By Bronwyn Norman
© ChildForum
Bursting out in the beautiful sunny Autumn/Ngahuru afternoon our tamariki were ready to embrace their environment and interact with each other by choosing materials and playing games.
Fuelled by eating a healthy afternoon tea their bodies were ready to move. Tamariki were walking, running, skipping, jumping and hopping.
The whole of nature was moving. The Autumn/Ngahuru breeze was lifting the red, green, yellow and brown leaves from the Oak trees and as they twirled and swirled to the ground they were further blown into mini tornadoes by the wind.
Being a proactive teacher and taking the lead from nature I wanted to capture the teachable moment for the tamariki and extend their learning so that they were twirling and swirling also.
I asked the tamariki “Would you like to use the Rainbow Ribbons?" The response was “YES”. “Can I have the purple one”, “Can I have the yellow one”, “Can I have the orange one” ...
Each child experimented in their own personal way with the wands and the ribbons, familiarising themselves with what they could do, swirling and spinning the ribbons around as they flew in the breeze.
Wanting to focus the attention of tamariki to begin turning their arms around in circles just like the wind I began our teachable moment through modelling the actions for the tamariki.
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