LATEST STORIES
All those leaves!
Caring for Papatuanuku is a strong feature in our children’s play. Nature provides our children with amazing learning experiences and we are very fortunate to have lots of mature trees and spaces for our nature’s finest to thrive. Recently, we’ve had some butterflies find their home within our playground and the children were very curious about them. Being able to follow the butterfly life-cycle is always a lot of fun, for both young and old, and we’ve had many interesting questions, including how to tell the difference between male / female butterflies. With all our wonderful trees, comes lots of leaves falling on the ground, we’ve been able to play in the leaves, listening / feeling how they crunch underneath our feet or in our hands and even making some fun art pieces to hang on our walls. Some of our older children have supported the teachers in caring for our playground and clearing the leaves to keep our paths safe for riding bikes and running around. Using our natural resources is a great way to strengthen children’s connection to the land and learn about the lifecycles of our world around us. With the variety of trees around, children are also able to compare the leaves and use their investigative skills to look for bugs hiding amongst the leaves. As always, playing in the big pile of leaves is always a fun activity – lots of laughter for all, big and small.