Fun days to end the school year

The Grade 2 fun day on 22 November included the usual snakes and ladders tournament, readings by learners from the Bana ba Modimo children’s Bible to demonstrate their reading skills and ice cream to end a very pleasant day.

The grade 1s were treated to stories and ice cream.

The next day the grade 3s enjoyed themselves at evergreen races such as egg-and-spoon, eat-the-marshmallow-with-your-hands-tied and pick-up-cheese-curls-through-a-straw. At lunch time we ate  boerewors rolls which is the South African version of hotdogs and ended with slices of watermelon. Thanks to Derdepark for the sausage, Gabatta for the juice and Ola Oretoria for the ice cream.

The grade 3 class have now come to the end of their RE&MS experience. Some of them we have known since 2014. All of them are our dear children and we will miss them. We send them off  with hope in our hearts that they will reap the benefits during their second school phase when their lessons will be taught in English.

As a farewell gift they each received a copy of the children’s version of Nelson Mandela’s biography Long walk to freedom. These were given to us by Nalibali two years ago. Kamcare sent them off with a brand new school bag.

Reading Eggs and Mathseeds

Reading and Maths immediately come to mind whenever problems in education are debated. Unless a solid foundation in these two crucial skills has been laid during the first three school years learners will have an uphill battle for the rest of their lives. This may very well contribute to South Africa’s education crisis.

We therefore welcomed Mathseeds as part of the Click Foundation’s 2016 offering to participating schools. Not only would it support the curriculum and the school’s teaching but the use of good technology will help our learners become savvy citizens of the 21^st century.

Mathseeds is the sister of Reading Eggs. In the same playful way children are introduced to the key concepts of Maths: number sense, operations, measurement, data, and geometry. Every lesson deals with one concept which is taught, explored and practiced over and over in different ways and ends with a short e-book which recaps and consolidates the new knowledge. The playfulness, variety and colourfulness of the Mathseeds characters and environment provide motivation and learners are rewarded with the appearance of a new pet which is hatched at the end of each lesson as well as certificates at the end of every ten lessons. (http://mathseeds.com/schools/white-paper/)

But first of all a lot needed to be done in the background: The timetable had to be renegotiated for every learner to have a period each of Reading Eggs and Mathseeds on Tuesdays and Fridays. A bigger data package was needed and we had to find space and furniture for the additional 15 computers. During the winter holidays our reading room was revamped. We can now accommodate 31 learners at a time.

The new classroom is full and lively.

Oom Piet spent three weeks which ended on Madiba Day and thinks he has done his share for the rest of his life.

Extra attention to and opportunities for reading is also part of our agenda for this year. During the holidays Jaqueline and Monica cut and stapled Nalibali booklets which are handed out on Fridays for our learners to take home.