Navigating Our World at the Early Years Whānau Centre

During weeks 3 and 7, we welcomed our Preschool Residential Course (PRC) families from around New Zealand to join us on a Tuesday to meet others and experience our programme. During their three-day stay with us, the families can focus on different aspects and goals that the whānau has identified.

Our NZSL tutor sessions with Benazir Black have included learning about Deaf Culture, Deaf People, Deaf Space, Navigating Between Two Worlds and the Olympics. It's an excellent time for parents to learn, share and grow in their knowledge of NZSL and Deaf understanding.

We have been fortunate to have Asinate be a part of our Thursday Playgroup in Sumner, supporting our students and whānau during the sessions. Asinate has been doing work experience with us and is a Hagley College provision student.

Each term, we have been focusing on an area in ōhikaparuparu (Sumner) as part of learning and expanding our knowledge of our Local Curriculum. We have been creating and crafting about Te Onepoto - Taylors Mistake. The children worked together to create and make fabulous pictures of their own using different coloured paints, sand, and stones. So many creative ways of expressing ideas and thoughts have come from these activities.

Our term stories have evolved over the weeks, including the visual stories at Prebbelton – Greedy Cat and Where is Green Sheep, Sumner – The Three Little Pigs and Shark in the Park. The tamariki are supported in both English and NZSL during our storytelling sessions. To encourage and extend the tamariki's language, these stories are retold for around 4-5 weeks, during which they are read the story, visual props are introduced, and shared involvement in the story through props and drama. It is important to revisit language numerous times to retain knowledge, understanding and growth of our receptive and expressive language and our memory retelling of story sequences. The children love choosing to become the characters and a part of the story themselves.

Lydia and the small team around her have been working hard at getting the Virtual Online Pre-School Group up and running this term. This Virtual group is designed to support and inform whānau of Deaf and hard of hearing early learners via fortnightly Zoom sessions. Many different topics are covered each week and are also available to those enrolled to watch at a later date if the Thursday time slot doesn't work to join Lydia live. It's

been an exciting and new experience for whānau and a great time to make future family connections around Aotearoa.

We are very excited that SPRING has finally arrived. We are ready for sand, water and active exploration during the sunny days ahead.