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...

​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' ...

  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...

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...

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...

Kids Count TawaJustin ToruHere 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 children...

Kids Count TawaThe 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 to...

In the Rising stars room we have noticed the Tamariki are developing spatial awareness. Spatial Awareness is the distance between you and the objects in your environment. Spatial awareness is usually defined to include a person, so that for a child to have spatial awareness, that child will understand their location and the location of objects in r...

FFS's would like to thank all the daddy's who took time to come and join us for the father's day celebration. This month in our room we are working on little architects where children are showing off their talents/abilities in making hanging mobiles and are decorating the whole classroom with their beautiful art. Since it's spring we are focusing o...

Father's Day this year was not only to celebrate for our fathers of our whanau but also the positive male influences that our Tamariki have in their lives.  OUR SUPERHEROES!!!!Our day started off setting up gazebo's, tables, flat pack garden boxes, basketball hoop and kai for the celebration of our father's day up by the pool area.Things were ...

  Here in Future Ferns Junior's we have been thinking of ideas of how to display our birthday wall.We wanted to use natural resources and show our Tamariki that you can make things out of different materials around the house.We were very fortunate to have connections with past families in which have come through our centre with their chil...

Making friends. Showing anger in a healthy way. Figuring out conflicts peacefully. Taking care of someone who has been hurt. Waiting patiently. Following rules. Enjoying the company of others. All of these qualities, and more, describe healthy social-emotional development. Like any skill, young children develop these abilities in small steps over t...

Wow, August has been such  fun filled month, we had a lot going  on. Our 4 year olds planning for August was based on the Children's voices and interests, some of those activities /interests were arts and crafts, puzzles and team sports. The children got to expereiance something different everyday, with beautiful activites and a grea...

Our new resources are a great hit with many of our children. Children are constantly engaging in dramatic play involving our family-play utensils. Our tamariki are having great fun with the tongs, gem-stones and clear bowls. Our tamariki really enjoyed their learning about different fruit and making their very own fruit kebabs for morning tea. Heal...

Welcome back to all those that have been off on a wonderful term break! With many children away with their families, those that did come in were spoilt with a range of fun filled activities. The children got to go the botanical gardens, supermarket shopping, sports day in the car park, made lolly log and rice bubble cakes, went on a treasure hunt a...

The two-year olds have been exploring their senses in many ways as they learn through hands on experience. One of their recent high lights has been exploring their sense of taste by experiencing a wide variety of frozen fruit both sweet and sour. Some children even enjoyed eating sour lemons and asked for seconds. One of the children's mum shared t...

Currently in Future Fern Seniors, we are working on "Little Architects" where children are involved in activities that we can display on our wall. Tamariki got involved in one activity which is called "a tree that holds FFS together" where all the children's photos are attached to it as a flower. Our tree display has developed a sense of belonging ...

Over the last month Future Ferns Seniors (3years old) have been focusing on the winter wonderland. By looking at the children's imaginative play, we are now planning to extend their learning interest further and work on their building and constructive play. We also have two weeks of holiday programme planned for the children, and they have been par...

​As part of our holiday programme today we had Pj and movie day. We set up the room with bean bags, cushions, comfy chairs. We provided popcorn, lollies and milo for our tamariki.

On Wednesday 27th January we were very proud to see 13 of our 5 year olds graduating from Kids Count, as they begin their journey at "Big School".With all their friends and whanau watching on, each child, many who have been with us since they were babies, was called up by whaea Atamaria, our senior teacher in the 4 year old room. Atamaria delivered...