A  Huge thank you goes to All Good Bananas who kindly donated bananas to the Treehut children for their cooking class.


The children were very excited when they came home from school to see a huge box of bananas waiting for them.


they were so excited they all wanted to make different things, banana thickshakes,  banana fritters, banana biscuits.... and we all finally agreed on Banana muffins.

As the new term arrives i always get excited with the new classes i put together. At the end of the term the children and i work through what we all want to do and then i put it together.

So coming up this term is stop start animation, spaghetti sounds our radio station, cooking, zumba, fashion design, our magazine. We have a few field trips which i am excited about too.

Art class yesterday was one of them. I am teaching them about famous artist techniques and our first Artist is my all time favourite Vincent Van gogh. At the beginning of the class it was  looking like they wouldn’t grasp the concepts but then they all seemed to have a light bulb moment and the work they produce was nothing short of Fantastic.

Every class has a planning session; they all have to draw out their ideas, it is so important to teach the children to plan out their work.

Most importantly we have fun, there seems to be alot of laughing going on.

We had drama on Monday which was a hoot as we did “whose line is it anyway” and all the children were in hysterics because i was acting to show them what to do. They all think i am very funny. I have never seen them giggle so much. They loved the class so much they keep asking to play it.

The first two weeks of the launch of our treehut online magazine has gone fabulously. The children have been over the moon in the amount we have already made and are so excited as they have decided to buy glitter, lots of glitter.

During this week we had a huge discussion about the oil spill and what the effects are. Most of the teachers at schools must have been talking about it as the children were very knowledgeable about the subject.

“But what can we do?” Said Mr 7. I said “What do we think we can do?”

We could try to raise money and send it to the relief fund, to help in the clean up process “Said Miss 8. Then all the children came up with ideas like a bake sale or cleaning cars etc. All these were great idea. Until miss 5 said we could give our ezine money to the fund.

I sat back and watched the conversation as they discussed how they didn’t really need more glitter and how they could use other things in the meantime. They then all decided that all the proceeds from the magazine would go to the relief fund.

As a teacher and a mother it is proud moment when you see your children just want to help, they just want to get in there and help make change.  

I tell the children all the time a little goes a long way. Its not all about stuff, words of kindness, acts of kindness are the keys.

In this moment i couldn’t feel more fulfilled as a teacher, its a moment when you see what you teach put into action.

So all proceeds from the Treehut ezine will be going towards the Relief fund in the clean up from the oil spill.

At the beginning of the year the Treehut children and i sat down and talked about what we wanted to do for the year.

We planned out what we wanted to learn and then we started to talk about how other children couldn’t experience what they do. One of the suggestions was that i should make a show about treehut but we all decided that would be too hard.

A few weeks later we were out looking for a childrens magazine as i was teaching them graphic design and one of the points that was brought up was that there were no magazines that didn’t sell stuff.

We got talking and then we all decided to make our own magazine.

With excitement and flurry we got to work brainstorming the outlines of what we wanted in our magazine and we broke up the work over the course of the coming weeks. We still wanted to have fun in Treehut but we planned our activities to be photographed and recorded for others.

Even my 5 year olds have been working by drawing monsters for the game and coming up with some amazing ideas.

The older children have taken up pages and are contributing. We have had so much fun putting it together.

I am excited because i launched it a day earlier and the response from our online community has been fabulous.

We are looking forward to our next issue which wont be until august.

 

If your child loves to read, write or create, then let us know we are looking for children to help put the magazine together. Send us your stories, poems, ideas and photos.

 

Keep Creating

I tell my Treehut children this every day “Knowledge is power” If they say they want to be a clothes designer then we do the research! We find out what skills you have to have, we talk to fashion designers, we go to their stores, we learn about material, we do it all!

One Treehut child wants to be a writer, so we researched what you had to do to be a writer, we had a writer come in and talk to the children which inspired us all and we all decided it would be cool to write  a book. So we set out designing and writing a book, which I might add is very artistic and makes no sense but it is beautiful!

Knowledge is power

I strive on giving the children the tools to achieve their goals, giving them opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get.

It empowers me seeing a child feel inspired, they get a look about them, it’s like when homer see’s donuts, their eyes sparkle, their skin glows and they appear lighter. As crazy as that sounds, it is true.

This term we will be working more on our radio station, which is a blast as they come up with some amazing ideas! I even thought we could make our own tv show..... I cant wait!

  Well term one has begun and we are in the swing of things.

We have had a few interesting weeks , firstly we have had to move the location for Treehut. This has been a huge ordeal for me and my Treehut children.

 Looking for the perfect location is harder than i imagined and we still haven’t found a home. We have temporarily moved to the Orewa Sea Scouts hall, which for the rest of the summer will be great as we are by the beach and we have amazing trees the children can climb and Eves Bush is behind us.

Some of the children have been upset, it has been funny as i had pegged the children who are emotional and would of been upset only to have the other children surprise me and be more upset. All of them miss the cosiness of our last location, to be exact the carpet and our couches!

It is becoming difficult to find somewhere as Treehut is only 15 hours during the week as well as some Saturday’s.  We need a grass area as well as a good kitchen for cooking class. We also need at least two rooms as we need a quiet area for our Guitar lessons. I have found at least 5 locations that would be perfect but the Rent is over $400 on each!

Now if i took 30 children the rent would be perfect but i only take 15 at the most each day and only 10 on cooking day, which  means we cannot afford $500.

If i had an option i would get a house that could accommodate Treehut with us living their as well but that’s impossible at this point! (But I’m working towards that)

So i feel like i am in a Rock and a hard place. I must admit having bumps in the road is what every business has and i am sure that we will be able to overcome this! So the next 7 weeks i have to find a new location as we cannot be where we are with winter approaching.

Apart form all this i must admit i am happy to have our Treehut children back, All the children from last year are with us again and we have a few new children as well.

Classes have been awesome, play time consists of tree climbing, and every day the children ask when they can climb the big trees in the field. I must admit i worry about broken arms!  Yesterday we made sand castles on the beach everyone was trying to make the best Atlantis. They could only use things they found on the beach and they all did brilliantly.