MangawhaiVillage Preschool Enquire now

Gallery

The building, the garden, and what happens in between.

A look at everyday life at the centre: outside for most of the day, in most weather, and out in the village more often than you might expect. Tap any photo to see it larger.

Four children in hi-vis vests looking into a wooden bug hotel filled with plants and paper bags.
Checking who has moved into the bug hotel
Five balance bikes parked in a row against the timber fence with a yellow and blue ball on the path.
The bikes, waiting for the morning
A teacher sitting on the floor of the under twos room with two babies, wooden cars and a bead frame around them.
The under twos room, down at floor level where it matters
An indoor room with a low table, soft play shapes on a rug, a couch and open shelves of books and baskets.
Inside, with room to spread out
A child coming down the slide with both arms flung out, laughing.
The slide, over and over, all afternoon
Looking down from a pōhutukawa-covered headland over a long white surf beach and clear blue water on the Northland coast.
The coast, ten minutes up the road
A teacher and two children at a table set with a teapot and cups, all waving at the camera.
Morning tea, with the good teapot
A teacher in a cap and glasses reading a picture book aloud, with a child standing beside her looking on.
A story, read properly, with the voices
A teacher sitting on the floor of the library hall reading to a group of children in hi-vis vests.
A story at the village hall, still in the hi-vis
A child pouring water from a container into a metal bowl at the outdoor mud kitchen bench, sand and baking tins alongside.
The mud kitchen, where the best cooking happens
Four children in hi-vis vests standing at the edge of a pond watching two ducks.
Ducks, watched very carefully, for quite a long time
Two boys in caps sitting on balance bikes side by side, grinning at the camera.
Ready when you are
A child in gumboots climbing through the black rope net strung under the timber fort.
Finding their own way up the net
A teacher in a Mangawhai Village Preschool polo leaning on the kitchen bench, smiling as she fills in a colour-coded chart.
Planning the week, between everything else
Old pōhutukawa leaning out low over white sand at the top of a beach, with turquoise water beyond.
Pōhutukawa at the top of the beach
The preschool seen from Molesworth Drive: a low dark timber building behind its sign showing the Mangawhai Village Preschool logo, with a nikau palm beside it.
Look for the sign and the nikau
A child digging a hole in the sandpit with a yellow spade beside a tree and the timber fence.
Digging away, most of the morning
A wooden box labelled Tamariki Artwork on a table beside a pot plant, with children's handmade books laid out in front.
Tamariki artwork, kept and sent home
Children sitting at a long picnic table under pōhutukawa trees beside the harbour, one child running across the grass.
Morning tea at the harbour, which beats the table inside
A raised timber fort with a thatched roof, a slide, climbing logs and a balance beam over bark chip and grass, with flax planting in the foreground.
The fort, where a good deal of the friendship-making happens
The covered art area with its doors folded open, paint bottles lined up on open shelves, a teacher and three children reaching up.
Paint within reach, and the doors open all day
A wall of open shelving filled with wooden blocks, ramps and arches at child height, with a child crouched on the floor building beside it.
Blocks within reach, so they can find what they need

Walk-through

Two minutes inside the centre

Filmed on an ordinary week, not a set-up day.

Better in person, honestly.

Photographs can't do the noise, and the noise is the best part.

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