The Griffin School (Tawa)

School Holidays at Kids Count - The Griffin School

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During the school holidays for something different we offer themed days instead of our usual programme planning. This gives us a real opportunity to look at the children's interests from the previous term and provide some more in-depth learning experiences. Here is a video of some of the experiences we offered the children during the June school ho...
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Learning how to control our breathing

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Over the past few weeks in TWA we have been focusing on controlling our breathing.  There are a number of reasons why this is important for young children. We have offered a range of different experiences for the children to explore their breathing and challenge themselves. Some of the experiences were quite easy and some were a little mo...
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Refreshing the Learning Environment

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Getting ready to welcome back all our tamariki back after having a big holiday. We are creating new and exciting areas to stimulate their learning and create exciting new learning experiences. Having a different area for reading is a positive way to promote quiet time with a book to relax and have calm time, while also promoting lite...
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String Art - Whanau Session

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String Art! We provided this experience a few months ago for the children and there was a lot of positive feedback from the staff and whanau about the results. This week we were lucky enough to run a art session with the mothers and children. They have made some stunning pieces of artwork that will be displayed at their prizegiving then can be disp...
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Hikoi to the park

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This week we went for a walk to the playground that is near Kids Count Tawa. There are so many learning opportunities for the children when we go out into the community. On our walk we discussed road safety - including watching for the signals from the trains (bells and barrier going down that we have to wait for, we talk about the t...
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Routines - The importance especially during LOCKDOWN

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We all know routines and rituals are important for our tamariki and ourselves. They are even more important now that we are in a lockdown. It is going to be tough being in our bubbles for atleast 4 weeks. Keeping a similar or creating a routine for you and your household will give you a sense of normality during this very uncertain time. Some of th...
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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 r...
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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 stag...
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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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