We love to offer age appropriate, focused group times at Buttercups Preschool each day. This is a time to come together, communicating, sharing and contributing to a learning experience. As our planning is child-led, we always offer learning experiences which align with a child/children's current interests or learning goal(s). We also like to prioritise transition to school for tamariki, guiding them with social competence, literacy, turn taking, mindfulness, communication, numeracy and self-help skills.

Music is a useful activity to encourage children to participate and to feel comfortable with the rhythm of the day. This week, as a part of our learning, we have focused on our five senses and how we value each within our lives. We have closed our eyes and listened to music from around the world, to hear different ways of producing music, for example, clapping, whistling, stamping and rattles. We have also listened to pieces of classical music from Mozart, to see what we can notice just from listening carefully. This resulted in many opinions from the children, for example, T said, "It felt like it was a boat going across the sea." whereas one child thought it sounded like a Halloween tune, and another child thought it was a Cinderella movie! Giving tamariki the opportunity to express their individual perspectives is a great way for each to contribute to the learning experience.

Music fits in with part of the Belonging and Contribution strands of our nationwide Early Childhood Curriculum, Te Whāriki. Music and movement is a large part of what we offer at Buttercups, including playing the ukulele and mandolin at group time, while offering children a range of musical resources to explore.