Due to pouring rain and gale force winds on the mountain, we (wisely) decided not to snowboard again this weekend. J took the opportunity to catch up on a bunch of work, and I am spending a delightful weekend rereading Northanger Abbey, making peppernuts, and practicing telling the story of Ngā Poaka e Toru (The Three Little Pigs) in te reo Māori. I have puppets and everything, and it's pretty wonderful, if I do say so myself.
I was so wrapped up in this enjoyment, that I almost forgot to write a blog post. Oops!
As promised, I am now posting pictures of the indoor and outdoor spaces at the centers we visited on our trip to the South Island. All of these centers are inspired by nature-based learning, and have programmes in which the children spend some time out in nature each week. (To see my post about these nature programmes, click here.)
Although all the centers we visited were inspiring and impressive, I took by far the most pictures at WEKA Preschool in Winton. A Weka is a NZ bird, and the name also stands for Winton Educates Kids Ambitiously, which certainly seems true from what I saw. Their environments were stunningly beautiful, and were set up in a way that communicated respect for children, as well as the expectation that the children would be respectful of the environment and resources. This is a big deal for me, as I find it challenging when children break or lose special things that the teaching team has intentionally provided for them. Setting up the environment so that it communicates respect in both directions is an impressive skill, and one that I'd like to further develop in myself. Notice also, throughout all the pictures, how little plastic you will see, and how many things are either collected from nature or recycled from other use. You'll also notice many earth-tones, and not many primary colours. We are moving away from traditional "child-friendly" vivid plastics, and into homey, gentle, inviting natural resources.
Throughout their spaces, WEKA teachers use light in a variety of engaging ways.
This is a "loose parts" area. Many centers (including mine) have loose parts, which are various items with no specific function, which challenge children to use their imagination and think outside the box. This set-up, especially with the large mirror, is a great way to make loose parts inviting.
This is one of their creativity spaces, and as soon as you walk into it, you want to get right down to painting or sculpting or something artistic.
Their outdoor spaces were very natural, with wonderful use of stones and wood. We're developing more rocky places like this at Whare Kea, but progress is slow, as we have to collect the rocks from the river ourselves, and it's hard work!
This is an ephemeral art area, which is charming. I have done a lot of ephemeral art with my children over the years, and I would love to have a round shelf like the one on the left to present my beautiful items for arranging.
Sorry for the blurry picture, but I loved this egg-shaped cozy place in the infant room. You'd feel so enveloped in soft safety in there.
I particularly fell in love with this stunning circular shelf, and really want one. As was true around WEKA, I felt that it was a way to present resources invitingly, rather than just a place to store them when they weren't being used.
This magical outdoor space was constructed by the owners, who used old posts from farm fences to make the castle. Being a rural center, many of their families could donate these posts, so it's a great community connection as well as being gorgeous and imaginative.
Believe it or not, that was all from WEKA. It was such a beautiful place, I didn't want to leave. We didn't get to go on their nature excursion, due to lack of time, but I'm sure it would have been lovely.
This is at Fiordland Kindergarten, where, among other impressive accomplishments, they have the best carpentry space I've ever seen. It looks like the children are inside, but they're actually just under a large, partially enclosed overhang. But look at all the wood and all the storage pace. It's hard to tell, but they had everything they needed to build all kinds of things.
Arrowtown Preschool Cotter Ave also have a wonderful carpentry space, outside but under a roof. Well-resourced and ready for all kinds of building. My carpentry area is nice as well (although it needs more work), but we don't have a space to have it under a roof, making it unavailable when it's rainy, which is a pity.
Arrowtown Preschool Durham Street have this lovely slide built into a hill, with fabulous tussocks and other plantings around it. We would like to build something similar at Whare Kea, next time we get some funding for renovations. (The last renovation money we got was spent on our new sand pit (box), which was worth every penny).
I don't know how impressive these pictures are to those of you who don't work in early childhood, but please believe that they are phenomenal to me. It's wonderful to get inspired by the incredible work that is being done by early childhood teachers around the country, and to come back and apply or extend these in my own setting.
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