Learning Links Childcare

About Learning Links Childcare

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About Learning Links Childcare

At Learning Links Childcare our Vision is ‘ Everyone Learning, Everyone Leading, Everyone Succeeding’. ‘ Ako, Arataki, Angitu, Tātāu, tātāu e.

Everyone Learning. Through play and meaningful real-life experiences, within the Childcare Centre and local community, children develop the essential life skills and characteristics they need in order to thrive in the 21st century.

Everyone Leading. Our Childcare Centre teaches 21st century leadership and life skills based on the idea that there is a leader in everyone and leaders strive to be the best version of themselves.

Everyone Succeeding. We believe every child has the potential succeed. Through love and support our children will grow and develop as competent confident learners, healthy in mind body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and ready for school.

Our programme is based on Te Whariki’s aspirations for children ‘to grow up as competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body, and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging in the knowledge, that they make a valued contribution to society.’

The environment at Learning Links encourages children’s curiosity, as they freely explore, question, and wonder and by doing so, develop their knowledge, skills and attitudes.

Our Team

Some of our latest adventures!

Forest Programme

Connecting children to nature is something we are passionate about at Learning Links Hector. An enriching programme like this certainly isn’t something that was decided one day and began the next – it has taken a lot of preparation, consideration and dedication.

Well today, our passion became a reality! The group headed off on their expedition within our local community. They began this weekly ritual with a forest karakia and a willingness to explore and test their limits in the dense bush. We are very proud that our tamariki showed such respect for the beautiful forest and its creatures and this will be something that they will remember for many years to come – a huge thank you to our Kaiako, Rebekah and Ana for bringing our programme to life today everyone should have a good sleep tonight!

Our tamariki are becoming increasingly confident and familiar with the forest. They have already gained a strong sense of direction and able to show their kaiako which way could lead us to the destination.

They were lucky to find and try some kawakawa, which we learnt that the leaves can be made into medication that helps our digestive system. We even brought some back to our centre for our friends to try as herbal tea.

No doubt, the muddy puddles was the favourite. It was such fun for each of us to get wet, get muddy and be engaged with nature! We are also amazed to see the growing resilience of our children when they slipped into mud, when they got dirty and when they were in dilemma. They were determined to take risks and challenge themselves, physically and emotionally!

It was equally impressive to notice how tamariki cared for each other and helped their peers out of a challenging situation, they were demonstrating their growing social competence and caring nature in their bush play! We highly recommend getting out into nature – the children will surprise you!

As we continue to connect locally, to our Rototuna area, we discovered Rototuna means “lake of eels”. In Pre-European times, our area had a lake named Tunawhakapeke. The lake and surrounding swamps had an abundance of tuna resources. As a result of our new knowledge the tamariki are discovering where the tuna like to live now and what they like to eat! Trying to coax them out of their hiding places, the children have been patiently dangling some food for them and to hopefully catch a glimpse soon!

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