LATEST STORIES
The Story of our Birds
Welcome to the Pouakai space where we have our own resident birds, Tane the Tui, Kahu the Kereru, and Kingi the Kokako.
These birds were introduced to gain a sense of what our tamariki do outside of centre life so that we were able to make stronger connections and an understanding of their home life. This actually did way more than we anticipated. Not only did our tamariki gain a sense of belonging so too did our whānau. Our families embraced the opportunity for their child and themselves to share stories of their home life.
Each child and family were invited to take a bird home, they would care for the bird, families would take the birds out and about in our community and one family even made a nest for their bird.
After the birds visit with each family, the whānau would upload the photos and the story of where/what they did with the birds to Storypark our online record of your child’s learning and we would print of the photos, sharing them within our community in BestStart Mangorei.
These journeys by the birds have assisted our tamariki and families in sparking conversations about the places that they have travelled, to have discussions about where they have been and similarities between others experiences and their own. These birds have assisted our tamariki to create friendships within our space as they have been able to see what others are doing outside the centre therefore find common ground for the friendship.