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Akonga Ngangara Focus
Recently in the Akonga toddler class there’s been lots of fascination with ngangara; spiders, bugs and small creatures.
We’ve had lots of fun as tamariki hunt together excitedly in the garden searching for worms, grubs, spiders and other insects that live there. Tamariki have quickly learnt all of the likely places that they will be hiding and there has been a great sense of whanaungatanga as we hunt and celebrate together each time a bug is found. Teachers have also been hiding big toy bugs for children to search for, which has lead to tamariki creating their own bug hide and seek games. We discovered that the holes in the cabbage and broccoli leaves in the garden are from bugs nibbling at them.
Through our ngangara exploration we’ve have been focusing on the development of language and early literacy/numeracy skills. Tamariki are making sense of nature around us as we have lots of meaningful conversations about where different ngangara live, what they eat, how they move, what colours they are, butterfly life cycles and more. We have also used technology such as magnifying glasses, IPads and books to learn more and have surrounded ourselves with Ngangara to look at and learn from by printing lots of photos for the walls and making our own books. We have created lots of art work as we think about what we know to draw and paint ngangara, create them out of playdough and more.