Author: Admin

1452 Forest Road, RD1, Atiamuri
07 333 9111 027 6291892
Email: office@countrykidz.co.nz

Welcome to Term Rua—the weather has continued to be wet and we are working on enjoying outside no matter what the day brings! Our little people are outside explorers for sure and, as a result, we have our outside spaces open to them at all times around our daily rhythms. Could we please ask that our tamariki come with a few more clothes in their bags to accommodate this! We do our best to rug them up against the weather but often times there is not enough clothing for this or the water play that gets through the layers no matter how many there are! We are in the process of helping this situation ourselves with all weather leggings and jackets being ordered to add to the clothing we have available. If your child has their own wet weather gear, we would love to have it here and a wet bag that it can go home in after a full day of adventure!
This term we are concentrating on tuakana teina as our focus—that is, fostering opportunities for those with more knowledge or experience to help those that are learning new skills and concepts. It’s a fabulous way to build self-esteem and confidence in our tamariki and for our learners to understand that everyone has the ability to teach and pass on learning and ideas.
Also this term our Pākiki Kidz, Koru Kidz, and Nature Kidz are continuing their excursions to the Pump Track. We are seeing so many learning experiences take place with these small group excursions. Socialising in a positive way with peers is ideal for small groups were dynamics can be seasoned and analysed. Scaffolding our tamariki through these takes time and looks different on every day—why? It’s easy, this is the hardest learning journey for all tamariki and everything from energy, experience, the world outside Country Kidz, and most definitely moments in time play a part. Often moments can add together in positive or negative ways and navigating this for our tamariki who have such limited communication experience will forever be our daily mahi. Small groups and the luxury of being able to provide these for our tamariki is something we work hard to make happen every week. To add to these learning experiences, we also have some day excursions further afield for our Koru Kidz (Museum, Library, and Wicked Weeders) and Nature Kidz (Farm and School Visits) this term, and a full Centre excursion for Go Greening wiki to the annual big planting day!
Thanks to huge community support, we sold 317 packets of Hot Cross Buns—AMAZING! Thank you to everyone for your orders which topped our 2022 efforts by over 40! This fundraising will be used to continue improvements to our play spaces. Speaking of fundraising, don’t forget to ’Save the Date’ for our Matariki Ball fundraiser on Saturday, 1 July—it will be another amazing night for our community to get together and have plenty of fun. If you would like to help with the organisation of this event, please see Serena as she is putting together a team to make this night come alive!
To all the ‘Mum’ figures in our lives, we wish you the very happiest of days on the 14th of May—may it be filled with hugs, giggles, and aroha.
Warmest wishes, the teaching team of Country Kidz

We say ‘farewell’ to one of our tamariki this month who are beginning their Primary School learning journey
Jack Schultze
Haere mai, to our new friends Country Kidz friends,
Debbie-Georgia Waititi
Indie Karipa
We are looking forward to getting to know you and your whānau!

8 May Koru Kidz
9 May Committee Meeting
10 May Nature Kidz
15 May Koru Kidz
18 May Nature Kidz Excursion to Griffiths Farm
19 May Pink Shirt Day
22 May Marotiri School Visit
24 May Nature Kidz
29 May Go Greening and Samoan Language Wiki
29 May Packet Free Lunches
29 May Koru Kidz
31 May Pakiki Kidz
1 June Nature Kidz
2 June Greening Taupō full Centre excursion

Our Learning Community gives thanks to:
Brent Griffiths for donating an entire days labour and all the materials for the gates and new rock pit—AMAZING!
Hayley Luff for the successful grant application to Kids Greening Taupō and Contact Energy for $550 towards nature resources!
Amy Wine for a successful grant application to Mangakino-Pouakani Community Grant Board for $2000 that will be used to increase the number of bikes we have at Country Kidz
Tirohanga Connection and all whanau who helped split, collect, store, deliver, and stack the huge donation of wood we received from our amazing locals
To Rachel Petterson & the team at Blackman Spargo Rural Law for reviewing our Constitution so that it aligns with the new Incorporated Societies Act (2022) - awesome to have this done to ensure excellence and compliance with regards to our Country Kidz governance
Without community grants, fundraising, and the support of local expertise generously donated our learning community would not be able to provide the extent of learning opportunities we do.
Thank you so much to all those that continue to give their time and skills to us, we really do appreciate you all.

Does anyone have a tractor or digger (and driver!) that we could borrow for a couple of hours – we are keen to finish off our soft fall area before Winter. We need another 200mm taken out for the area to be playground compliant without needing to use safety mats around our climbing equipment. Please contact the office if you might be able to help

Any updates?
We need to keep our enrolment forms updated with relevant contact phone numbers, emergency and pick-up information. If your circumstances have changed, please come in so we can update your details

Please remember to like our Facebook page, Country Kidz ECE. Please share and encourage family and friends to like our page and follow the adventures and achievements we make here with the Tamariki.

Birthday honours for May include:
Wishing all our whānau and community that also celebrated a birthday this month the warmest of wishes
Jack Schultze

As part of working towards our Tohu Manawa Ora | Healthy Heart Award we are introducing lots of different kai to our tamariki for morning tea and they seem to be loving it! We are also working hard to bring process baking to our tamariki as part of their morning activity options so they can get involved in participating to make their morning kai. This wiki our tamariki have helped make pizzas, banana muffins, and made their own toast! Next week we will have opportunities to help in the making of Pear Muffins, Pizza, Banana Oat Cookies, and Apple Muffins.
Engaging with our tamariki in preparing our kai is something that helps develop confidence in trying new foods and ensure they are active participants in our journey of health eating and physical activity.

If you are interested and would like further information, please contact us on 333 9111.
Permanent Gardener and Maintenance Person—we have two hours a week for a grounds and maintenance person to help care for our learning environment. This is a position we are happy to be flexible with regards to time and day and can be done during or after hours.
Relief Cleaner– if you enjoy cleaning and are flexible with regards to being on-call to clean when our permanent cleaner is unavailable, we would love to hear from you.
Relief Teachers—we want to add to our relieving team for 2023 with passionate and flexible teachers. We often need relief teachers to support our permanent teaching team throughout the year. Relief teachers ensure we are providing quality education every day we are open.