Discovery Time Blog

Four Thousand students from Christchurch are now in schools around the country.  Teachers are not only faced with settling these students into their classrooms but also in helping them deal with major upheaval and emotional stress.

Psychologists are telling us that one of the useful things we can do to help students deal with stressful situations is to play.

Over the last week we have had many stories of schools that are using Discovery Time at the start of the day to give children time to settle and to work through some their experiences in a variety of ways:

• painting
• drawing
• building with blocks
• sandpit play
• play dough / modeling clay
• drama / dressing up
• Puppets

Use this time to let the children lead the learning.


Remember that parents may want to stay with their children for the first part of the morning and Discovery Time is an ideal time to spend together.