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BestStart Maui Street's Exciting Museum Trip - Young Toddlers
At BestStart Maui Street nursery room (under 2s), we were excited to go for a local museum trip this May and looked forward to supporting our children to extend their vocabularies along the trip. On the way to the museum in Andrea's centre van, we brought to our children's attention in words when coming across various vehicles on the road, including a bus, a police car, and a big crane.
With curiosity, our children were making excited sounds at each sight from the back of the van. Upon arrival, our first stop was the famous Te Winika waka exhibition, which was once a royal flagship, along with the surrounding wood carvings. At Te Winika exhibition, with a gentle lift up, the children had a close look at the beautiful carving pattern on the waka, it's feathered tail and the inside seating. It seemed the children felt a good connection to the Waikato River and the scenic riverbank views, up from the museum's lookout windows.
Strolling to the dinosaur exhibition the next, the children had a good exploration of many life-sized dinosaur skeletons and then engaged in pretend play to be paleontologists who discovered the fossils in the sandpit. Throughout the trip, we have been introducing many words to our children when describing people, places and things that were seen, including 'museum', 'waka', 'river', 'dinosaur' and more. This reflects our philosophy that 'Learning is everywhere, and children learn in a fun-filled environment'.
Following the successful museum trip, we anticipate the next visit to Te Kete Aronui - Rototuna Library, when we can create more interesting learning experience for our younger toddlers and support their interest in language development.