familiar, enjoying the unfamiliar. Coping with change.

Tia and I were travelling out to Whitecliffs and the wind was blowing very strongly.

Tia asked, “What's that?” I told her that it was Tāwhirimatea and he was blowing very hard today.

She asked, “Where?”, meaning “Where is it? I can&…

Children develop many goals for their learning, goals that are often hidden from the adult observer. Children frequently appear to “change track” as they work, and on many occasions, their goal is only apparent to adults in retrospect (and not always then). We have to find ways in which children can tell their own stories or be their own assessors without involvement in formal assessment. Not all children can do this, so we have to get to know the children well in order to notice and recognise t…

Children develop competence as they pursue their personal interests and goals. They develop working theories about themselves as learners and about the world around them. Their goals, interests, and working theories may not be immediately apparent, and many will change during the learning itself.

The longitudinal New Zealand Competent Children project (Wylie and Thompson, 2003, page 74) concluded that a number of items that described early childhood settings continued to show positive associati…

Children are developing a wider horizon of interest beyond the early childhood setting and beyond their home settings.

Learning dispositions and working theories include developing an interest in and a recognition of new learning identities or “possible selves”8 and a capacity to “read” the environment and therefore to navigate between different forms of individuality and competence as defined in different communities. For some children, this involves navigating between te ao Māori and te ao wh…

Child: Lauren

Date: 21 February

Observer: Julie

Learning StoriesI invited Lauren to do an overprint on the cat screen print she did the other day.

“What else would you like to have in this picture, Lauren?”

“A basket! With blankets that go there and there!”

“Fantastic!” I said and watched as she drew her cat basket and cut it out.

 

Once the print was made, she looked at it and said, “Oh, no! That’s not right! The cat needs to be in the basket – not up there!”

“You could draw another on…

Child: Kaeleigh

Date: October

Teacher: Kimberly

 
 
Examples or cues
A Learning Story

Belonging

Mana whenua
Taking an Interest
Finding an interest here – a topic, an activity, a role. Recognising the familiar, enjoying the unfamiliar. Coping with change.

Today we had a special visitor named Jo, who came in to talk to our teachers about ICT in our centre. Jo had a few spare minutes after lunch, so she brought her laptop out for us to play with. At first, we were looking at her photos on the…

Child: Daniel (14 months)

Teacher: Shaz

Date: 1 August

A learning storyDaniel was sitting on my knee while I read the story about a pudgy pig that visits lots of different animals on his way to find his favourite pigsty with all his little pig friends.

Daniel pointed to the animals, squealing with excitement and bouncing up and down on my knee. He loved lifting the flaps to discover a different animal each time, saying “eyes” emphasising the “s” on the end. He often turned to me with a big g…

29 May Teacher: Fionna

Mikayla is playing with the puppets when James comes into the family corner. Mikayla asks Maxine if James would like a puppet. Maxine tells Mikayla to ask James if he wants a puppet – which Mikayla does, and she holds the puppet out for James to put his hand in – which he tries but misses the hole. He gets the puppet on his hand with some help. Mikayla, Maxine, and James together play with their puppets, pretending to talk to each other and pretending to eat food. James g…

Child’s name: Stevie

Learning storiesAt one point this afternoon Stevie was very upset. I asked “What’s wrong Stevie – why are you sad?” He told me he was sad because someone told him he couldn’t play on the pirate ship. I took his hand and said, “That’s very upsetting – and they told me I’m not allowed either – because girls aren’t allowed!”

Victoria piped into the conversation “Me too!” “Wow, how did it make you feel when they said that, Victoria?” I asked. “Sad,” she said. “Well that ship n…

This story began one day when Vanessa told me that her family were going to get a puppy. A conversation with her mum revealed that Vanessa was “breaking her neck” to get the puppy. She just loves animals.

The day came when the puppy arrived. Vanessa was bursting with the news when she came to kindergarten and with great delight told all the teachers. And so the beautiful pictures of Trent began with this one.



Day after day Vanessa drew or painted pictures of Trent. The pictures became more…

In this domain of Contribution/Mana Tangata, the emphasis is on the recognition of (and action towards) children’s rights and responsibilities, together with early perceptions of and responses to diversity, inclusion, and fairness. Assessments give value to and record actions that are associated with children’s increasing confidence to stand up for themselves and for others when they perceive that justice is threatened. Creating an environment that is characterised by mutual respect supports chi…

Child's name: James, 9 months, 3 weeks

Date: 8 Oct

Observer: Julie

A learning story   

James crawls to the puzzle area where Leigh (3.5 years) is completing a puzzle. He looks at what Leigh is doing, then chooses a puzzle and starts to work with it. He takes a piece out and attempts to put it back in. He tries quite a few times to position the piece correctly by lifting it out, repositioning it, and putting it back in. Eventually, the piece goes in the right way.

Leigh (the older child…