Kei Tua o te Pae

At 5 months of age Jedd is able to express his wants and needs verbally. He will cry when hungry, tired or when he wants to be picked up. He will laugh and smile when spoken or sung to, showing his delight to his teachers Nadine (primary caregiver) and Shaz.

Jedd can sit unassisted for brief periods and will reach out purposely for objects, sometimes bringing his hands together to grasp objects. Jewellery and people’s faces are of special interest to Jedd.

Jedd recognises familiar people, show…

Children develop a sensitivity to place and occasion that provides them with capacity to “read” the environment and to recognise places where they trust the people, places, and things to keep them safe while they become focused and involved over a sustained period. Revisiting stories about learning can assist with this development, to the point of their recognising that the resources available to help them overcome their fears10 and to keep themselves safe in their early childhood education cent…

May

Teacher: Fran

Nicholas loves all the smells, sights and workings of the kitchen at the centre. He often enquires about what we are having for lunch or afternoon tea. The following conversation about the lunch menu was recorded by Alison, the centre chef.

On Friday Nic asked me if we could have smoked fish pie for lunch as it was his favourite dish. I replied that we were out of milk, so I couldn’t make it. Nic then asked me if we needed milk to make fish pie. Not hearing his statement cor…

 
A learning story

Belonging

Mana whenua

The centre was delighted by the invitation to attend the pōwhiri for the new principal.

Significantly we sat at the front, reflecting that we are valued.

The kaupapa of the centre – to encourage respect and understanding of Māoritanga – was evident in our children who sat quietly, stood to waiata when required and remained respectful throughout the hour-long pōwhiri.

Two children who were tired simply leaned against adults and fell asleep – no grizz…

When children have chosen their own activities, or when they have come to “own” an activity or find personal meaning in it, they are more likely to be closely involved in the activity and to ask and follow up on their own questions or questions that interest them. Often these questions will not be expressed in words.

As part of assessment for learning, teachers will ask questions too. Black and Wiliam, however, warn about verbal questioning in schools, commenting that such questioning is often…

Luka was playing on the swings when he went to the shed and brought out the small sawhorse. He put it under the swing and used it to climb up to the wooden bar. He informed me that “I learned how to do this.” I asked him how he had learnt this. “I thinked about it like this, hmmm, and then I did this and that’s how I got up.” Luka showed me how he had tried to put the sawhorse underneath the swing. He showed me how he was thinking, by showing me how he screwed up his eyes and went “hmm”.

What l…

Matthew is becoming aware of his physical presence. He found a mirror and seemed intrigued by what he could see in it – himself! He spent many moments looking intently at the reflection before jiggling up and down and from side to side, his eyes gazing at the image and looking at it from all the different angles. He revisited the mirror throughout the afternoon, showing great interest in his new discovery.

Shelly

15 January 

What’s happening here?
Matthew is intrigued by his reflection in a m…

In Te Whāriki, one of the indicative outcomes for the domain of Communication/Mana Reo is described as follows:

"Children develop an understanding that symbols can be “read” by others and that thoughts, experiences, and ideas can be represented through words, pictures, print, numbers, sounds, shapes, models, and photographs.

page 78"

Assessments where the “one hundred languages”10 of children are highlighted as domains of learning are covered in more detail in books 16–20 of this se…

Child: Fuka

Date: October

Teacher: Karen

A Learning Story

Belonging

Mana whenua
Taking an Interest

What great excitement today. Fuka brought her hen to kindergarten.

I grabbed the video camera and began recording Fuka’s excitement and her friends’ excitement as she chased the hen around the kindergarten playground with her friends. As children arrived at kindergarten Fuka told them, “My chicken”, and then Fuka giggled and giggled and giggled, as did her dad when he was telling me about Fu…

This domain of Contribution/Mana Tangata is about children’s growing capacity to develop relationships with other people who are different from them in diverse ways. Relationships between teachers and children, and between teachers, provide models for the social skills and attitudes that support this capacity.

In her book You Can’t Say You Can’t Play, Vivian Gussin Paley begins by discussing children in the process of developing an understanding of relationships and of dealing with rejection:…

Osmana is the grandmother of Elma. She is also the great-aunt of Shelia.

She sat talking with us at the lunch table. Osmana talked about respect.

Respect before the war. Respect for each other.

Respect for our world and for the people of the world.

“We should say thank you for this food.”

Osmana said all of this very gently and quietly.

Her face is gentle and warm.

I began to think about what she had said.

I began to think about the ways in which we could all say thank you.

Thank you is…

Parent’s voiceTane has had an on-going enthusiasm for sewing projects following a session at kindy where he used a needle and thread for the first time. With his “MumMum” [grandmother] he made a bag with button decorations and last week he made an apron ... The biggest challenge was coming to grips with having to finish each seam with some kind of knot to keep it all together.

Child's name: Sarah

Date: 22 June

Teacher: Lesley

  
A Learning Story

Belonging

Mana whenua
Taking an Interes…

As Hirini Melbourne has explained above, exploration of the wharenui is an opportunity to introduce the language and symbolism of whakairo. Here, Jak is calling on an example of written literacy – a book – to add to his knowledge, as well as referring to a photograph on the wall. He asks, “Why does it have a triangle pointy roof?”, and the teacher replies in terms of the symbolism of the design rather than the spatial mathematics of architecture; however, Jak is also exploring for himself the st…

Using literacy for a purpose includes a wide range of practices. Some of these are:

retelling the stories of others, demonstrating an awareness of how stories work (story grammar);
connecting stories – oral, visual, or written – to their own lives;
listening to and constructing poems, songs, and waiata;
“reading” pictures, photographs, and culturally significant symbols;
recognising the significance and place of cultural patterns (tapa, kōwhaiwhai, and tukutuku) and oral traditions (karanga, wa…

Child: Aimee

Teacher: Chrissy

Aimee brought her “Peter Rabbit” book to kindergarten. I began reading the first page and the names Flopsy and Mopsy caught Aimee’s attention.

“Those rhyme!” she exclaimed.

I wrote the words “Flopsy” and “Mopsy” on a piece of paper.

“Which one do you think says “Flopsy?” I asked.

Aimee thought for a moment and pointed to the word and then she said, “And that must be Mopsy!”

I asked her to think of other words that could rhyme with these names. Aimee took grea…

The “te kākano” diagram lists a number of purposeful activities for developing and understanding mathematical symbol systems and tools. This diagram has proved useful for exploring the mathematics programme in early childhood settings. Using mathematical symbols, tools, and practices for a purpose includes:

setting and solving problems that use mathematical symbols and systems (as in the exemplar “Measuring the play dough”, where Tom uses a ruler and centimetres to compare the lengths of dough…