Haere mai, and welcome to The Treehouse on Ranolf, a childcare and education centre for children under five years of age.  We have exciting programmes to offer all our children, so please feel free to look around the website and see if this could be a place you and your child would like to come.

In the above menus, you can look at the programme we run for our children, the philosophy our brilliant teacher follow, and learn about our fees and enrolment process, as well as what help you can get from the government to bring your child to a child care setting.

Often we have updates of what the teachers and children have been doing, as well as exciting upcoming events.  There is always new information to learn about, so please check back regularly to find out what is going on.

Ka kite ano

The Treehouse Team

Our new Whanau tree is in full bloom!  Thank you to all the whanau who came to the family evening and created their whanau leaves.  Everyone had a great time decorating their creations with their children, and the teachers enjoyed spending the time with you!  We also have had lots of photos coming into the centre so the children can make their own by themselves or with a teacher.  This has been lovely, as we have had lots of korero about eachothers family’s.

Children enjoying our Whanau tree

The Whanau tree is used to strengthen connections between the Treehouse and Home.  It also provides great opportunities for social interaction as children love to share, and look at eachothers families together.

One of the highlights of our Treehouse social calendar is our annual Mother’s day afternoon tea.

We love having the opportunity to invite our hard working mothers, grandmothers and aunties to join their children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews to the Treehouse to enjoy afternoon tea together.

Tamariki making chocolate brownie for afternoon tea

On the 16th of February we held a Fish and Chips night to provide all our families with an opportunity to enjoy their tea and share their children’s learning environment alongside their children.  We welcomed all the Tree House whanau with utmost pleasure as they poured in to enjoy their tea as well as each other’s company. All the parents had the opportunity to complete a survery questionnare to enhance the learning of their children within the Tree House environment. We were very pleased at the turnout and every one had a lovely night. Thank you very much for your presence and contribution. 

What a lovely surprise we have had today – Gail and Tracey picked up our new guinea pigs.

We spent a lot of time this morning watching our new guinea pigs and remembering how we need to be very gentle with them especially because they are very small and young (only 8 weeks old).

After a lot of thought the new babeis guinea pigs got named by the four year olds, Stella and Snowy.

The new arrivals

We are looking forward to the new adventures we will have with our baby guinea pigs and getting to watch them grow.

Stella

Snowy having some kai.

Touching base with each other.

 on the 16th of December we celebrated Christmas with a few special guests, Santa came to visit and he brought a big sack full of presents. We were all very excited and especially enjoyed the company of all our families who came to share in the excitement.

A big thank you to all for an enjoyable afternoon tea and your support throughout the year.

On 14th of December we took a huge group of 21 children to Te Puia. It was a very exciting and entertaining adventure! Wow what a cultural experience it was as we ventured through the natural stunning  pathways. The cultural show in the Marae was a treasure  as some of us got the opportunity to perform with poi dancers and kapa haka group. Our young artists illustrated their talents with enthusiasm! At the carving school we all witnessed the traditional carving in process by talented artists. At the weaving school we we learnt the art of creating rope out of harakeke and saw the artists display. Our last stop was the kiwi house and the excitement was enormous as we all the watched the native birds! Our bus driver was super cool as he took us around the Rotorua city highlights before dropping us off to our day care. I wonder what the new year will bring with all the goodluck that we rubbed on the giant pounamu stone at the Te Puia.

Our show ended with a fanatsic and well known saying which we would like to share with all of you:

• Ui mai koe ki ahau he aha te mea nui o te ao, Māku e kī atu he tangata, he tangata, he tangata!
  • Translation: “Ask me what is the greatest thing in the world, I will reply: It is people, it is people, it is people!

Today 22 November 2011 it happened! Our new matting arrived and was laid in our over two’s playground.  Gone are the lumps, bumps and humps which have recently graced our old brown playground matting.  We now have a gorgeous green grass look matting which feels soft and spongy underfoot, it will be cool in the summer while providing a fantastic softfall area for the children’s outdoor play experiences. The children (and teachers) watched in fasination as the old matting was lifted up and taken away.  The landscapers then added a drainage layer, new undermatting and the new matting to top it off.  Wow it looks great.

On Thursday 15 September 2011 we took a large group of 19 3 and 4 year old children to the Enchanted Forest puppet show. It was held around the corner at the Rotorua Baptist Church on Malfroy Road, so we were able to walk around from the Treehouse.  The show was wonderful with puppets of all shapes and sizes to to tell the stores of the creatures n the New Zealand bush. The show entertained the children teachers and parent helpers while ntroducng well known and endangered New Zealand animals.  The second half of the show included rat and possum who were on an egg stealing operation portraying the dangers that these creatures are to our native animals and environment.

We want to say a special than you to our wonderful parent helpers without whom we would not have been able to this trip.

on Friday the 19th of August, we held a special afternoon tea to celebrate just how wonderful our grandparents are.A big thank you to all the grandparents and families that took the time to join us, our children really do enjoy sharing their environment with you.