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