We’ve had a busy month at BestStart Kapiti Road celebrating the Olympics! Some of our whānau shared they and their tamariki were following the Olympics at home and so we hosted our own mini-Olympics week filled with all kinds of events. We started off by cutting out our own flags for the countries we’d represent from our whakapapa and used them as stickers. Each child also drew on a sticker their own number for their competitor number and some even added their names. We even had our tamariki help make the podiums by making numbers to stick on our climbing boxes (which were all different heights which was very handy!). We wanted to uphold the mana of all our tamariki and create a fair playing field for all to take part so we created events with teams of 3 so that all would come in first, second or third place and all received a medal for their efforts. We also made each category optional so tamariki could choose what events they wanted to participate in. 

We had long jump category utilising our amazing boardwalk and sand pit, very close to the real thing! Our tamariki were so enthusiastic, taking full run ups and jumping as far as they could. We even used the measuring tape to measure how far each tamaiti/child jumped and recorded their results on a chart with their names on. We clapped and cheered our friends on as they jumped to create a really supportive and encouraging atmosphere. Go Team BestStart Kapiti Road!

Next event was sprint races. Again we split off into teams and set up running points using hoops so each team knew where to run to and back to. We have some really competitive friends so this was a very popular event. We had some very speedy entries and some races even required video footage to see who crossed the finish line first, it was very tricky to tell in some races. We also had a hurdles category with our tamariki running the narrower strip of our mara/garden and navigating poles and planks to jump over, all while racing each other. You were all so brave tamariki, tau ke! Next up was the swimming category but because we didn’t have a real swimming we decided to improvise with some of our resources and play people. We are early childhood teachers after all! We created a ‘pool’ with a blue mat and set up diving blocks using wooden blocks. For the ‘lanes’ of the pool we used harakeke strips from our putiputi/flowers and our little toy tangata/people all lined up ready to swim! Then came the weightlifting which was also very popular. Some of our tamariki recognised the light dumbbell weights from their whānau who go to the gym and got straight to work showing us how it’s done and how strong they were. 

This was an amazing opportunity to recreate some of the Olympic events our whānau have been watching at home and to explore and celebrate our own whakapapa. It was also amazing to see the athleticism of our tamariki- we have some natural athletes already so it will be amazing to see how this journey progresses!

Our cultural exploration did not finish there! We’ve also been celebrating Cook Island Language Week where we’ve been dressing up and dancing to Cook Island music and learning new kupu/words to introduce into our everyday experiences. We’ve also explored counting in Cook Island Māori with some beautiful playdough cards which helped us model some traditional artifacts, clothes and kai. One of our Cook Island whānau also requested we make some of the yummy pani popo buns we’ve made before and so we made a little extra for afternoon kai so she could enjoy them with her whānau at home! We had the privilege of an elder sibling of one of our tamariki teaching us a new Cook Island grace which we are setting up for using in our centre. We love to share and learn together here at Best Start Kapiti Road. As they say - it takes village to raise a child and here at our centre we are all whānau!