Term 1 Week 10

Culture of Winton Kindy

This week we have been sharing our thoughts on "Culture". What is Culture? What does it mean to your family?A question we posed on our Facebook Page...
For us at Kindy, "Culture" is what makes us the unique group that we are - our routines and rituals, and values and our aspirations, our acceptance of others, and of course celebrating diversity. Following on from St Patricks Day, we shared some Irish Dancing YouTube Clips and began to join in and recreate our own dance studio! We began to decorate Kindy - all good parties need decoration- and we hung flags of the world around. This got us to thinking about the significance of flags - what is a flag for? Culture is Symbolic representation - symbols and markings that mean something to us. And so we began to design our own flags, reflecting  on our own family culture...what makes our family special? What do we like to do as a family? What is our culture? These were then added to our decorations to share with everyone. And on Thursday night we share a special evening, organised by the fabulous Parent Group, the Winton Kindy "Culture Night".
Culture means food! And my, what delicious delicacies we had, paying tribute to the many corners of the Earth that our families defend.
Culture means dance and costume! The Central Southland College Kapahaka Group were invited in to perform, sharing two waiata with us - a very moving moment.
Culture means coming together and living as one - welcome to the Winton Kindy Culture.





What an amazing night last night ... we have a slideshow on the BIG screen of our night.  Tks to the Parent Group for organising the Culture Night which included an invitation to the Central Southland College (CSC) Kapa Haka group to perform - tks Gemma Dodds (President).    Kindness has been a value we have shared ALL term so a kind gesture was to make & share some homemade treats - the Parent Group made some truffles, chocolate & fudge as a thank-you tribute to our Kapa Haka performers!

Tks Mille Price for sharing our thank-you treats to the CSC Kapa Haka performers!

Ashton Kemp, Charles De Thierry, Rubee Gerken & Mila Briggs lead our Karakia Kai before sharing a cultural evening meal!

Fossilisation

Fossil  learning about the the historical and cultural contexts of the world around us! Our Palaeontologists continue their investigations with Linda on a Monday we we take a closer look at rock formations, "casts", "imprints" and creating our own fossils!

The Forest Kindy Culture

The special spaces and places of Forest Kindy continue to evolve as the Forest Kinky gang create their own unique culture at Ivy Russell Reserve. Our routines and rituals, the roles within the group,  landmarks, the legends and the shared understanding of what it means to be a part of this group culture...resonates with our Reggio Emilia Inspired Pedagogical Approach...That we are "Individuals within a group, not a group of individuals".

Working with Light and shadow - Culture passed on through story telling

Cultural beliefs and practises shared through the magic of retell. Story making and story creating.

Designing our Obstacle Course

Our Thur/Fri group have spent this morning designing their own Challenge Course. What do 3-4 year olds understand or believe a challenge is?   How do they  appreciate directionality & functionality?   We saw today how animated everyone was!  We look forward to seeing what/how this will progress!

Easter Extravaganza

Next week is Easter week.  Our thoughts were to create a group Easter table centre piece & have an Easter shared morning tea on Wed & Thur. Can you bring along some morning tea Easter kai on Wed & Thur.

We also wondered about getting some naturalistic Easter bags to put our Easter treats into Wed & Thur (Easter Egg Hunt).  Here's a challenge ... we have the hessian ... we need  six Mum's to sew some bags (10) to put all our Easter treats into!

                                                  CAN YOU HELP? 

Have a GREAT weekend ... see you all next week!

The Teaching Team!