The Griffin School (Tawa)

Baby Love

69403872_497108647514651_3967047341814317056_n
​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...
Continue reading
  50 Hits

Communication Styles and Values!

IMG201906061446391
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 ...
Continue reading
  178 Hits

Welcome back! - Separation Anxiety

20190221_145226
​ 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 ...
Continue reading
  649 Hits

When there is an Earthquake what do we do?

IMG_2860
 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...
Continue reading
  1203 Hits

Building partnership

IMG_2865
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...
Continue reading
  1013 Hits

Mirror, Mirror on the wall

IMG_5207
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...
Continue reading
  916 Hits

Our Labour of love!

v2-jacinda-ardern-1120
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...
Continue reading
  1474 Hits

Celebrating Te Reo Maori/ Language week

MaoriLanguageWeek
We celebrated Māori Language Week between the 11 September to 17 September . Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori is an important and fun opportunity to celebrate and learn T e reo 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 a...
Continue reading
  1178 Hits

BAD JELLY THE WITCH

DSCN0322
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...
Continue reading
  719 Hits

Running sessions for Teen mums!

IMG_3295
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...
Continue reading
  595 Hits

Celebrating New Zealand Sign Language week

IMG_2856
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...
Continue reading
  1667 Hits

Celebrating Pink Shirt Day!

IMG_3009
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 ...
Continue reading
  741 Hits

Dinosaurs come out to play!

IMG_2556
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...
Continue reading
  541 Hits

Early Literacy really matters!

IMG_1577
Early literacy really matters Early 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 the...
Continue reading
  575 Hits

Music and Movement Puawai Way!

blog
​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' ...
Continue reading
  507 Hits

Out and about in the community!

kc-bnr-art-taw_20170302-124427_1
  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 ...
Continue reading
  580 Hits

Block play in our environment!

DSCN0635
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...
Continue reading
  557 Hits

National Eat Outside Day!

IMG_3284
Today was an awesome day as we the whanau from Kids Count Tawa celebrated National eat outside day, with our mums and Teachers from the school.The experience was amazing as we turned our afternoon tea time into an afternoon picnic time.As always there was a delicious spread of yummy goodies prepared by both the Teachers and the mums to share.Oh! Wh...
Continue reading
  534 Hits

National New Zealand Sea Week

National-Sea-Week
Kids Count Tawa Justin Toru Here in Kids Count Tawa we celebrated National New Zealand Sea week.The theme for the week was "Toiora te Moana, Toiora te Tangata" which basically stands for "Healthy Sea, Healthy people".During this week, our Tamariki/Children got involved in activities and songs around Tangaroa me ana Tamariki/ Tangaroa and his childr...
Continue reading
  551 Hits

Toilet Training is Fun, Fun, Fun!

KC_Blog-Categories2
Kids Count Tawa The Teachers of Te Whānau Āwhina have a goal, and this goal is to support and guide our older children to become competent and confident in using the toilet. We started the last term with only two children using the toilet, we are now pleased to say with support and parent partnership we now have majority of our children using the t...
Continue reading
  539 Hits
    Previous    
1 2