At Magic Garden, literacy and numeracy grow through everyday experiences, meaningful play, and rich conversations. Foundation skills are not about pushing children ahead early. They are about building strong learning structures underneath reading, writing, and maths. These include: vocabulary and memory listening and communication pattern, number and prediction fine motor and gross motor control body-space awareness and coordination storytelling and symbolic representation Wh

Risky play: what is it and why do we embrace it at Magic Garden? At Magic Garden Early Education, we firmly believe that “risky play”—the adventurous, thrill sparking kind of play—is a powerful engine for learning. It aligns seamlessly with New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum - Te Whāriki, and incorporates both our national values and the global Reggio inspired approach. 1. Aotearoa Perspectives: Play Is Essential Sport NZ explicitly champions children's access to “uncer

“If you want your children to be brilliant, read them fairy stories. If you want them to be even more brilliant, read even more fairy stories” Albert Einstein Storytelling has long been a passion within Magic Garden. This article presents some practical tips that parents can use to make storytelling and bedtime routines at home rich and memorable. From an early age children demonstrate interest and enthusiasm for stories. It is a feature that is common across all cultures an

Parents often ask us how we teach children to read and write. This story shows a snapshot of the building blocks for learning to read and write that came together for a single child (an ex-pupil) in our Over Two room. Magic Garden teachers are highly skilled at observing children's interests, and providing a variety of materials and provocations to extend and grow children's early literacy skills. Play-based learning at its best offers highly intentional and fun opportunitie

Early Literacy (speech, language, reading, writing and story telling) starts with increasing your child's fine motor control and building strong hand muscles. Young children learn early literacy skills much the same way they acquire language skills. All developmental areas work together in a meaningful, relationship-oriented way within a sensory rich environment. Fine motor control needed for writing, involves developing hands and fingers that can work effectively together t