Boost for museum preschool programme
The Whanganui Regional Museum has received a generous donation of learning resources to assist with education learning programmes for preschoolers.
The museum’s education service is provided free with support from Enriching Local Curriculum (ELC) funding, via a Ministry of Education contract. Recently renewed funding now allows the museum to deliver programmes especially for preschool-age learners.
Museum public programmes presenter Lisa Reweti was setting up a dedicated learning space for preschool children when she approached Whanganui organisation PAUA for ideas and assistance. “I told them I had an empty room and that I needed to run some kindy classes. I had nothing to start with,” she says.
PAUA (Preschoolers At-Home Uniquely Achieving) is a familyowned business delivering a range of early childhood home-based care services throughout New Zealand, including a retail educational toy store.
Providing much more than advice, PAUA donated more than 135 storybooks, and a large range of puzzles, games and toys all designed especially for preschool-age children.
Lisa says the donation is perfect for her new junior audience. “I wanted to have a table with activities for little children, because not all children like to sit and listen to a story. Some kids like to listen to a story, but they like to be doing something with their hands at the same time. I also wanted them to walk into a room that wasn’t dissimilar to their centres — a room that is familiar to them, and less scary. I wanted to be able to create a space that looks like it’s for small children.”
During term three, Lisa has been running a programme for three and four-year-olds called Te Ika a Māui – The Fish of Mā ui: “We link that back into our current exhibition He Awa Ora, talking about the river, the kai that we get out of it, how we fish and so forth. With the new Aotearoa Histories curriculum, it starts from
I wanted to have a table with activities for little children, because not all children like to sit and listen to a story. Lisa Reweti, Whanganui Regional Museum
within, and then goes out. So, we’re talking about what happened here, in the place that we live in.”
More new programmes for preschoolers will be added on in due course.
“We need to build our kete of bicultural programmes for preschool tamariki. We’re getting started with Te Ika a Mā ui,” Lisa says.
Managing director and PAUA founder Raewyn Overton-Stuart said she was happy to support.
“I’ve heard about what Lisa does — I know the programme that she is running. This was the first time I had met Lisa, but I had heard through the community, what an amazing job she does. I had heard that not just through early childhood centres, but through schools.”
Lisa says she is overwhelmed at the generosity and what it means for her new teaching space. “It means that I’ve got the resources that I need to be able to teach the programmes that I want to teach.”
The preschool space has been set up in the Rangi Wills Audio Visual Room, named after the well-known former board chairman of Whanganui Regional Museum, Whanganui district councillor and Rotary member. Lisa has plans to develop it further. “I love that I have a space that I can work on, so I can create that wonderful, welcoming, brightly coloured place for children to come, so it’s their own special place in the museum for the rahui. I’m just so appreciative because this will also benefit the community.”
Raewyn has also been supporting Lisa with ideas to enhance the wall spaces. She said, “I just love that when children come to the museum, they are engaging not only with what they can see, but they get to touch and feel and experience . . .”