Teacher Registration Meeting 29th March 2011

Kia Ora Rebecca,

It was rather exciting for me as your support person to get together today- you are amazing!
I am serious, in that you are constantly looking at yourself, your practice and knowledge and reflecting on how you are evolving or how new knowledge impacts on your practice.
You reguarly add reflections to your blog, being learning stories, photos, videos and reflections- the variety of entries show that you are able to reflect on and provide a range of documentaiton that captures your practice.

Rebecca, you have set a goal to include more links/ theorists/quotes in both your teacher regisration posts and the socumentation for parents/whanau (wall displays) within your room. This also shows that you are continuing to evolve and develop your practice in light of research or new theories.

Ka Pai Rebecca, You are well on track, self directed and require little support, you are taking this process seriously- reflecting that this is for your benefit, any knowledge gained will only enrich your practice.
You obviously love your job and value the profession.

Kia Ora

Joann

Exploring the paint with our hands - a blog for the parents

This was a blog that I had posted for the parents, incorporating using paint,and connecting it to Communication which had been our focus - explaining how the card would become our new story props.

Continuing early literacy

Nursery 2 had been using the ‘Little Old Lady’ puppet for their gathering/mat times. I decided to also introduce this puppet to nursery one, seeing how much they have enjoyed and focused on the puppets we had previously borrowed from the Toddler room. I put photos of using the puppet both on the blog for parents to look at, but also on the wall for the children to look at and recall what they had previously done. I also took a photo of each of the props that the old lady eats, and in order put them on the wall with short phrases from the song. I know from this photo it looks like I have placed the pictures high on the wall, but I have placed them so they are just out of reach of our tallest child. This has been a great way for us to revisit the song and the characters, and also use the same characters for different songs – Old Mac Donald, Walking through the jungle, etc, increasing their repertoire of songs. I have since made an addition to these pictures. I placed the Maori names of the characters below each picture to encourage the adults to use them. I believe that by continuing to provide resources that reflect and extend the interest in literacy meets teaching dimension 12 – communicates clearly and accurately in either or both of the official languages of NZ; dimension 13 – uses a range of teaching approaches; and dimension 14 – engages students in learning.

I picked up a copy of the New Zealand Education Gazzette/ 6th December 2010 and began to read the article 'Maori potential starts early' (pg. 9) This article caught my attention because even though I do use te reo, I don't feel that my work is as bicultural as it could/should be. It was interesting reading the comments other professionals had - we treat all children the same,

This led me to look up the ERO report- success for Maori children in early childhood services.
"Although many services implemented what they considered to be a bicultural curriculum, the quality and relevance of this was variable." Success for Māori Children in Early Childhood Services - http://www.ero.govt.nz/National-Reports/Success-for-Maori-Children-in-Early-Childhood-Services-May-2010

Early literacy skills

Recently the children have been showing a lot of interest in books and story-telling props such as the puppets and small toys. A few weeks ago I made a set of 5 ducks and attached Velcro to the backs of them in order for them to be placed on the walls or carpet boxes. Theses have proven themselves to be very popular with the older children who sit with me as I sing songs using them, but also for all the children to choose to independently sit and pull them off or stick them on. Even pull them off and transport the ducks to another area of the room. I was watching Olivia the other day, who chose to experiment with different places that the ducks could stick to. Through trial and error, she discovered that the Velcro ducks do not stick to a painted door or the side of a chair, but sometimes they may stick to her hair. When I noticed what she was doing, I verbalised what was happening, using the phrases, “I can see you are trying to put the ducks up. Do you think they will stick to the door? No, they slide off the door/chair. They are on your head. They stick to the wall…”etc. I didn’t want to interrupt her exploration with songs as it didn’t seem to be what she was interested in. She seemed more focused on the mechanics of the ducks sticking to different mediums. I believe that my response to this situation demonstrated dimension 16- demonstrates flexibility and responsiveness. I chose not to place my agenda onto what Olivia was doing; rather I followed her and added to her own experiences.

Daily routine for Daksh

On Tuesday the 21st of December, one of my children was absent from nursery. I phoned his mother as she had asked me to do to talk to her about the trouble they were having at home regarding his sleeping patterns (or lack there of). His sleeping late and waking up late was causing Mum to have to take unnecessary time off work. I thought the best way to deal with this issue was together as a team. I offered to write up the updated routine of what Daksh does during the day at nursery, and suggested that they stick to the routine at home as well. I've asked for feed back so we can assess if it works, or if it doesn't what we need to change.
Fingers crossed...

Amusing songs outside

I don't see any reason why there needs to be a formal 'mat time'. I'm more of the opinion that 'gathering times' can happen informally any time or anywhere. This was a perfect example of that. What had started as a time to explore outside ended up being a small group singing session. By showing respect and creating a welcoming environment, the children choose to come and participate and the programme just grows from there.

This is an example of dimension 14 - engages students in learning; and dimension 23 - demonstrates flexibility and adaptability.