April - May & June 2015

Little Pearls Educare Newsletter

Greetings & Kia Ora We hope you are all coping well with the cold weather – especially last couple of weeks which had been reached to single-digit lowest degrees! Winter can be a cosy time of year though with warm fires, heathers, winter foods and hot chocolate. But also with it brings the winter ailments e.g. colds, fever, vomiting etc... We ask all whanau/parents to please keep your tamariki/child at home while they are sick.

New Families

We welcome all our new families and whanau into our centre. We as your children’s educators look forward to building good relationships with both your children and you. If you have any queries, questions etc… please don’t hesitate to ask Taner (Managing Director), Nazife (Supervisor) or one of your tamariki ma/children’s educators.

Welcome to

Aleeza, Alexandra, Ariana, Isabel, Jemima, Naif, Riya, Sione, Yazan

Weather and Clothing With the colder weather having appeared now we are no longer letting any of the tamariki ma/children outside unless they are dressed properly for the weather. This means no more uncovered shoes, shorts, skirts without leggings or stockings or t-shirts. Please send your tamariki ma/children into the centre with appropriate clothing for the weather, and at least two full changes of clothes (underwear, socks, undershirt, long sleeved shirt and pants) in their bag. We ask for this as even though it is winter and we are not having water play, the children can still get wet or messy and require changing. For example when the tamariki ma/children play in the sandpit, they often need to change their clothes as the sand stays quite damp over winter, or when they wash their hands they sometimes forget to roll their sleeves up and then get wet.

Medication We can administer medication to your tamariki/child but this must be prescribed by a registered Doctor, and must have your tamariki/child’s name and dosage on the label. This must then be entered on the medicine chart with your signature before we can administer this to your tamariki/child. Thank you. We need to have your permission in writing to administer the centre’s supply of Pamol if your child has a fever or pain while at the centre. Therefore to make it easier for both of us we are going to make a permission form which allows teachers to administer Pamol when your child needs to take it. In addition, you are also required to sign on the medicine chart when you pick up your child. Thank you.

Samoan Language Week

We would like to say a big Thank you to Jerimiah’s family Soonalote & Fueina for coming in and sharing their culture with the tamariki ma/children and kaiako/teachers for Samoan language week. It was a pleasure to see the traditional weaving process using coconut leaves. Everyone enjoyed being part of this meaningful experience as the connection to different cultures is developed through these experiences. We got to see how to weave, got the chance to help making banana soup and then sample it for mat time.

April - May & June 2015

Celebrating Matariki at Little Pearls

The seven stars of Matariki have been shining brightly so we are talking about and baking stars here at the centre! As one of the experiences aimed to enhance tamariki ma/ children’s knowledge about Matariki, they baked star-shaped cookies while having a discussion about this special celebration. The tamariki ma/children

measured and mixed the ingredients and cut out the star shapes. The first batch was not enough, so we made more cookies another day; enough to take home and treat the whanau/family. During Matariki, people celebrate the joys of life and harvest the fruits of their labour. They also prepare for the year to come by preserving the collected fruits and veggies, fixing their houses and preparing their gardens for the new round. We planted some veggies (broccoli, spinach, mint, parsley and potatoes) in our garden and also fixed our doll house by painting and decorating inside with carpet and vinyl. Thanks to Rayyan’s dad Tin for providing the paints for our doll house.

Happy Matariki, everyone!

Trip to Auckland Museum

The 12th of June was a very special day: many of our tamariki ma/children travelled by bus to the Auckland War Memorial Museum to attend a special presentation and learn about Matariki, the Maori New Year, which falls on the 18th of June this year. The Trip

to the Museum was amazing, with things to see around the main galleries, and new songs to learn and a performance to watch during the presentation. Thanks again to all of the adults who came along to help us, we hope that you learned something as well.

Literacy Self Review Presentation

Little Pearls team had been focused on Literacy Self-Review project to improve the environment to become more literacy-rich in order to support and extend the literacy learning of tamariki ma/children. It had been a year-longproject and we had a chance to work in a cluster - groupof five different centres. Professional adviser Gillian Fitzgerald from ELP (Educational Leadership Project) supported us throughout the researchby running workshops and visiting our centre and giving written feedback.

This really helped us to improve our knowledge and practice about long term Self-Review and Literacy. It has been a great and of course stressful journey and it is good to see the achievement of the desired outcomes for tamariki ma/children, whanau and parents and kaiako/teachers. Katerina and Musarrat presented it to the other centres in the cluster. Thank you to all team for the hard work they put on to make this research successful. We are planning to present it to our whanau and parents in August. We will let you know about the date and time soon.

April - May & June 2015 Programme Planning

Please have a look at the programme planning boards and other notice boards that are hanging up, in and outside your tamariki ma/children’s rooms. They are full of interesting information about ourtamariki ma/children’s current interests for the month.

News from the Under-Two’s room

The under two’skaiako/teachers created a cultural board in the babies room which consists of a range of cultural artefacts. This is to showcase some of the cultures we have in our babies’ room.

News from the Over-Two’s room

My, what a busy three months we have had. From an interest in animals, to learning about people in our community we have been learning lots. We have had lots of visits from interesting people over the past couple of months; from Luke’s dad Turk who is a

police officer, Deepika’s mum Jiffy who is a nurse, then Victoria the Opera Singer, Hannah the Chainmailler and Josh the Painter. We’ve been learning lots about different jobs and a bit more about people in our community. We’ve been inspired to make things. There’s been a big influx of creative paintings since Josh

came to visit. We’re moving into a couple of tandem planning cycles, one of which we need your help with. Following on from getting to know our community and the people in it more, we want to learn more about everyone’s families, and to do so, we want to make a whanau/family tree. For this, we need a photo from every one of their whanau/family, and the photo can be as extended a whanau/family as you want it to be. Names included and the relationship of everyone to the

tamariki ma/ children would be wonderful (aunt, cousin, honorary sibling etc.). Please e-mail the photos to contact@littlepearls.org.nz . Thank you! The second planning cycle is centred on storytelling, puppetry and dramatic play, as well as portraiture and how we see ourselves. We’re making puppets and our

own puppet theatre so we can act out stories. Expect to see lots of artwork appearing on this theme.

Policies

We regularly review policies and at the moment we are reviewing Accident/Incident/Sickness, Administration of Medicine and Parent Involvement Policies. We would like to hear your comments and feedback as your contribution is very important to us. The policies are displayed on the front entrance – by the “sign in” sheets. Please feel free to read over and comment. If you are happy with the policies and do not want to comment, please sign so that we know you have read them. Thank you.

April - May & June 2015

Photos on Flickr Have you seen your children’s recent photos on Flickr? If you haven’t please visit the web page https://www.flickr.com/photos/115800224%40N04/

Anzac Trip to Turkey April 2015

Pearl of the Islands Foundation has been organising Anzac Study Tours to Turkey since 2011. Taner has been the coordinator of this Anzac Study Tours to Turkey for number of years. He guided the group of eight students and three teachers and principal from Papatoetoe Intermediate School in April 2015. This

intense study-tour program involves a range of educational and cultural activities including visits to Gallipoli and participation in Anzac Day Dawn Services at Gallipoli as well as visits to major cities Istanbul, Izmir and Bursa, historical locations, museums, schools and dinner with local Turkish families and other significant buildings and places. For more photos visit

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.479180528896908.1073741837.309147149233581&type=3

Auckland City for Peace Awards 2015

Organised by The Peace Foundation and Auckland Council, the Auckland City for peace honours youths, adults, and businesses that support the principles of peace. Taner as a Pearl of the Islands Foundation representative was nominated for his contributions in education and intercultural dialogue. He ultimately won and was presented the Adult Peace Award. These awards will recognise those that act toward peace services and leadership in a way that benefits the community

and the environment. Auckland Mayor Len Brown was invited to VIP Iftar Dinner at Pearl of the Islands Foundation and was happy to present it again to Taner on the night.

Birthdays April: Jana turned 4, Joshua turned 3, Khadeeja turned 4, Sophia turned 3, Thabit turned 4.

May: Aarush turned 2, Christopher turned 3, Jeremiah turned 2, Luke turned 4, Saisha turned 2, Rayyan turned 2.

June: Faiq turned 4, Lena turned 2, Pepe turned 3.

Congratulations…

April - May & June 2015

“Every child is precious like a pearl”

Address: 2a Lorraine Ave, Mt Albert, Auckland 1025

Phone: +64 9 815 2277 www.littlepearls.org.nz