Four Seasons: Honouring the Cycles of Childhood and Beyond
At Four Seasons, we hold a deep respect for the natural rhythms of life. Just as the earth turns through spring, summer, autumn, and winter, so too do our tamariki move through their own seasons of growth—childhood, adolescence, and eventually adulthood. Each season has its own beauty, its own challenges, and its own gifts to offer.
Planting the Seeds in Early Childhood
The first seven years are like springtime, a season of wonder, discovery, and fresh beginnings. Here, everything depends on the right conditions: warmth, care, rhythm, and joyful experience. In this tender time, children learn most through imitation and through the quality of the example set by the adults around them.
At Four Seasons, our kaiako nurture these seeds with reverence and joy. Through play, storytelling, song, practical work, and celebration of the natural cycles of the year, children grow strong roots and a healthy sense of belonging in the world.
The Flow of Development
As in nature, development unfolds in stages:
In the earliest years, children live in their bodies and senses, exploring the world through movement and touch.
As they grow, imaginative play becomes their way of digesting and making sense of life.
Later, as they prepare to step into the school years, thinking begins to awaken and the groundwork for formal learning is laid.
These rhythms are mirrored in the flow of our days, weeks, and yearly festivals, which give tamariki a sense of wholeness and connection to the wider world.
Seasons of Life, Seasons of Community
Four Seasons Kindergarten was founded by three women inspired by their own tamariki. Those children—once in their own springtime—are now teenagers, standing at the threshold of adulthood. Over 500 other children have since passed through our doors, each one flourishing in their own unique season of life. Watching these journeys has been a profound gift.
Our community embraces the understanding that we are all held within cycles of change and renewal. Parents, teachers, and children walk alongside one another—sometimes in planting seasons, sometimes in harvest—always with the shared purpose of supporting healthy growth.
The Heart of What We Do
At Four Seasons, we see childhood not as a time to rush through, but as a season to be cherished. In honouring these early years, we prepare the ground for future flourishing—through adolescence, into adulthood, and beyond. Like the turning of the seasons, this work is part of the greater rhythm of life itself.
We have space for new tamariki and whānau to join us in early 2026, please get in touch if you’d like to visit and experience the joy found in our kindergarten.
The Kaiako whānau: Fenella, Natasja, Traceylee and Tamara (L-R)