Whanganui Montessori Pre-School

04/07/2024

Over the past few weeks we have been celebrating Matariki. Ngā tamariki have enjoyed making and decorating whetū, enjoying lovely waiata, baking and decorating whetū cookies, roasting marshmallows, making a cardboard planetarium for observing the Puanga constellation and a fun Matariki disco, joined by whanau with shared KaI.
We have also harvested and replanted our vege garden/ mahinga Kai, and lastly gathered all of our aspirations for the future, guided by Hiwa-I-te-rangi.
What a busy few weeks it has been celebrating the Māori new year!
Enjoy the photos.

01/07/2024

We are lucky enough to have made the 2nd round for the Stihl Shop Wanganui Giveaway . Please vote for us by following instructions below 👇. Thanks 🙏

💥Attention everyone!

After hundreds of nominations for our 2nd round of Stihl Shop Wanganui Quarterly Giveback, we have our finalists !

It’s now time for you to vote on the top 3 nominations, this will determine the winner of a $1000 donation.

The nominees are as follows:
👍 Kiwi Kitty Kartel
❤ Aranui Primary School
😮 Whanganui Montessori Pre School

How to vote: Hold down on the like button, select the reaction that corresponds to the group you want to vote for.

Disclaimer: This giveaway is not associated with Facebook. The winning organization will be drawn on 16th July 2024.

16/06/2024

This Term, our wonderful children have been busy filling out their Hiwa-i-te-Rangi goals and wishes, and we couldn’t be more thrilled! Hiwa-i-te-Rangi is a beautiful way for our Tamariki to express their hopes and dreams, and it’s been heartwarming to see their enthusiasm and creativity.

We are so grateful to our amazing parents for taking the time to share their aspirations for their children in Montessori. Your support and involvement mean a lot to us. The kids had so much fun making their wishes and sharing them with their teachers. It’s been a delightful experience for everyone involved!

Thank you for helping make our Montessori community so special. Together, we’re nurturing our children’s dreams and helping them reach for the stars! 🌟✨

11/06/2024

Nga tamariki enjoyed exploring a wee bit of potion play at Montessori. They were able to explore different smells, textures, and colours whilst mixing their potions. The use of natural resources from the garden help nga tamariki make connections with the natural world and it was also great way to further develop some gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination whilst mixing, scooping, pouring and grinding etc.

05/06/2024

Asking our local community to nominate us for this giveback from STIHL SHOP Wanganui. Would help with our relocation costs 😊

💥STIHL Shop Wanganui Quarterly Giveback is back this June!💥
This is an opportunity for us to give back to our community in a special way – with the support and direction of YOU! YOU, our community, gets to decided who we give a $1000 donation to each quarter in the year. Here is how it works🔽
Nominate a local charity, team, group or school who need some support by leaving a comment below. Get your friends, whanau and workmates to nominate their choice too by tagging them below and sharing the post.
The top nominations (by numbers nominated) will then go into a second post where the community will vote for the top choice who will receive the $1000 donation from us!
Don't delay, NOMINATE NOW! Nominations are open for 4 weeks, Nominations are counted by person not by comment.
Any charities nominated must be a registered charity!
Disclaimer: This giveaway is not endorsed, sponsored or associated with Facebook or Instagram in any way. The top 3 organisations will be calculated on the 2nd of July 2024.

31/05/2024

Tautua i le alofa, manuia le lumana’i - serve in love for a blessed future - this is the theme for Samoa Language Week 2024 and is a philosophy close to our heart all year round at Montessori.
We have marked the week by greeting each other with “ Talofa lava” singing pese/songs, drawing from Samoan inspired art to make tapa cloth and turtles 🐢 laumei and vasa 🌊 and la 🌞
We ended with a shared act of service when each class made food / meaai for the other, which we came together to enjoy. The pani popo and tropical smoothies were enjoyed by all

17/05/2024

This morning we went for a hikoi to the Quakers settlement. It was so nice getting in touch with nature, listening to the birdsong and exploring ngahere, in the beautiful sunshine. Ngā tamariki really enjoyed themselves.
“Ko ahau te taiao, ko te taiao, ok ahau”. “I am the environment and the environment is me”.

10/05/2024

We had an amazing time when our old buddy Zappo came for a visit, loads of laughs and some great ideas about taking care of papatuanuku.

06/05/2024

What a lovely start to Term 2!
Some children gathered lemons from our lemon tree and ‘took-turns’ to cut them and squeeze-out the juice. They placed the juice into ice-block containers and placed them into the freezer.
The following day the children sat together and enjoyed the lemon ice- blocks.

This was exciting and lead to the following days activity, which was making feijoa ice blocks. What a lot of help to cut the fruit, spoon-out the pulp, which we placed into the blender then into the ice-block containers wow! Who would think Feijoa ice blocks would be so great?

28/03/2024

What a successful morning we had at our wheelie-a-thon. Nga tamariki had fun riding their bikes, scooters and go carts around the track, then back to Montessori for an ice block and participation certificate. It’s always such a great event and what a good cause. What good luck it was to miss the rain too.

Thanks to all for helping out and donating.😄

17/03/2024

Last week Whanganui Safe and Free came to visit us to teach ngā tamariki about how to keep their bodies safe. We learnt that it’s important to know the correct names for all our body parts. We sang the My Body Belongs to Me 🎶 song to reinforce the empowering messages we learnt.

08/03/2024

🌈✨🍌🥤

Our little chefs recently embarked on a captivating kitchen adventure in the Montessori classroom, embracing the unique Montessori cook process guided by pictures. This hands-on experience goes beyond the delicious banana milkshake; it's a celebration of Montessori's philosophy, promoting independence, life skills, motor development, and confidence. With proud smiles, they tasted the sweet victory of their own creation. Stay tuned for more culinary wonders from our Montessori classroom, where happiness, curiosity, and yum collide! 🌟👏

01/03/2024

Today was such a lovley summer day that we decided to take some of the tamariki for a small hikoi. Ngā tamariki throughouly enjoyed exploring orchards with trees bursting with all sorts of different fruits and nuts including pears, apples, plums, walnuts and vege gardens where they saw pumpkins, beans and sunflowers. Lavender and Rosemary bushes also bloomed and filled the air with the most beautiful smells. Inside the hazletnut grove ngā tamariki tried to catch the falling leaves from the trees as we had a conversation about seasons and that Autumn was going to be next.

Care of environment supports the vision that the entire environment is a rich learning resource that offers meaningful, relevant and unlimited learning oppertunities for exploration/mana aotūroa.

17/02/2024

Last week Ngā tamariki celebrated the Chinese New Year at Montessori.

The classrooms were decorated with red decorations, which symbolised happiness and good luck. With the help of some wonderful parents and Kaiako the children in Venice class were able to make some very delicious dumplings a favourite Chinese tradition that celebrates sharing food with loved ones. Both classes enjoyed these for morning kai. While the children in Milan class made red envelopes that symbolise good wishes and luck for the year ahead.

Celebrating culture in our learning environment supports the Family and community/whānau tangata principle as well as the Relationships/ngā hononga principle in Te Whāriki and in turn supports children's participation in and contribution to their world.

Ngā tamariki took pride in participating in the Chinese New Year, celebrating the spirit of togetherness with joy, laughter, and love.

05/02/2024

What fun our tamariki had today celebrating Waitangi Day, Wai water day styles.

To start the day off each class prepared some Kai, which we brought together for morning tea and enjoyed as a group, to show Manaakitanga for our Montessori whānau. We all enjoyed watermelon which was cut out in different shapes as well as banana sushi. So yum.

After Kai time we all sat down together and the tamariki chose different attributes that they felt were important to us as a centre. Some ideas were ‘caring for each other’, ‘showing respect’, ‘using walking feet’...and the list goes on. Such wonderful ideas from our tamariki and it shows that they understand our values and culture as a centre.

Now the real fun began as we set up water slides, sprinklers, water troths and other fun water toys for the tamariki to enjoy—so many smiles and laughs.

It was such a wonderful day.

04/02/2024

Don’t forget our wai (water) day tomorrow (Monday). Please bring togs and a towel.

04/12/2023

What fun we had this morning decorating Christmas cookies. Ngā tamariki enjoyed icing their biscuits and choosing from the selection of yummy toppings. Thanks heaps to Helaina for bringing in all of the ingredients we needed to make these awesome cookies. Bring on Christmas 🎅🏼 🎁

24/11/2023

Kia Ora koutou e te whānau,

We were super lucky to end our week with some much awaited visitors! Ngā tamariki happily welcomed their grandparents into their classrooms. They so enjoyed sharing some of their favourite waiata and singing Christmas songs to everyone.

Thanks to everybody who joined us, we hope you had a lovely time and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

16/11/2023

*Montessori Honey* $15 for a 500g pot or
TWO FOR $25. Perfect as a thoughtful gift. This delightful treat is guaranteed to keep your loved ones sweet! The honey you'll enjoy comes from Wairangi Station, a stunning piece of wild land nestled in the serene Kauarapaoa Valley, northwest of Whanganui. Crafted by the Hutchings family, who have been active members of the Montessori community since 2018. Rest assured, every step of production has been infused with care and passion. With each purchase, you not only savor a delectable treat but also contribute directly to supporting our relocation. To purchase honey, you can email us at [email protected] Ngā mihi

05/11/2023

The joy of outdoor play knows no bounds! Our children have been delighting in the fresh air, sunshine, and a plethora of activities in our outdoor wonderland.
It's incredible to watch their creativity, teamwork, and exploration skills grow with each outdoor adventure.
We're all about learning through play, and the great outdoors provides the perfect canvas for that. Our children are not just having fun; they're discovering, problem-solving, and building friendships along the way. 🤝
Let's continue to encourage this wonderful journey of exploration and discovery! 🚀 What's your child's favorite outdoor activity? Share with us! 🌟 Weather.

26/10/2023

Talofa, nga kaiako had a fun, hands on evening with our wonderful Pacifica facilitator Lia Conner this week. We had the opportunity to make lolly lei and mini hula skirts together, as well as gaining a deeper insight into the traditions behind these cultural icons.

12/10/2023

Ngā Tamariki of Montessori were lucky enough to have Lia Connor Pasifika Education Facilitator visit yesterday to teach us some Samoan action songs and support us to learn some new words
i’a - fish 🐠
paopao - waka 🛶
laumei -turtle 🐢
Fuga - flower 🌸
Lia was so engaging the children sang along and clapped and followed all the actions with great enthusiasm !
Lia is visiting us weekly for the rest of Term four to help us explore the Samoan cultural competencies framework Tapasā - which means compass 🧭 - she is certainly guiding us all on our journey 😊

03/09/2023

Friday was an exciting and busy day for ngā tamariki, Police Officer Pauline visited us to draw the winners of our Father's Day raffle, then kindly took some time and chatted with ngā tamariki about her job, talking about some of the important jobs police officers have in our community. After our korero tamariki were able to look at the police car up close, it was pretty exciting to be able to sit inside it. We appreciate Pauline taking time out of her busy day to visit us, ngā mihi maioha.

We also celebrated a Father's Day stay and play day, it was lovely to see so many fathers and grandfathers throughout the day. Tamariki proudly showed their loved ones around Montessori, introduced them to their friends and showed them some of their favourite Montessori activities.

He aha te mea nui o te ao? Ko te whānau.
What is the most important thing in this world? It is family.

01/09/2023

Fathers Day Raffle was drawn this morning under the supervision of a Police Officer. The winners are:
Ticket No. 049 - I Soulsby
Ticket No. 053 - M Spooner
Ticket No. 175 - K Jackson
Ticket No. 199 - T Alexander

Congratulations to winners and thanks to everybody for their ongoing support.

31/08/2023

Last morning to buy last minute raffle tickets for Fathers Day. Only a few left to sell and getting drawn today.

27/08/2023

Reminder this is the last week to purchase raffle tickets.
$10.00 per ticket (only 200 tickets to be sold) our raffle will be drawn on Friday 1st September 2023.
If you wish to purchase a ticket please email us [email protected]

26/08/2023

Whanganui’s Montessori Pre-School seeking a new home

The Whanganui Montessori Preschool started in the Westmere Church in 1992 and then moved to Jubilee Hospital grounds before shifting to their current location at 88 Virginia Road in 2006. Unfortunately, they need to move again and are appealing to the Whanganui community to help them find a new home.

They are licenced to have up to 50 children from 2 and a half through to 6. It is run as a non-for-profit parent cooperative lead by a manager and two lead teachers.
What makes Montessori different from other preschools is the Montessori philosophy and equipment combined with the New Zealand National Early Childhood Education Curriculum. As they say, “Our programme is designed to nurture your child’s curiosity.”

Children are encouraged to move, touch and explore. They have the freedom to work independently, based on their own initiative with gentle guidance from their kaiako.
It has proven to be a popular preschool over the years. Last week they celebrated the founder Maria Montessori’s birthday with a birthday cake and by dressing up. There were many ballet costumes combined with tigers, penguins, giraffes, a constable and even a lawyer dressed in a white shirt, tie and jacket. Happy Birthday was sung in Chinese, sign language, Te Reo and English.

District Councillor Josh Chandalal McKay cut the cake. He went to Montessori back in the 1990s and remembers very fondly the digger, which he wanted to ‘drive’ every morning. He says, “My parents sent me here for the values, and my mum later became President of the Parent Cooperative. He particularly appreciated his first introduction to Te Reo Māori at Montessori.

Montessori needs to have new premises by the beginning of 2025 and they are open to all possible locations. If you can help them in their search please get in touch at [email protected].

Manager Julie with Josh and the children