Making 'Preparation for Life' the main goal.

"Preparing for Life" takes viewers inside the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, Silicon Valley where the focus is on developing the capacities for creativity, resilience, innovative thinking, and social and emotional intelligence over rote learning. Entrepreneurs, Stanford researchers, investment bankers, and parents who run some of the largest hi-tech companies in the world, weigh-in on what children need to navigate the challenges of the 21st Century in order to find success, purpose, and joy in their lives:

Botany Day Out

Recently class 5 were lucky to set out for a day of adventure with Emily Fawcett, an experienced outdoor educator. We went to a beautiful piece of bush and farmland near Paraparaumu and explored bush and meadow.

The children practiced identifying and recalling different plants and their leaves, wrote poetry about a stunning rimu tree and blindfolded each other, working in pairs to recognise a tree just by feeling it. At highlight for me was the koru of the mamaku fern we foraged for, prepped and cooked on a fire. Delicious. The children also loved playing in the muddy creek.  

Thank you to Emily, the wonderful parents who came and Chris Vannisselroy who saved the day at the last moment. What a great way to end the year and finish our Botany Main Lesson.

Here is rhe poem we wrote as a group with everyone’s words and ideas added:

You feel solid and smell of Grandpa’s basement

I feel calm, as old as time, in Grandma’s garden

Whispering words yet always silent

Standing proud

Smells like damp carpet

A guide, mighty and twisted

Peaceful

I thought I saw you take a step

Woody smelling and scary

Whispering airy silence

Feeling dark and damp, but dry, musty

Sounds like whispering

Purdy Biddle