Being creative and expressive

At Playcentre, we plan for our children using the national early childhood curriculum (Te Whariki). One of the aims of the curriculum is that centres provide an environment where children can discover different ways to be creative and expressive.
So, here's Helen at Playcentre on Friday. We had an excursion to see Ian at work and he took photos of the children for our photo board at the centre. He gave us a huge piece of background paper, a bit tatty in places, but perfectly fine for us. When we got it back to the centre, we set out paints and brushes and the children got to work. Helen painted herself entirely blue (she had help with the pink!) and danced and dived and rolled around on the paper, being a humpback whale in the ocean.
How marvellous it must be to feel that kind of artistic freedom, to literally be able to put your whole self into your creations.

I finally finished some kimono flower pins last night. I gave up on the tsumami folding with these ones. I think the busy floral pattern suits this style of petal better. As I was attaching pin backs to them, I did think they'd actually have made cute Christmas decorations, if I'd made a wee ribbon loop to hang them instead. Oh well, maybe next time.

Playcentre on my mind

This week I've been so distracted with worries about our Playcentre. Playcentre has been wonderful for my girls and me. It's a parent-led early childhood education service, run almost entirely through volunteer work, with parents working alongside the children. Our adult:child ratios are fantastic (1:4), and our last Education Review Office report was really positive. Children lead the way into the activities they want to do each day, and we do whatever is necessary to bring their ideas to life.
Helen attends 4 morning sessions each week, and so I spend 1 morning "session helping". I spend at least one other morning doing administration work, often 1 night a week at some Playcentre meeting or another, hours cleaning & tidying, writing narrative assessments for the kids' portfolio/profile books, and on and on it goes.

Next year all 3 and 4 year olds in New Zealand will be entitled to up to 20 hours free child-care, which is an admirable thing. The down-side for us at Playcentre is that it only applies to teacher-led services, and it's still unclear how it will be implemented by those services anyway. With the changes already this year to eligibility for child-care subsidies, many at-home parents found it's worthwhile (financially speaking) to return to work, at least part-time, now that they don't have to spend half their paycheck on child-care. Playcentres around the country have already felt the effects of that, with roll numbers decreasing in many urban centres, and some smaller rural centres closing or at crisis point.

I'm beginning to feel that our centre is just about at crisis point now, so I've been worrying and wondering about what to do. That, and wishing I knew some flash marketing company who could entice lots of new families to come along with their little ones.

On a lighter note, I got a wee bit of crafting done. Etsy finally re-appeared on Tuesday (NZ time) and over the next few days I managed to list the new flowers I'd finally finished. I love how Etsy now allows categories in stores, so all my kimono flowers are grouped together, brooches together, etc.

On Thursday Helen and I went to the Arts Recycling Centre and I picked up a heap of remnants of (new) polyester neck-tie fabric. They've been turned into flowers now, and the first one listed in the store.


The rain we've had for over a week has finally cleared away this afternoon, and when Ian and Jen get home from the hardware store we're off to the pool!

Have a good week!