Welcome to winter! The weather has been so changeable but you can definitely feel that winter is in the air – so please bear this in mind and make sure your children come with appropriate clothing and jackets. We make sure to venture outside most days so it is important your children can keep warm as they explore the outdoor environment.

This term we have focused our group planning around one of our centre values – Kaitiakitanga. This looks at the guardianship and respect which we have for ourselves, each other, and our environment. This is a value which we try and instill in all our tamariki so we would love to hear any feedback which you have around this; maybe an interest in recycling at home (I know I am often reminded what I can and cannot recycle at home!!!)

You may have noticed that we now have worm farm in Atawhai, and we have also set up a compost bin in the shared garden space where our paper towels go each week. Tracy has begun making paper bricks with our other paper towels – these will make for excellent fire starters so look out for them on the kai swap stand 

Building and construction is always a strong interest with our tamariki and we are looking for any extra resources or loose parts which we can add to our collection for our budding builders to use. If you have any spare parts then we would love to utilise them 

Music and movement is an area of learning which our children all love to be involved with. Recently we have been exploring this through different cultures; the music, dance, and singing. It has been fun to look at these with the children, and to see them engage with music in this way – I wonder if there has been any discussion around this at home?

We would love if anyone has anything special around this they would like to bring in to share with the children – perhaps a certain type of dance or an outfit that fits with a cultural dance?

Matariki is coming up next month so keep an eye out for how we will be marking this occasion – our guardians song will be revived so this too may be sung along at home!

As always if you have any questions or concerns then dont hesitate to discuss these with any of us, we are happy to hel

The Atawhai team