Today we headed out to Hagley Park and the Botanic Gardens with a very important job to do.
Armed with supermarket bags, we set off to collect natural treasures to bring back to our preschool and use in our classroom.
Our group included a lovely mix of four-year-olds, confident and chatty three-year-olds, and two tamariki who have only recently turned two. This created lots of opportunities for the children to learn from and support one another as we explored.
Our bags quickly began filling with leaves, sticks, seed pods and all sorts of interesting treasures that caught our attention along the way. We even discovered some very special magic sticks! Each child chose their own stick and shared what special powers they thought it had. There were some very impressive ideas, although a few of the magic powers may have been a little difficult to explain! Our older tamariki were wonderful role models for our younger children. They confidently shared their ideas, showed their friends what they had discovered and helped them join in with our conversations.
Our three-year-olds were equally enthusiastic, sharing their observations and naming the things they noticed as we explored. Along the way, we came across the remains of the Illuminate Festival being packed away. This immediately sparked lots of conversation. Some of our tamariki had visited the festival with their whānau and were excited to share what they had seen and remembered. It was lovely to see their experiences from outside preschool becoming part of our shared learning and giving them the opportunity to share their knowledge with their friends.
Of course, no trip to Hagley Park would be complete without a visit to the playground! After all our collecting and exploring, the tamariki enjoyed climbing, running, sliding and laughing together. It was a wonderful opportunity to move their bodies, build confidence and simply enjoy being together. Throughout our morning, we saw mana aotūroa in action as tamariki explored the natural environment, followed their curiosity and made discoveries of their own.
We also saw ako happening naturally, with older and more experienced tamariki modelling, explaining, encouraging and learning alongside their younger friends. We returned to preschool with bags full of natural treasures, pockets full of stories and plenty of ideas to bring back into our play and learning. It was a wonderful reminder that some of the richest learning opportunities can happen simply by getting outside, exploring our local environment and giving tamariki the time and space to be curious.