The Griffin School (Tawa)

Spin Art

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Spin art is a favourite experience here at Kids Count Tawa. We use dye in some droppers and drip different colours of dye onto a piece of paper that has been stuck to the bottom of a salad spinner. The Tamariki appear to really enjoy watching the dye drip and mix together on the paper. It makes some really cool and funny noises as the dye squirts o...
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Tuakana-Teina

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​The tamariki in Te Whanau Awhina have always been treated as equals to the teachers. Our relationship with the Tamariki allows them to be fiercely independent, responsible and take initiative. Our routine here in TWA is we do some songs before lunch and then after lunch the Tamariki are encouraged and invited to find their bed (they do this by pho...
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School Holiday Programme

During the school holidays the children have the opportunity to participate in in our holiday programme. Some of the highlights were Bubbles day, Teddy bears picnic, baking biscuits and a walk to the playground. Bubbles day! The children explored making big bubbles with the bubble wands that were bigger than our heads! This took quite a bit of pers...
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Baby Love

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​Here at Kids Count Tawa, our children on both the Puawai and Te Whanau Awhina sides have developed a keen interest in babies. This week we got some new baby dolls from Kmart with pretend milk bottles and they have been a big hit with children of all ages. It has been wonderful observing kids carefully trying to feed their "babies' with bottles, as...
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Communication Styles and Values!

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At the start of the year some if the team attended an in-house professional development workshop that covered topics to do with leadership. The rest of the teaching team were also encouraged to participate in a communication style audit that allowed each other to see how individuals communicated. The leadership workshop spanned over  two ...
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Welcome back! - Separation Anxiety

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​We at Kids Count at Tawa would love to welcome our tamariki and their families back from the Christmas/NY break. We have hit the ground running and it is so lovely to have the children in our temporary space at Linden School. (The move was very successful thanks to the hard work of the staff and our wonderful manager Lisa)Everyone has come back re...
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When there is an Earthquake what do we do?

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 The children's voice – "I don't know!" "Where is the earthquake?""run outside""I don't like the earthquake"Teacher's Voice - When there is a earthquake we need to Stop, Drop, and Hold.Here in Kids Count Tawa our Tamariki/ children and the Teachers are learning side by side about what to do in an event of an earthquake.Its still early stages f...
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Building partnership

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During our baby music session with the mums it was a real privilege to have Hinehou (Rinoa's mum) teach us a Māori song about our Tinana/Body.The children and staff enjoyed this song as it was fun, it had actions which the children enjoyed, and it was teaching us about parts of the body in Te Reo Māori.Such a rich and exciting opportunity to build ...
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Mirror, Mirror on the wall

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Over the first term nearly all our Puawai Tamariki achieved physical milestones; developing different stages of mobility. To assist our children in the transition from crawling to walking we wanted to provide them with an environment that has many opportunities to pull themselves to standing. Over the school holidays we sourced a mirror with a ball...
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Our Labour of love!

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On September the 27th we were privilaged to have the leader and her team of the labour party, come and visit both the teen mums school and our centre.  Jacinda Ardern, a possible Prime Minister for New Zealand got the opportinuty to interact with both our children/Tamariki and the staff of Kids Count Tawa.  She wa...
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Celebrating Te Reo Maori/ Language week

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We celebrated Māori Language Week between the 11 September to 17 September. Te Wiki o TeReo Māori is an important and fun opportunity to celebrate and learn Tereo Māori. In doing so, you are helping to secure its future as a living, dynamic and rich language. Every day we provided the children with the opportunities to learn and new phrase to assis...
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BAD JELLY THE WITCH

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Recently at the Griffin we currently had a Parent/child story session where one of the school's teachers read Bad Jelly the Witch. The children sat with their parents or on the floor listening to the story. After the story the children sat down at the table for morning tea. Someone had made cupcakes with green and purple icing & witches which t...
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Running sessions for Teen mums!

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Continuing our partnership and relationship with the Teen parent school.We the whanau at kids count Tawa have been given the opportunity to hold educational class sessions for the mums.These sessions are opportunities for us as early childhood educators to best educate and support our mums with day to day life skills, especially around giving guida...
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Celebrating New Zealand Sign Language week

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This week in Kids Count Tawa we celebrated sign language week with our children/ Tamariki and mums.The experience was amazing filled with fun activities and songs for all involved to learn and enjoy.We learnt various sign along with songs, such as the ABC, Old Mac Donald had a farm, Kei te peke ahau, and commands like sit down, finished, please, th...
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Celebrating Pink Shirt Day!

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Today our Kids Count Tawa Team celebrated 'pink shirt day' with and alongside our He Huarahi Tamariki school.The celebration involved wearing and decorating the centre in the colour pink.There were also fun activities, music, and of course a sharing of food, conversations, and laughter in an afternoon tea.Celebrating Pink shirt day meant that we Ki...
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Dinosaurs come out to play!

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Over the past couple weeks our Tamariki/children here at Kids Count Tawa have been enjoying the amazing world of Dinosaurs.Through toy figurines, researching them on the computer, looking at books, to song and dance.This interest has spread across to both our little boys and girls.Which has also helped our Tamariki/ children to learn the names...
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Early Literacy really matters!

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Early literacy really mattersEarly literacy really matters and the best way is to encourage this is through the love of books. Children will let you know their favourite book and will ask you to read it again and again and again. Show delight in the fact they enjoy dramatic pauses and repeating phrases as they can join in the story telling and they...
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Music and Movement Puawai Way!

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​In the Puawai room, we love to sing and do actions! Our children/Tamariki have gotten very good at watching the teachers and imitating the actions that we do.Some children/Tamariki even ask for a specific song using key action, which is a great example of non-verbal communication in action.Our favourites at the moment are 'roly poly', 'kina kina' ...
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Out and about in the community!

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  Today a couple of our older children went to visit a community shop called "FREE FOR ALL".The shop is community base that gives free stuff such as furniture, clothing, cutlery, toys, and many more, for families who are in need or really anyone of the community.The children had a blast of a time it was like Christmas for them all.Being that t...
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Block play in our environment!

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Over the past couple weeks our Tamariki in Te Whanau Awhina have been very busy constructing thier imagination and masterpiece.  Building with blocks provides one of the most valuable learning experiences available for our young children. Block play stimulates learning in all domains of development, intellectual, physical, and social-emot...
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