Waitomo Caves, Rotorua Tour

WOW!
Amazing!
When the boat arrived, we hopped on and it slowly started moving- when you just look above there are bunch of blue lights which are the glow worms. Its amazing how some lights are brighter than the other, and it is as if you are looking at the stars so closely!

The farm was also great, i never got to see the farm animals that close, plus i got to feed them. Especially the Alpacas were so cute, their faces are funny. They kinda look bored or sleepy but they are friendly, and they know we got food. so they walk toward us and ate the food out of my hand it was so cute. I got a goooooood photo of that.

Maori dance was exciting, i actually really loved their singing, all of them were really good singers. They probably perform this every day and couple times a day- 365days I just wondered if they every get tired of just showing the dance to tourist. Do they really dance like that in real life? or is it just for the show? This man in front of me was so rude that he did everything that wasnt supposed to do in the show.
Drinking water, his mobile was ringing, taking photos and getting in peopls way and moving all the time! Man, it was annoying! I hate that those kind of people.

I met a very nice person on the bus as well, she was from London and was here for a vacation as well. We talked a lot about traveling and she told me that I should dinifitly go to London when i get a chance- it is fairly easy to get around by TUBE (subway), so its good. She did admit though, it is very very very expensive to go to London! As musch as in Tokyo.
Well, so thats going to be just a little bit later on then.

i very much was happy with the Grayline, who gave us the tour- they were very professional and nice to us. It is a good money though, you get the most of it in one day, and meals are included. So its all good.

Im so happy i got to see one of the famous tourist place in New Zealand!

Gardens [Auckland, NEW ZEALAND]

I have been volunteering for this school for 2 weeks now-
Im with the babies, and its been great! The teachers are always making jokes and enjoying their work with the children, and always encouraging them to learn through fun activities.
Children enjoy a lot of messy play, water play, outside play, art and music- so many things to do!!!
There are a lot of things to learn from them!


One thing I learned the most is though, is the importance of having messy play in one of out activity, because children that young can really explore by seeing, hearing, but most importantly, doing.
To do so, they have to touch and feel- so its a little dirty, or cold, so what? they will learn! and we make sure to make the safe enviroment for them and its just soooo great. They have a lot of fun exploring.

Bigger kids have different activities! They do a lot of things everyday! teachers make their portofolio really nicely- so that the parents can see what is going on in school-! Oh thats wonderful!
They also put the photos and posters up on the wall from the day so that the parents can tell what they did on that day- since most children forget what they did on that day, or simply they dont want to tell them- its something like,,, little secret between teachers and kids? hehe

Here kids are a lot more comfortable in communication. If they couldnt get the world, they say, "perdon?" as young as three years old. Its very good manners. And names are very important when it comes to communication, so teachers make sure that the children remember their friends and teachers name. A lot of children ask my name everyday- whats your name again? its very nice.
My impressiong is that they are not shy to talk in front of people- Maybe being comfortable and relaxed is cinsidered more important than being polite or correct here in NZ, so children are able to explore and feel and think in their own way so that they will make their own decision- what they wanna draw, what color they are going to pick, rather than certain things are supposed to be certain colors- especially in this center it is very multi cultural- we have different color of skin- so that being unique is something appriciated and noone is treated differently or ignored. It is very important in early age these children from different background to feel they are lvoed and treated equally because they will gain confidence. Probably in the future sooner or later some of them might suffer from self identification - so it is essencial for these preschool teachers to understand different background and cultures to teach various children in a free, fun, and comfortable einviroment. And really, being yourself is the most important thing! Noone should be judged by their nationalities or races, instead, those differences SHOULD BE one of the attractiveness of individual.

Gardens Early Childhood Center

Hi! Im in New Zealand now!
I have skipped a couple of .. well actually many of my entries... i have to write more and more and more actually.. but
i have been busy and lazy, and not being able to have the easy access to a PC.
So i have visited schools in Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore- then now Im in New Zelanad.
in Vietnam- i have visited one preschool- it was a local private school, where the director is a very nice Vietnamese lady- in fact she studied Child education in Japan for the last 2 years, and she said she takes a lot of her crafts ideas and the wall decorations from the Japanese Books.
the school was painted so colorful and the rooms were pretty small, since there arent many number of children. There are a main teacher and an assistant teahcer in one classroom, and they basically are taken care inside the room-at Lunch time they are expected to sit nicely and wait for their food, and the food is very nuturitious and the children really know how to eat politely, it was amazing. They know where their cups are and pretty much they really do things on their own.


I have to write more but I got no time...
This day care in Auckland is great! i love the teachers and kids already. I will be volunteering there for a month so i will be able to learn a lot about their style of teaching. Im already ssing the differenced and its great! My favorite part of their nursery is the messy play and outside play. They are allowed to just do whatever as long as its supervised.
in Japan we dont get to do a lot of messy things and i think it is really important for the babies to touch and tastes things to work their sensory more than being polite or improve their languages.
they train good manners and good listenings, then they also have lotso f fun. Good deal!