winter celebration

This week, we celebrate winter solstice. It coincides with the Matariki, the New Year celebration of the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. A parent kindly came in and helped us making pumpkin soup, a popular winter warmer. A teacher contributed the pumpkin from home. While the adults skinned and sliced the pumpkin, the children seeded and diced the pumpkin. And then, children picked some herbs from the kindy garden for making herb bread to go with the soup.

For the Maori people, Matariki is the time to express gratefulness about the land we live on. So, we thanked the Mother Earth for gifting/giving us the food; and we also said thanks to the parent helper and all children who helped cooking. Lastly, we thanked the teachers who did the dishes. With the coming together of family, children and teachers, we had a truly delicious celebration.

It's good that children learn about the local culture and seasonal celebration, especially to learn to feel grateful about the gifts from nature, which we usually take for granted.

A note about cutting pumpkin, better talk about the safety use of knives first. As pumpkin is hard to cut, children tend to try harder and might not be careful enough with the sharp blade. Softening the pumpkin in the microwave did work. Good luck!
 

inspiration from the local artists

The head teacher of my kindy suggested researching on our local artists and then working on a similar style or technique with children. I looked through the internet and picked Carol Smith from west Auckland. Her work is mostly abstract painting of landscape, capturing the mood of various times of the day and expressing her feelings. She specializes in layering acrylic paint on canvas, which I think is quite suitable for young children to achieve.

My approach was to introduce the idea of painting from observation. I believe in a child-centred approach for art, so I let children study a few painting of Carol, featuring the blue sky in different tones. I let them involved in mixing different tones of blue with white paint and black paint. I drew their attention to the color as well as the direction of the strokes. Young children tend to move their brush up and down, like a painter painting a house. So, I pointed out how Carol used horizontal lines in her work. Finally, I put out brushes of different thickness. Naturally, children experimented with all of them. Through hands-on involvement, they learnt to vary the thickness of the lines, achieving a variety of effects.

The painting they completed looks very interesting. I call it seven shades of blue, naming after the seven different tones we had created and mixed together. Hopefully, through this painting experience, the children develop the ability to use color with growing confidence. I noticed that they are also developing a sense of movement and direction of lines, as a couple of children kept reminding others to move the brush from side to side, not up and down.

A bonus of this painting experience is supporting social competence, as I used a big canvas and children had to work cooperatively, trying to work alongside each other without getting in each other's way. A worthy art experience!

Gun play

Lately, there have been some concerns about gun play at my kindy. We have a big group of boys starting kindy, and they have been dominating the playground, running with guns. In the beginning, they used their fingers as guns to shoot, and then some started to create guns using construction materials, like lego, mobile and even wood from the carpentry table. It seemed all the boys are attracted by the play, as they joined in almost instantly when 'threatened' / 'invited' at gun point. However, some got upset when the play became rough with physical contact. It did not go down well with the girls as well. From time to time, the teacher needed to intervene to clarify who wanted to be in the game and who did not.

At my kindy, the teachers agree that gun play is part of superhero play and should not be banned. It's good that we see eye to eye. We are aware that boys enjoy running in big space, outside, so they are naturally attracted to gun play. We also acknowledge that guns and weapons are a feature of some children's home experiences, such as a couple of Dads are policemen and a few families live on the farm or are frequently involved in hunting trips. Combined with information learnt from the media, our children are also acting out the good and bad theme with gun shooting.

While we acknowledge the importance of gun play in children's play repertoire, we need to make sure no one feels threatened. It's about communicating, listening and talking to each other. We encouraged the children to stand up for themselves and say 'no' to the gun player, and we remind the gun players to stop when being asked to. The learning involves social skills and will bring about the development of empathy.

Meanwhile, we are thinking about issuing gun licenses to children, which will be revoked when the child does not listen or show too much aggression. We probably will allotted an area for gun play, so who does not want to get involved could avoid the area and whoever feels too overwhelmed might exit...

I'm researching on gun play, and I have come across an interesting article by Diane Rich. You may also want to have a read...Bang, bang! Gun play and why children need it. Also, about gun license, see file:///Users/teacher/Documents/Kindy%20kids%20get%20gun%20licences%20%7C%20Stuff.co.nz.webarchive

partnership with parents

Last week, it was lucky to have a Mum come in to show the kindy children how to make natural food coloring. The Mum believes in healthy lifestyle, and she treasured the opportunity to share what she is. She used a juicer to extract the juice from silver beet, beetroot, pumpkin, blueberry and carrot for the colors of green, red, yellow, purple and orange. It was just that simple!  And then, the children brushed the juice on a piece of bread dough and baked it for tea. The colour looked vibrant and lovely. However, if the color is to be used for icing, the juice needed to be reduced by boiling it for a while. I'll certainly tried this idea soon.

The children obviously were learning through observation, experimentation and hands on participation. Some helped to peel the onion, cut up beetroot and silver beet, or put the cut vegetables into the juicer. They were actively involved using their senses. They tasted and smelled the juice and bread; and they were vowed by the colors of the bread.

I noticed that the Mum really enjoyed the activity herself. She offered to come more often, acknowledging that contributing her time to her son's education is very important to her. It is a delight to have her as she is able to share her expertise, knowledge and experiences. As a Mum, she is good at reminding the children to take turns, explaining in a way young children are able to understand, and listening patiently to children's comments and remarks. She is definitely a pleasure to work with. Parents definitely have a lot to offer. I just wonder whether there are any other parents who are also passionate to be part of the programme but shy to put up their hands?