Children's Day
Children's Day was first held in New Zealand on 29 October 2000 with the intention that it would become a regular annual event. Now approaching its second year, hopefully Children's Day is here to stay!
The idea behind Children's Day is to celebrate children - to make everyone aware of their needs and importance, and to provide a day dedicated to having fun and bringing families together.
There are a number of key messages which frame Children's Day:
- Giving time
- Love and affection
- Praise and encouragement
- Listening and talking
- New experiences
The key theme for 2008 is: “New Experiences.”
Resources on TKI
Children's Day
Read about Children's Day. (http://www.childrensday.org.nz).
Commissioner for Children
The Officer of the Commissioner for Children has news, information about the
Commissioner's role, and the process for complaints (www.occ.org.nz).
Child rights
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted in 1989. The
Child Rights Information Network (www.crin.org)
supports and promotes around the world.
Kidsafe Week
Kidsafe Week aims to raise awareness and promote action to reduce New
Zealand's rate of unintentional injury to children. The bilingual website
includes events, ideas for preventing childhood poisoning and promoting
increased use of car restraints, history of Kidsafe weeks, and justification
for this promotion (www.kidsafe.org.nz).
Kidsafe Hot
Topic
This Hot Topic introduces Kidsafe week and provides a collection of links
to websites on health and safety education, including safety in the outdoors,
injury prevention, safe schools, and bullying (www.tki.org.nz/r/hot_topics/kidsafe_e.php).
Ministry of Youth Affairs
The website of the Ministry of Youth Affairs, New Zealand provides information
about government initiatives for New Zealand youth, including youth parliament,
youth corps, youth councils, youth service corps, and conservation corps
(www.youthaffairs.govt.nz).
Urge – Whakamanawa
This website designed for young people covers a range of health issues
including drugs, sex, stress, fitness, and legal rights and responsibilities.
This site should be used in the context of a supportive environment and
a comprehensive drug education programme. Te Kete Ipurangi recommends
that teachers view this website before using it with students (www.urge.org.nz).
Sites for children
Games
Squigly's Playhouse
This website has educational games and activities, including word finds,
puzzles, memory games, jokes and riddles, and craft ideas for children
up to age 12 years (www.squiglysplayhouse.com).
Science
National Geographic
The National Geographic Society's page for children has stories about geography
and science around the world. It includes fun facts, craft activities, quizzes,
recipes, and a pen pal network (www.nationalgeographic.com/kids).
Squirt
This is the website of the New Zealand children's television programme
Squirt. It includes fun facts, science activities for children, and recipes
(http://squirt.xtra.co.nz).
English
Book Backchat
Book Backchat runs discussions about books using email (http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/bookchat).
The Backchats involve mostly New Zealand schools and New Zealand books.
Classes and students wishing to participate in the discussion of a book
subscribe to the appropriate Internet mailing list. The coordinator posts
a series of questions, and each group of participants posts their own
responses to the question as well as feedback and comments on other answers.
Children's
literature
This website categorises Internet resources related to books for children
and young adults. It includes annotated lists of recommended books, collections
of online stories and poems, information on book awards, discussion boards
and links to the websites of children's authors and illustrators (www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html).
Flat Stanley
The Flat Stanley project involves students' written work based on Flat
Stanley's travels (http://flatstanley.enoreo.on.ca/index.htm).
Grammar Gorillas
This website contains interactive games to help children correctly identify
parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, interjections, prepositions,
conjunctions and pronouns (www.funbrain.com/grammar).
Harry Potter
This Time Warner website promotes the Harry Potter movie. It includes
images from the motion picture, interactive activities, and a messageboard
(http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/web/home.jsp).
Kids' Own Publishing
This website aims to raise the status of children's creative skills as
authors and artists by publishing materials written and illustrated by
children (www.kidsown.ie/index.html).
Mrs
Claus' Workshop
This website provides the facility to email Mrs Claus and receive a response.
It also has reindeer facts, a slide show, links to reindeer sites, a reindeer
quiz, lesson plans, books, letters to Mrs Claus, ask an expert, riddles
and jokes, craft ideas (www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/proj/claus/leader.html).
Narnia
The official site for Narnia provides information about C.S. Lewis and
the creation of Narnia, with descriptions and illustrations of the seven
chronicles, a tour of the lands, illustrations and descriptions of the
Narnian characters, links to other books and resources, and information
about international events related to the chronicles (www.narnia.com).
Resources
for Students
English Online has collected websites for children, covering a wide range
of topics and interests (http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/resources/links/resource_query.html?type=For
Students).
Please note: These links were valid when this page was posted. However the Web is very volatile, and TKI has no control over outside websites. Please let us know if you find anything inappropriate, if you find a broken link, or if you have an update for a link by emailing links@tki.org.nz. Te Kete Ipurangi recommends that teachers view all websites we link to before using them with students.
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