Do your books have characters that look like the children in your neighbourhood?
Do the books on your centre’s bookshelves reflect the ethnic make-up of your families? Can every child in your centre read books, lots of them, every day, about children who look like them? These are important questions for anyone responsible...
Six lovely Christmas picture books
Books and Christmas are a great match! If you would like your children to have an idea of why some people have a special holiday at Christmastime, here are some lovely picture books you might want to add to your...
Better Books: Does Your Book Collection Encourage Gender Equality?
Are you a huge fan of reading with children? There’s just about nothing better, is there, than cuddling on a sofa with small people, watching them learn to love the world of books. Every parent and teacher wants the best...
How to Help Children Cope with the Loss of a Loved One
We are fully immersed in the holiday season, and we love it, right? This is the time for magical moments with family pulled close to our hearts. There are treats to bake, decorations to display – and plenty of music,...
The day the elves visited Storypark
However you choose to celebrate the holiday season in your family, it is often a time for fun, food, family and excitement. But for many families, budgets don’t stretch to anything extra for young families during the holiday season. As adults,...
Self care part 2
In part two, the thread of self-care continues with some ideas about control, choices, and saying yes. In this two-part blog, I talk about self-care as not being a ‘one-shot deal’- it is more a bunch of little things repeated...
Self Care
Self-care is one of those trendy ideas right now. It’s a funny mix with people who are ‘typically Kiwi’, and are ‘just getting on with it’, and for the most part that’s ok. But, sometimes it’s not. Leading up to...
Putting the love into Christmas
What do you want your children to remember about family Christmases? The world is a pretty diverse place so Christmas will mean lots of different things to us, but I bet your list has ‘love’ on it, and something about...
Supporting relationships and attachment in the early years
Relationships are broadly defined as the state of being connected or related. This can mean an association by blood or marriage, a kinship or the mutual dealings, connections, or feelings that exist between two parties. It is also recognised as...
Family engagement makes a huge difference for children at Auckland YMCA early learning services
Lorraine Duncumb, Group Manager ECE for YMCA Auckland In New Zealand wrote about her experiences using Storypark to engage families in their children’s learning and communicate important information about their services events and procedures. Storypark has been a huge part of...