Tennessee

‘Healthy Bodies, Educated Minds,
Successful Futures’
For your diary
Term 3
Wednesdays & Fridays
The Plunket nurse will resume visits
to Tennessee.
This coincides with our Discovery
Group days and gives more options
for families wishing to use this
service.
Please phone Julie Thurdon, Plunket
coordinator 09 260 4032 with any
questions.
Mondays & Wednesdays
9.30-11am
Discovery Group in the Red House.
S.K.I.P (Strategies with Kids,
Information for Parents)
We have a selection of brochures on
topics such as Kids and Safety,
Managing Behaviour and Tantrums.
See www.skip.org.nz
Wednesday, 26 th September
National Earthquake Drill Day
Shake It Out 9.26 am
Our new website
We are delighted to invite you to check
out our brand new website where you
can keep in touch with all Kiwicare happenings.
www.kiwicarepreschool.co.nz
And we’d love you to join us on Facebook
- www.facebook.com/pages/
Kiwicare-Pre-School
Tennessee
AUGUST 2012
We decorated our own capes Practising my flying
We are all superheroes!
Imaginative and dramatic play is a
very important part of children’s
social, emotional and academic
development. It helps them to make
sense of the world around them.
Assuming different roles and
responsibilities through pretend play
helps children to make connections
b e t w e e n f a m i l i a r a n d n e w
experiences. In this way, children
begin to learn empathy and flexibility
as they understand that those they
interact with during their play also
have their own thoughts and feelings
and they need to work out positive
ways of responding appropriately to
make these enjoyable experiences.
This month was Tennessee’s turn to
have a visit from superhero expert
Robbie Nicol from Two Big Kids who
came to show us how to be
superheroes.
Tamariki decorated their own capes
to wear. Everyone from the smallest
baby to the tallest teacher at
Tennessee used their imaginations to
lift the heaviest rock, climb the
highest building to perform a rescue
and place a baby bird tenderly back
in its nest. We also realised that we
can do anything we set our minds to
if that is what we really want.
(www.facebook.com/2bigkids)
By Annie
Kiwicare Pre School, 48 Tennessee Ave, Mangere East, Manukau 2024—Phone 0800 550 014
www.kiwicarepreschool.co.nz
Email enquiries—relindetap@kiwicarepreschool.co.nz
Open all year Monday to Friday 7:00am—6:00pm

Around our centre
Melissa reads to one of our lovely babies
Wheels Day in the Blue House
A fireman, a princess and SpiderMan
Whānau Day
Support Office
44 Tennessee Ave
Mangere East, Manukau 2024
The 2012 Olympic Games in London
was a very exciting time for New
Zealand and that excitement filtered
all the way through to us here at
Mangere. We held our own Olympic
Games complete with an opening
ceremony and lots of in-house and
inter-house competition.
Tamariki experienced setting their
sights on a goal, working towards it
and experiencing personal success.
Orange and Mint House tamariki met
our real-life gold medallist, Sally
Callie, who works at our Papatoetoe
centre. Sally shared her experiences
as a three-times Olympic rowing
champion and talked about what it
takes to reach the top.
Our CEO Heather Anderson presented
our winners with gold, silver and
bronze medals. By Annie
From the manager
Melissa Elemani
In last month’s newsletter, we saw
that it is never too early to start
reading to children.
Research reveals that the earlier we
introduce stories, rhymes and songs
to our children in their home
language and in English, the easier it
will be for them to develop a rich
vocabulary as well as valuable social
and communication skills.
Yellow House Nursery
This month had been full of action as
we joined in the fun of celebrating
the Olympics Games.
We also had our session with Robbie
from Two Big Kids who used nursery
rhymes to communicate his
superhero theme.
Since then we have noticed our
tamariki showing a lot of interest in
song and dancing, and whenever we
We love the Olympics!
Our medal ceremony
Acting Centre Supervisor Akemi Takahashi , Supervisor Fazila Buksh
Kiwicare embraces opportunities to
work with you to ensure that your
child can reach their potential both in
our care and at home.
Do you have stories, songs and
rhymes from your culture you would
like to share with us? Perhaps you
may even want to lead a mat time.
We would love to hear from you.
By Melissa
have a group time everyone likes to
join in to sing and move to the
music. Incy Wincy Spider is a firm
favourite.
Our new hula hoops have been put to
good use as older tamariki have
worked out ways of swinging them
around on different parts of their
bodies. By Fazila

Green House Toddlers
Acting Centre Supervisor Akemi Takahashi, Supervisor Tessy Paul
Is messy play important for children’s
learning and development? It is
invaluable! Babies are born with a
natural curiosity and love to explore
using all their senses - sight, sound,
hearing, taste and touch.
Messy play provides tamariki with
opportunities to use all their senses.
Messy play is not all about making a
mess, although this is fun too!
This type of play allows children to
explore the world around them and to
embrace new experiences.
It is open-ended play that lets
children follow their own interests at
their own pace.
Red House (2.5 - 4.5 years)
An example of this was the day when
Akemi brought in bags of shredded
recycled paper and whooshed shaving
cream in and around it. What fun! By
Tessy
Centre Supervisor Roop Sidhu, Supervisors Renuka Kumar, Evelyn Elesoni
This month, Red House celebrated
Rakhi, an Indian festival designed to
strengthen the loving bond between
brothers and sisters.
Rakhies are little woven bracelets
which are tied onto brothers’ wrists
by their sisters on Rakhi Day.
Through the sacred thread/rakhi, the
sisters express their love for their
brothers, and wish long and healthy
lives for them.
Concentrating so hard to make Rakhi
Blue House (2.5 - 3.5 years)
Centre Supervisor Kamaljit Sandhu, Supervisor Alvin Narayan
It is interesting how little things
attract a child’s attention. The
slightest sound or movement, a
different taste or smell and suddenly
they are all eyes and ears and most
of all questions especially from our
two and three-year-olds. Why? Why?
Why?
This is the age for questioning and
discovery. Even though your child
may not yet have the language to
fully express themselves verbally,
they have many questions that
require answers.
Recently we have been putting out a
container of magnifying glasses and
little dishes and bug catchers and
we’ve been delighted with the
response as a group of mini scientists
The brothers then promise to love,
care for and protect their sisters. In
return for the bracelets the sisters
get presents!
Red House children made their own
rakhies to take home.
We are all brothers and sisters here
in Red House so we celebrated this
festival here by making rakhies and
tying them on our Red House
brothers’ wrists! By Roop
have begun to explore the area and
bring back exhibits to examine and
e x p l o r e . C h e c k o u t
www.kids.lovetoknow.com By Kamal
Our little scientists at work
Playing in shredded paper
Important reminders
We strive to provide a healthy and
safe environment. If your child is
unwell, we recommend that you
keep them home until they are well
again. If you are unable to do this,
please speak to the Centre
Supervisor.
Kiwicare needs to meet its resource
consent conditions therefore we ask
parents with cars with loud
exhausts to park on the street not
in the car park.
Although spring is here, we are still
having some very cool days so do
send a warm jacket or jersey for
your child, so they can play
outside.
Remember to name all your
children’s clothing, including
socks. This is such a help when we
are trying to find your child’s clothes
or shoes.
Our car park is a very busy place,
especially at drop off and pick up
times. For your child’s safety,
please remember to use the
footpaths when escorting your
children to or from the car and train
them to treat the car park as a road.
Exploring with magnifying glasses

From Donna Wrack
Deputy CEO
Kiwicare Pre School
You can discover more about a person
in an hour of play than in a year of
conversation
Plato
Engaging in messy play can be hugely
beneficial to babies' and young
children's cognitive and creative
development.
To mess about is to play with
something and it is through play -
which is part of the creative process
(Duffy 1998) - that children learn and
develop.
Children are being creative when they
use materials in new ways, combine
previously unconnected materials and
make discoveries that are new to them,
and messy play enables children to do
all these things.
Some people assume that by age 3,
children should have left messy play
behind and be doing something
constructive such as making things.
However, messy play continues to offer
older children many opportunities for
learning. Benefits include:
Social and emotional development
Self-confidence and self-esteem,
making relationships, and emotional
development including self-control.
Problem-solving skills
Concentrating, planning and seeing
things through to completion.
Self respect and other respect
It helps children to share, interact,
observe others and to understand that
there needs to be agreed values and
codes of behaviour for groups to work
together harmoniously.
Communication
Includes language for communicating
and listening, reading and writing.
Children use words and/or gestures to
communicate and the informal context
encourages confidence.
Understanding the process of
representation through making marks
with materials and ascribing meanings
to them leads to understanding the
symbolic nature of written language.
Maths learning
Calcul ati ng s hape a nd sp ace,
measuring while sorting, gaining
interest in shape and space.
Using everyday words to describe
position such as heavier or lighter to
compare quantities and methods to
solve practical problems.
Exploration
Investigation, observing, selecting and
manipulating objects and materials.
Identifying simple features, similarities
and differences.
Physical development
Developing body control, poise,
balance, co-ordination and control in
large and small movements.
Mint House (4.5 - 6 years)
Centre Supervisor Ritesh Bansal, Supervisors Sally Pugh, Usha Diwan
Eid Ul-Fitr is a 3-day celebratory
feast that marks the end of fasting of
the Islamic month of Ramadan.
Similar to Matariki, Eid celebrates the
sighting of the new moon and it is a
time of reflection, sharing with
others, and looking forward to the
future.
On Friday 19 th August, many of our
Muslim children and some of our
teachers arrived dressed in beautiful
new clothes.
Teacher Mohammed led a mat time
and we learnt how to greet each
other with Eid Mubarak Eid greetings.
We saw a mosque, and listened to a
call to prayer.
Usha decorated the girls’ hands with
mehndi (henna designs). Farah’s
Mum Loriza showed us how to
prepare Seviyan, a traditional Indian
sweet made with vermicelli, milk,
Orange House (3.5 - 4.5 years)
Centre Supervisor Avalina Cook, Supervisors Moses Holi, Tala Tupou
Our tamariki have been acting out
job-related scenarios during the past
few weeks and we invited parents to
come to tell us about their jobs.
What a great response we’ve had
and we’ve been able to learn so
much about what our parents do
each day.
Archiya’s mum Artee, is a nurse at
Middlemore Hospital and came in her
uniform to talk about her work.
Mustafaa’s dad, Mohammed Ali,
talked to us about being a retail
manager at Farmers.
Salesi’s dad Utura came and spoke
about playing for The Chiefs and
many other mums and dads
OSCAR (Up to 13 years)
Co ordinator Viv Manukau
The Olympic Games has given our
OSCAR children a chance to extend
their knowledge about the history of
the games and find out about some
of the events.
Apart from this children have been
learning to weave. We used some
recycled materials to make a
serviette ring which also can be used
as a bracelet.
As usual children are taking a lot of
interest in word finds and puzzles.
It’s encouraging to see older kids
helping the younger ones to solve
puzzles and play games.
By Mohammed
almonds and spices. It was
delicious! By Sally
Learning how to pray
Making sweets
participated in Māori Language week
and our Olympic Parade. By Avalina
Achiva’s mum Artee is a nurse
Look what we made out of cards!
Kiwicare Pre School, 48 Tennessee Ave, Mangere East, Manukau 2024—Phone
0800 550 014
www.kiwicarepreschool.co.nz