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Our Third Teacher Environment in the Explorer's Room
In the Explorer's Room at Best Start Oraha Road, we are rooted in the aspirations and values of our tamariki (Children), mātua (parents), and whānau (family) which inspires and guides our kaiako to create an intentional, purposeful, and meaningful environment that is interwoven together with the values of our localised curriculum and the principles and learning outcomes of Te Whariki.
Our tamariki experience an environment that aligns with the Reggio Emilio philosophy and third teacher environment approach, is representative of Te Whariki, its values, learning outcomes, and principles, upholds their mana, wairua, and cultural values, is rooted in providing an authentic bicultural lens to their learning through Te Reo, Tikanga, and Te Ao Māori practices, provides them with open-ended, hands-on learning, where they can explore and discover, be explorers and make discoveries within their learning environment, is calm, nurturing, and caring and follows their interests and is responsive to their needs.
Our parents, whanau, and community experience an environment that is inspired and guided by our whanau aspirations for their tamariki, connects to our natural and resourceful environments, is strongly rooted in creating meaningful relationships and connections with our parents, whanau, community, and local iwi/hapu, and supports whanau collaboratively in fostering and developing their child's learning. Our learning environment is intentional, purposeful, and meaningfully created to be the third teacher in our environment.
Our tamariki experience learning opportunities that have roots to our local curriculum, using our natural surroundings and our Reggio Emilia-inspired philosophy. Our kaiako each hold their inquiries that lead planning, with the interests of our tamariki at the centre of these inquiries. Recently, bringing sand indoors has supported our tamariki in becoming paleontologists, as well as exploring mark-making and pattern-making, while finding new ways of being imaginative and creative in the learning environment.
Our garden and outdoor learning environment has also established its curriculum, as we, with the Tamariki, have constructed a vegetable and herb garden that will support our kitchen eventually, and also had the pleasure of learning about the living world through the inclusion of a worm farm. Over time, our Tamariki are encouraged to construct their working theories and refine these, through active exploration, revisiting prior learning, and gaining new information through a passionately presented learning environment filled with new possibilities for learning.