Preschool Learning Resources Gifted To Museum

By Karen Hughes

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 aged learners.

Public Programmes Presenter for the Museum, Lisa Reweti was in the process of setting up a dedicated learning space for preschool children when she approached Whanganui organisation PAUA for some ideas and assistance. She explains, “I told them I had an empty room and that I needed to run some kindy classes. I had nothing to start with.”

PAUA (Preschoolers At-Home Uniquely Achieving) is a family-owned business delivering a range of early childhood home based care services around the country, including a retail educational toy store.

Providing much more than advice, PAUA donated over 135 storybooks, and a large range of puzzles, games and toys all designed especially for preschool aged 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 3, Lisa has been running a programme for three- and four-year-olds, called Te Ika a Māui – The Fish of Māui: “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 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 Māui.”

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 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 so after the well-known ex board chairman of Whanganui Regional Museum, Mayor of Whanganui 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 Overton-Stuart 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 as well.”

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Founded in 1892, the Whanganui Regional Museum is internationally renowned for its Taonga Māori Collection. Located in Pukenamu Queen’s Park, visitors can view the exceptional creations of tupuna (ancestors) of Whanganui tangata whenua (indigenous people) alongside a changing exhibition programme encompassing a world-class collection of natural and human history, with a regional emphasis. The ground level boutique museum store sells a range of local and Māori jewellery, books, cards, art, and other New Zealand-made gift items.

The Whanganui Regional Museum Trust is an independent legal entity that owns the collection and governs the development of the Museum on behalf of the Whanganui community.

Open to visitors daily from 10.00am to 4.30pm (except Christmas Day and Good Friday), entry to Whanganui Regional Museum is free.

Connect with Whanganui Regional Museum at www.wrm.org.nz or on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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