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Diwali Celebrations at BestStart Montessori The Gardens
The children in Infant House have been learning about Diwali. We have been very privileged to have fabulous input from ngā whānau. Our kaiako Kirsty has created Diya to decorate our room and we were given beautiful, colourful lights from one of our whānau which have been a wonderful focus for our pēpi and tamariki.
We were able to experience henna, when Vaishali joined us to create beautiful designs on our hands. With a steady hand she created many different patterns and included our kaiako in the experience. Our tamariki were enthralled by the superb art, proudly showing everyone their taonga. We were all in awe of Vaishali’s traditional clothing.
Parmjeet visited on Friday to show us how to create rangoli with coloured cornflour. Rangoli are created to celebrate light and colours. It was mesmerising to watch how gracefully and precisely Parmjeet could create a beautiful flower using the powder, no tools just her fingers. Our pēpi and tamariki spent time over the next two weeks working on their fine motor skills to create their own designs.
We read the story of Rama and Sita, ngā whanau shared their traditions, fabulous clothing and ngā kaiako were treated to beautiful kai.
Te Whāriki our national Early Childhood curriculum says, “appreciation of and respect for children’s social and cultural connections are expressed in the day-to-day life of the setting.”
Montessori Journey to Excellence (MJ2Ex) Te Ara Ki Huhuatanga: Essential Elements, our Montessori guidelines, “Kaiako work in partnership with whānau to purposefully weave the cultural identity of each ākonga into the Montessori programme.”