Covid 19 - An 'Attitude of Gratitude'

Level 4

What an incredible few months we’ve experienced during Covid 19 lockdown; an unprecidented time in global history.  

For many this has been a time of mixed emotions as lived experiences changed to one of isolation and social distancing from extended family, friends, colleagues and the wider world outside our front gates.

Although isolated from each other physically, it was important for us to have opportunities for connection with each other and this occured for us through phone calls and email. 

Teachers enjoyed opportunities to stay connected with children and whanau in this way. 

What was most heartening, were the ways in which families embraced this new unhurried                      time, and focused on and enjoyed just being together as a family.  

 Overwhelmingly, one of the things we've learnt during this lockdown time, is the power of gratitude and the role this can play in our wellbeing. 

 Many of our shared conversations focused on looking for the positives in the situation as a way of helping us get through. 

An Attitude of Gratitude 

Gratitude is being thankful for the things that are already in our life and appreciating them. 

 Appreciating good experiences, building strong relationships and focusing energy on the positives in life, all help improve our overall health and wellbeing.

  

Gratitude enables us to deal with adversity, and feel more positive emotions.

Level 2 

Newly emerged from lockdown and now at Level 2...what does this mean for us?  Will life ever be the same?  Do we want it to be the same?  What happens next? 

 So many thoughts, so many emotions!

As we transition back into normality and navigate our 'new normal', there are a range of feelings that will crop up for us and this is a perfect time to re-focus our attention towards an attitude of gratitude. 

Research shows that regularly writing down what we're thankful for:

· evokes positive feelings and emotions

· reminds us of all the things and people who contribute to our lives

· helps build appreciation, empathy and kindness (sparklers.org.nz)

Back to play!

A play day together at last...our hearts were full!  We had waited so long and we were very happy to be back together again that's for sure! 

So many things to be grateful for and we wanted to provide children an opportunity to work through what they had missed most and what they were feeling gratitude for.

To spark things off we invited children to contribute their ideas through art and conversation... 

What did you miss most when you were away?

"I missed the swings"

"My friends"

"Playing with my friends just because I like them"

"Playing with my friends and playing on the swings"

"I missed the swings and the missed the monkey bars and I missed climbing the tree"

"I think I really missed kindy and playing with my friends"

"Everything...I missed the kindy and the children"

"I missed you...my Rowan and Janet and Sandy, and Wendy and Tina and Lauren...I missed everyone and all the teachers"

"I missed running and like running real fast"

"I missed my friends at kindy"

"Going down the slide"

"All the people and everyone"

"I missed all of the teachers.  I just wanted to play on the slide and the whole kindy cause I just missed it so much"

"Kindy...going in the sandpit"

"Playing with all my kindy friends"

Overwhelmingly children expressed that it was their kindy friends that they had missed the most and were grateful for...

Heartfelt responses that we quickly realized were best captured in a selfie or two...  

  

Love, care, humanity and beauty...oh and lets not forget joy, pure joy!

We have a lot to be grateful for!

Possibilities for learning...where to next?

As we keenly await the announcement of Level 1, our hope for the future burns bright.

Our kindergarten whānau responded to this question...

What the world needs now is...

Kindness, hope, empathy, thoughtfulness, love, family, quality time, acceptence, understanding...to reconnect with nature, to look after our Mother Earth, to play more, peace, whānau, aroha, compassion, more happiness,  to slow down and to enjoy rainbows!

(Ngā wawata o te whānau,

Aspirations of family 

Bream Bay Kindergarten, 

2020)

"When we go back to a normal, I hope it's not the old normal.  See beauty everywhere, and engage with the beauty, and most of all in your fellow humanity, and lets love each other in the experience of each others beauty, to realize a much different future." (Dr Zach Bush, 2020).

It's so good to be back!!

Mauri ora,

Tania

Something to Think About: Bananas!

We are so fortunate here at Bream Bay Kindergarten to have whānau that contribute to our programme in a number of different ways. 

Recently Bodhi's family brought in home-grown bunches of bananas for the tamariki to enjoy. They made an impact to our learning environment as we magically had an instant inside banana tree!

I've recently been reading and learning about extending children's thinking through thoughtful and intentional questions. 

Bloom's (modified) Taxonomy is a system which classifies thinking and learning by remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.  

Using this system, I planned questions and used them in conjunction with spontaneous questions to develop children's knowledge, ideas, and thinking about bananas.

Children are learning "to learn with and alongside others. Over time and with guidance and encouragement, children become increasingly capable of recognising and appreciating their own ability to learn. Children demonstrate ability to use memory, perspective taking, metacognition and other cognitive strategies for thinking, and ability to make links between past, present and future."       (Te Whāriki, 2017)

"What do you notice?" was a good question to lead with. Common themes emerged from the children's shared thinking, with a child starting with an observation and others adding to it. 

"Look there's tiny bananas" noticed Carter.

"All of those bananas are still growing"  said Jena pointing at them.

"You need to wait until they grow bigger, maybe in 5 months they be bigger. You put them in the garden and water them" said Brodie.

"We grow them on the trees and we pick them when they're bigger" said Grayson.

"We put them on the tree and magic water comes from the sky" added Eli.

"Like rain" said Grayson.

"Cause rain comes from the clouds. When January comes, they grow bigger" added Brodie.

Bodhi was able to share his first hand knowledge about the bananas. "They've grown a long, long time. They growed and growed and there was lot and they had lots of leaves on them." 

"Children need to have the understanding of language and concepts and prior knowledge to move to higher level questions. A high level question is one that a child will answer in their own way, a question which encourages children to expand their thinking and perspective, and a question which is developmentally appropriate."
(Strasser & Mufson-Bresson, 2018)

The children also noticed and discussed the appearance of the bananas.

"Bananas can be yellow, and brown on the bottom" noticed Lil. And after observing the bananas for a while longer she added "they're quite old and they've just got old."

"That's an old one" Minty agreed.

"They're yellow" said Ivy-Jay.

"They're always yellow" insisted Alessia I.

"There's black here, and there's yellow here and there's more black here" said Grayson.

"Once I saw a banana under a microscope" remembered Liam J. "I saw green and yellow. They had lines and little dots."

"Creating a solid base of content knowledge is important - children need to remember information before they can understand it; they must understand it before they can apply it... Asking questions that invite them to apply what they've learned or evaluate something encourages them to express their unique ideas." (Strasser & Mufson Bresson, 2017)

All morning children added to the discussion about bananas. (Although, at one point Minty asked me to stop talking to her because she was finding it difficult to paint and talk at the same time, such was her concentration on her artwork. Sorry Minty, I'll remember next time to allow more time for thinking and painting between questions!)

All morning the children kept sharing...

"I know that bees hide inside the bananas cause I think they like eating them" said Eli.

"Monkeys like bananas" said Isabel.

"Monkeys eat them and they say 'ou ou ah ah'" added Tangaroa thumping his chest like a monkey as well.

"When I get a banana I be like a monkey" said Kaley.

Eventually the children had enough of drawing.

"You have to eat them!" Vann declared. 

 

So eat them we did and the conversation turned to the taste of bananas, how to eat them and whether the children liked them or not.

"I don't really eat them so much. I only eat them a little bit" said Jena. (However, I'm not entirely convinced, that banana disappeared pretty quickly Jena!)

Isabel said,"Bananas are so yummy, they're good, I love it." 

"Yes they are very yummy" agreed Lockie.

"I know they are so yummy" said Alessia I.

 

 

"I eat bananas at my home. I get them in the groceries... I eat them at kindy cause I like bananas" said Clara.

 

Liam J tried telling me that he didn't like bananas "cause of the brown bits." However after sampling a banana he slowly came around. "Well, I like the ones at kindy" he offered. And then after another mouthful he did a complete turn around admitting "Actually, I like bananas."

 

Bananas are "tasty, and it's got vanilla in it" Kaley told me. "I like them because they're delicious."

 

"Olive eats bananas" shared Ben.

"You rip them and then eat them" said Grayson.

 

"I like bananas cause I love them so much" said Eli.

 

Final words go to Tangaroa and Brodie.

I'd asked them what they did with bananas at their homes? (At this point I was getting a bit hungry myself and was starting to think of all the different ways you could cook and bake with bananas... banana muffins, pancakes with bacon and fried bananas, banana cake, banana smoothie...) Their individual replies made me realise that there are aspects of my questioning technique that still need work...

"We just eat them" said Brodie. "You pull the skin off and eat them... with your hands... and with your teeth."

"Ummm... we do this" said Tangaroa, promptly eating his banana. (Duh Sandy!)

Ngā mihi nui

Sandy