Our Christmas Lunch

Today we had a shared lunch with our families to celebrate Christmas!
It was cool to sit and chat with the families that came and to share in good food during this festive season.
We also shared our gingerbread house that we made. It was yummy and we have big plans for our gingerbread house next year! And we have all year to practice and hone our house building skills.
This week all the children also took home little gifts that they made for their parents.
The Moreporks Team would like to wish all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Merry Christmas!

This came across the email today and we just wanted to share it with you all.
The Morepork Team would like to wish all our families and friends a Merry Christmas and a safe New Year.

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Our obstacle course

It was raining today so Gemma set the obstacle course up on the deck instead!
It was cool watching the children navigate their way around the course. The different pieces of equipment gave the children different challenges as they had to move from a hard surface to a soft foam surface.
The end of the obstacle course was a ramp. It was intended that the children would walk down the ramp but the children decided to scoot and shimmy down the ramp on their bottoms.
After a while we changed the obstacle course around, which is the beauty of our equipment that isn't fixed in one place! The children had renewed interest in the obstacle course and found different ways to navigate through the equipment.

Obstacle courses are fantastic as they allow the children the practice and master their gross motor skills and learn to play with and alongside others as well as turn taking and negotiation.

Busy Babies in the Sandpit

It was a beautiful morning and the children were ready for outside play after applying sunblock and putting on their hats. They headed outside and straight for the sandpit.
All the children were so involved in their own play that I could sit back and watch all the learning that was happening. I saw:
Stuart was controlling the hose, filling up his friends buckets and making the water squirt in many directions. It was great to see Stuart trying out and working on his theories of hoses and water.
Manaia was busy cooking with the play kitchen and the pots and pans. It was nice to see Manaia acting out experiences she would be involved in at home, and also entering into dramatic play. We also had Holly, Jack and Amelia making a right mess in the water trough. Together they added water from the hose Stuart was holding and sand from under their feet to make cold wet mud!! The children loved mixing it around and filling up the cake tins making mud pies. An excellent way to explore the properties and textures of water and sand.



The children were busy all morning and worked so well alongside each other. I hope that we can again turn on the hose in the sandpit this week and make some delicious mud pies again!!

Christmas Family BBQ - Wednesday 8th Dec

This evening we had our Annual Family Christmas BBQ.
It was great to see all the families come along and share this time with us. Paul made his world famous ham, which we had with coleslaw on buns. The children loved their sausages in bread with sauce and Marilyn put together yummy platters of strawberries and scorched almonds for dessert!
This night is a highlight on our social calendars and we can't wait for Christmas to roll around each year! Its our way of saying thank you to the parents and families for supporting us and celebrating the year together.

Christmas Artists

Today the children got into the festive spirit on the deck and created some beautiful christmas tree prints.
They used traditional christmas colours; red and green and topped it off with glitter.
They were really proud of their prints and so were we!
We are going to display them on our wall for all to see!

Who's hu?

Today on the deck, there was a basket of shoes.
Wow! A basket full of discoveries!
The children had a fantastic time trying all the shoes on and swapping shoes with each other.
We tried on green sparkly shoes, pink boots, blue sparkly shoes, bright red shoes and even each others shoes!

Playing dress ups allows the children to explore with different roles in their play. Children practice turn taking and negiotation as they swap shoes with each other.