Kruger National Park Day 5 Skukuza and surrounds

2014-07-03 | puppy1952

We decided to wake up a little later this morning and do breakfast before going out. The plan was to have brekkie ready by 7 and leave at 7:30 but we ended up leaving a tad later than that. The weather was once again cool in the morning, 9 degrees C at 8 a.m. but warming up to the late twenties by midday.
We did a short drive in the morning with a view to returning to Skukuza by midday and going to Lake Panic for a couple of hours as the sun would be in the right place to facilitate good photography. Heather in particular was keen to get to Lake Panic a.s.a.p. and Earl kept teasing her that we wouldn’t make it. He wanted to find cats first!
Our first sighting of the day was an early morning Steenbok. Earl then burst out laughing when he spotted a baboon at the apex of a very tall tree. He must have had a fabulous view from up there.

Baboon’s Eye View

Our birding stops provided us with green pigeons, golden breasted buntings, blue waxbills, cardinal woodpeckers and crested barbets amongst others.

Golden-breasted Bunting

Rhino although highly vulnerable to poachers and many are unnecessary lost to the most horrific slaughter were seen often.

We were amused by an interesting sighting of young zebra and giraffe on a play date! One seemed to be saying Mom, he called me a long neck. But you do have a long neck darling. Yes but he said it meanly. Well just tell him he’s a streepgat!
At the top of the hill there is a lookout point where you can get out and survey the scene. We noticed a school bus spilling out a dozen or so teenaged boys from Pretoria Boys High School. I chatted to one of them who was extremely polite and he told me they belonged to the school’s wildlife society and that this was an annual visit organized by a couple of their teachers. What a wonderful thing to do with a group of interested boys. They were staying outside the camp and this was their last day. During their week in Kruger they had seen everything and had had a thoroughly good time.
Earl took a road along which we’d seen cheetah on previous trips and insisted that we would see them there again. We were agitating to get to Lake Panic but he ignored our nagging. Suddenly he said oh no we weren’t supposed to see lions! and there in right in front of us a single lion crossed the road.

Oh my – the cheetah turned out to be a lion!

Peter alerted us to more in the bush and we sat and watch no less than 12 very young lion cross over into the bush and disappear.

We were alone with this sighting but alerted other cars to what had occurred. We saw them in the distance as we travelled on and another car told us they had seen just one lion walking in the bush. That is simply being in the right place at the right time!
Still on this high we made our way to Skukuza stopping for a brief look at warthogs and a longer one for a saddle billed stork in a small pond.

We took a short loo and coffee break at camp and then went to Lake Panic, just 10 minutes away.
We couldn’t have chosen a better time to visit. The hide was full but we Heather Peter and I found a spot together and Earl was slightly round the corner. We have wonderful views of Goliath Heron, pied kingfishers and a mother and baby hippo. The baby couldn’t have been more than a week old and Mom was so protective. There were no other hippos about.
The hide emptied and we made our way to where Earl was sitting and found more herons, a crocodile sunning himself on the bank, many black crake and more kingfishers. The hippos swam to this end too and we observed them emerge form the water and rests on the bank. The photos tell the story.

Pied kingfisher suscessful in his efforts

This is going to fill me up

Mom I need to have a swim

Come out of the water now

The grass here is rather tasty

Oh Golly – Here’s a goliath

Grey Heron

Goliath Heron looking good

Showing off

Terrapin Ballet

African Black Crake

Best shots we have ever had of this usually shy bird

Rigt at the end a grey duiker appeared for a quick drink

Kruger National Park Day 4 Turning 70 at Skukuza

2014-07-02 | puppy1952

2 July 2014 Celebrating 70 years of Earl

It is Earls 70th birthday today and what better place to celebrate than in The Kruger National Park. Our first few days in the park have been slow as far as sightings are concerned and we began to fear that the animals had packed up and emigrated! Today though they were all out and about specially to greet Earl on his birthday.
It is important to make an early start in the park because of the distances that we travel at extremely slow speed. The first leg of our route started at 6:45 and the temperature was 7 degrees C. (By midday it was in the high 20s) We followed the Maroela Loop to the Nkulu Picnic Site where we stopped for breakfast at 9 o’clock.
First up was a buffalo followed soon after by a beautiful, young bushbuck who emerged silently from the bush and crossed in front of us.

Beautiful bush buck

We were pleased to see several large herds of impala along the way. We also encountered nyala several times and kudu were plentiful – some in bachelor herds, some just females and a few mixed.

Male Kudu

Warthogs turned their backs on us.

There were lots of vultures flying overhead and we wondered if there was a kill nearby but if there was it was not close to the road. We also found one perched in a tree.

Always cute to see are the shy little steenbok and we were to see them a few times today.

Steenbok

We stopped at Nkulhu Picnic Site which is terraced to the river. It is a beautiful spot but the monkeys and baboons can be a nuisance. We managed to eat our boerewors rolls without being harrased.

Crossing a bridge we found some amusing baboons.

The next leg took us to Lower Sabie and we enjoyed many sightings along the way.

A gymnogene gave us quite a performance scratching for prey.

Brown Hooded Parrot

White crowned shrike

Sunset Dam was great as always. We arrived to see an elephant enjoying a drink, hippos and crocodiles sunning themselves on the bank, wildebeest coming down to see what was up, several species of storks having a conference and little shore birds strutting about looking for food.

Three Banded Plover

Grey Heron

Lower Sabie is the most commercial of all the camps and caters for the tourists every need. The Restaurant is now a Mug and Bean! How horrible but I guess the masses must be fed and this is possibly the most efficient way of doing it. The view from the deck is still amazing and hippos and buffalo were on the river bank, a giraffe loped lazily by and open billed storks stood about waiting for something.

It was good to have a break before heading back to camp but we had to be back at camp by 5:30. Earl said we would therefore only stop for the most exciting sightings.

We did make a little draai to a puddle where we knew we’d find some water birds.

Giant kingfisher

There was a lot to see on the way back giraffe, zebra, elephants, rhino, buffalo, several types of buck and birds of course.
At Renosterpan we had our finest sightings of – yes you guessed it – rhinoseros. There were 3 present proving that the name was chosen with good reason.

We celebrated Earl’s birthday by going to the restaurant. Peter and Heather contributed to his gift of a Panasonic Lumix Camera along with the kids and me but they also found a lovely solar powered lamp which they presented to him with a sign in it saying I am 70. They treated us to dinner too. Thanks H2 and P.

Happy Birthday Earl

Heather and Peter

Chatting to the kids who called to wish him

Kruger National Park Day 3 Pretoriuskop to Skukuza

2014-07-01 | puppy1952

1 July 2014 Pretoriuskop to Skukuza

Today we rose a little later, cooked breakfast, packed up and then left at 8:30 for Skukuza. It was a glorious, sunny day with temperatures warm enough to be dressed in shorts and t-shirts. Check in at Skukuza would only be from 2 p.m. onwards so we took the Sabie River road which promised to provide us with some good birding. It proved to be a slow day for both birds and game viewing but a bad day in Kruger is better than a good day in Cape Town so there were no complaints in our car. Being in a confined space with no chance of escape for a few hours at a time can have its moments. Hyperactive children can be trying but try an older man with the attention span of a 7 year old who needs constant stimulation, and some fun situations can develop. To give him credit my darling husband will do anything to make me happy and what makes me happy is to be able to spend a bit of time at a sighting before moving on. But impatience sometimes gets the better of him and he will start the car and move on before I and the ‘kids’in the back have had time to enjoy the moment. So the rule is – don’t move until I say so! Yes I know this sounds bossy and school teacherish and he looks so sad when I make him stop a few extra seconds but it’s worth it because nine times out of ten we get to see more than we bargained for. Today we had some stunning stops to watch birds and congratulations Earlie – you were very patient with us all and helped us get some gorgeous photies.
Some of the creatures we saw today were:

Vevet Monkey surveying the scene

Female Bearded Woodpecker

Blue Waxbill

Little Bee-eater

Iconic bird of the park – Lilac Breasted Roller

Female Kudu going down to the water to drink

Some of her friends

These are my girls

Aren’t they adorable

There always has to be one great highlight of each day. Today we were going through a monotonous spell of no sightings when E suddenly slammed on breaks and drew our attention to a small bird of prey hiding low down among some trees and very close to the road. It would have been so easy to miss. It was a Little Sparrow-hawk. We had superb views and he sat quietly for a photo shoot but flew off just before Heather got her camera to behave. E and I got some good ones though.

Highlight of the Day. Little Sparrowhawk

At Skukuza a problem with my Wild Card was picked up and so a call to the Wild card center had to be made but once it was sorted out we were through by 3:20 and into our huts 114 and 115. Once settled we went to the restaurant for coffee and muffins and did a short walk along the river trail. Heather cooked us a stunning meal of chicken and couscous this evening and we sat outdoors without jackets till 8 o’clock. What a fabulous day!

Kruger National Park Day 1 and 2 Bloemfontein to Numbi Gate and Pretoriuskop

2014-06-29 | puppy1952

We are back from another amazing sojourn in The Kruger National Park. I have hundreds of photographs providing wonderful memories and will be going through them and posting some on this blog in the week or so.

Sunday 29 June 2014 Bloemfontein to Numbi Gate and Pretriouskop Rest Camp

We left Bloemfontein at 5 a.m. after a very comfortable night at Duinerus. Thanks to Magriet for her fantastic hospitality. The weather was clear and sunny though a little chilly for the first few hours. We stopped at Grasmere for breakfast and met some people with a CS number plate. They were from Bredasdorp and on their way to Kruger and Mozambique.

We decided to do our shopping at Middleberg Mall just off the freeway instead of Nelspruit and that proved to be a good idea as it had Woolworths and we were done in no time! The arrival at Numbi at 3:00 went smoothly. We had to fill out an indemnity at the gate and then went through reception very quickly. We then travelled the S3 and our first sighting was a fork-tailed drongo – very common in the park. Shortly after we stopped off at Mestel Dam. There was a pod of hippo basking in the sun. Earl wanted to leave straight away but I insisted he turn off the engine and watch and wait. Within minutes we found a fish eagle, darter, pied king fisher, giant kingfisher, jacana, and black crake. The thing about waterholes is that things can change so quickly. We even got to hear the fish eagles iconic African call.

First of many hippos seen this trip

We were quite tired after our two days of travelling so did not do a long game drive. We found grey hornbills and then Peter alerted us to waterbuck and kudu in the bush.

What are you doing in my park?

A target on your bottom is quite something to live with!

We then turned onto the S7 and Heather called Stop when she spotted a burchels coucal posing in a tree. Shortly after that we found some glossy starlings and more drongos.

Burchell’s Coucal

On the H 1 Earl spotted a single warthog grazing in the dry grass. At the Pretoriouskop day visitor picnic site we found impala with oxpeckers giving them a beauty treatment.

You really must take care of these ears!

Three lovely waterbuck appeared just before Pretoriouskop entrance and a group of 4 dwarf mongoose darted across the road before we finally entered the gate at 4:30 Checking in went smoothly and we were delighted to move into to Huts 130 and 131 . We dined on braaied chops, sweet potatoes and salad an spent the evening outdoors in beautiful weather. It only got cold at around 9 pm

Relaxing on the stoep of our rondawel

Cheers my love

Our own personal chef

We also brought our own personal window cleaner!

Monday 30 June 2014 Pretoriouskop

We made an early start this morning and exited the gate just after 06h00. It was still dark but it was not as chilly as we’d anticipated. It gets light suddenly here and the sunrises are magnificent.
This sunrise with a giraffe silhouetted in the foreground typifies Africa for me.

This is Africa

The first leg of our journey took us along the H1-1. We turned off onto the s71 to Shithave Dam where there was very little besides a grey heron and a pied kingfisher.
Back on the H1-1 we found giraffe, zebra and kudu. The highlight of the morning was a beautiful brown snake eagle perched atop a tee. Snake Eagles are not true eagles as their feathers do not go down to their feet – only to the knees. Most snake eagles have yellow eyes.

Brown Snake-Eagle

We also spent ages observing a party of birds flitting about in the bushes. Seeing us stopped and staring into the bush caused a number of cars to enquire as to what exciting creature we had seen. They tore off in a puff of dust when we tried to point out an interesting bird or 2. Many people visit the park for the Big 5 and other predators and as excting as it is to see them I get more of a thrill out of the small things in Kruger. One can travel the roads for hours and not see a thing if you don’t take note of the birds and other small things.

At 9 we arrived at Transport Dam where a pod of hippos were frolicking, a few jacanas were walking in the water plants, a crake made an appearance, water dikkop sunned themselves and hornbills and lapwings begged tidbits from the tourists!
Continuing further were shaken from a reverie when we spotted a roadblock up ahead. A herd of elephants were refusing to allow the cars to pass. One mock charged a car and then swerved into the bush probably giggling and elephant laugh as the occupants breathed a sigh of relief.
A special sighting thereafter was a little Klipspringer staring at us silently from his rocky perch.

Klipspringers are incredibly nimble on rocks.

A Kruger Road Block!

Klipspringers are incredibly nimble on rocks

We stopped at Afsaal for breakfast at about 11. It was quite warm now and we sat in the shade to enjoy our toasted sandwiches and coffee. Afsaal is one of the larger picnic sites which has a kiosk providing meals and good coffee can be obtained. We prefer the smaller picnic sites where they do not have shops etc but Kruger draws thousands of tourists and they must be fed!

Afsaal

We went a little further past Afsaal before turning back to Pretoriouskop. A pile of cars were staring into the bush where leopard had been seen but we didn’t bother to wait for the phantom to appear. We enjoyed sightings of giraffe, zebra, warthog and a few more bird parties and arrived back at camp at 3.

Beautiful Model

She’s on a leaf and thorn diet

Hello Boys!

Brown hooded kingfisher

Hamerkop

Longbilled Crombec

Yellow-billed Hornbills

After shopping, getting and ice cream and resting for a while we explored the camp and found some lovely birds in the pool area.

We were delighted to find a crested barbet, black headed oriole and red-billed woodhoepoe. In front of our hut we also found a Kurrichane Thrush.

Crested Barbet

Black Headed Oriole

Red-billed woodhoepoe with bug

Kurrichane Thrush

Supper was an early braai. Earl went to be very early and the rest of us chatted outdoors for a while before turning in for the night. We do not keep late hours in Kruger!

Image

Kruger National Park Getting There

Since booking for The Kruger National Park a year ago, I have visited Europe and Australia. I thoroughly enjoyed both those exciting trips but there is nothing to beat a holiday in the bush and having missed out on such a trip last year I was beside myself anticipating this trip to Kruger. Everything was packed and ready and our travelling companions slept over at our house last night and the adventure began at 4:30 this morning. If we thought it was a chilly start we were to get a shock when we hit the Karoo and got out at Laingsburg for breakfast. It was 0 degrees C! Our Wimpy breakfast warmed us and were back into our warm Caravelle enjoying the sunshine warming us through the windows while we pointed out black shouldered kites, pale chanting goshawks, rock kestrels and other birds. We enjoyed the dry, khaki terrain and low mountains and koppies too. Uploading photographs in areas where the coms are slow and reliable is going to be slow and frustrating so I am not going to do a daily blog of this trip. We are overnighting in a lovely B&B, Duinerus, in Bloemfontein. Margriet provides us with tea, coffee, milk, rusks and the ingredients for breakfast. We ordered pizza for our evening meal and will be off to Kruger early tomorrow – hopefully arriving at Numbi Gate before 4 o’clock. I will save my reports in draft and upload the photos when I return in 3 weeks time and publish them a day at time then, unless by some strange miracle I get good coms in some of the camps! I leave you now with just one through the windscreen pic of The Three Sisters

Back in the Classroom End of Term

2014-06-28 | puppy1952

The last week went well. Next term our books have feint lines. Now that we have mastered the essentials of letter formation, our teachers go and confuse us and tell us we now have to touch the lines and fill the spaces! To get us ready for this we have been working on paper so that our mistakes don’t spoil our lovely new books! The teachers call it suicide week but we are very tolerant of them and try hard to get it right before they burst into tears. Teachers are so sensitive and we wouldn’t want to disappoint them would we.
Our teacher has been a bit preoccupied this past week as she has had to get herself organised for her trip to Kruger National Park. Anyway she managed to teach us well enough, told our parents all about our talents at Parentline on Tuesday night and did some other stuff that teachers do at terms’ end – can’t imagine what but hopefully she will have her head together when we see her next term! We hugged her hard when we left on Friday and said we would really miss her. We saw a tear in her eye so perhaps she will miss us too.
She hasn’t got any photos for this blog as she is on the road to Kruger but we guess she will return with renewed energy next term. So moms and dads, have a great holiday with us kids, do lots of fun thing and remember to read with and to us!

Back in the Classroom – Term 2 Winding Down – Preparing for Term 3

2014-06-20 | puppy1952

Grade One as I have said many times in these blogs, is the most rewarding class to teach. Watching the little ones grow and absorb knowledge like a sponge absorbs water is a daily thrill. At term’s end there is no letting up – they do not want to stop – they need to be in a routine and want to continue the learning! So every activity we present must have a purpose – there is no doing anything just for the sake of it or to keep them occupied!

So while we continue with the normal daily routine we are also trying to get things ready for Term 3.

We learn all about space and shape in Mathematics and we see shapes in everyday things. A great exercise for our Maths Book Cover for Term 3 therefore was to create our own colourful pictures by cutting and pasting shapes from bright sheets of paper. What creative designs we came up with!

Lots of colours to choose from

Careful design work here

My teacher loves my gorgeous giraffe

This is so much fun

Lovely work, Birthday Girl

I’m done with my Space Scene!

I am proud of my work

Paper tearing is an excellent activity for little fingers. It gets those tiny fine motor muscles in their three little pencil holding fingers fit for writing. They were absorbed and quiet for ages as they tore and pasted scales on their fish for their Term 3 Literacy Book Cover.

What a lot of colours to choose from

Very interesting fish!

Does this remind you of Nemo?

My fingers are working hard here!

How am I doing?

Sticky fingers – lovely fish

Next week there will be NO HOMEWORK – but please continue to read to and with your girls. Encourage Reading during the holidays too – shared reading I mean – it must be a pleasurable experience.

On Wednesday we have Parentline and I am looking forward to sharing with you how your daughters are progressing. Please be punctual so we can make the most of our 10 minute slots!

Back in the Classroom – Reading with and to your child

2014-06-13 | puppy1952

What is the most important thing a child learns when she goes to school? READING. We can’t get very far in the world without being literate and no matter how far we progress digitally – reading will always be a skill we require. The rate at which a child learns to read differs greatly and in a Grade One class it is possible to have children on six or seven different levels. The challenge for the teacher is to keep them all interested and keen to read with enjoyment.

At school we concentrate on teaching reading skills – decoding, encoding, sight words, using contextual cues, phonic cues, picture cuest etc. We use a graded Reading Scheme. Each level has one ‘Primer’ and three shorter supplementary readers with the same vocabulary plus a few new words thrown in. We keep the children at a particular level until they know the vocabulary out of context before moving them on to the next level. In addition to the books in the Reading Scheme we allow them to take other children’s books home. These have been roughly graded to fit in with the scheme book level but of course they too will have unseen vocabulary in them. Sometimes a long story can be very easy. Sometimes a short story can be quite challenging. The thickness of the book doesn’t necessarily determine how difficult the words are to read. The aim is simply to expose the children to the written word and for them to enjoy books.

How did the pioneers of old teach their children to read? They usually had only one book – The Holy Bible. Quite a daunting book to use as a primer! Yet they did. How did they manage? They read it to their children. The stories became familiar. Eventually the children started to recognise words as their parents read to them. They read together until the child could read on her own. So don’t be afraid to expose your child to a book that might be too difficult for her to read on her own. Share the reading with her. Introduce her to different authors. Talk about the cover, the title and the pictures. Get her to anticipate what will happen next. Discuss the message or moral of the story. Ask questions like What does this story teach us? How else could it have ended? Which was your favourite part? What did you like about the story? What didn’t you like about the story? It will depend on your child how much you discuss the story. Keep it simple and fun.

Often a parent might say – My child is reading her book – but she doesn’t really know the words – she reads off by heart. Don’t worry – this is part of the process. Let your child read the same book as often as she wants to but insist that she points to the words as she reads. Eventually those words will become so familiar that she will recognise them in other contexts. Remember too that reading to your child is more important than your child reading to you. You should be reading to her every single day. It should become a ritual – before bed is a good time – a wonderful way to get her settled for the night. Sit with you child in such a way that she can see the words as your read. Point to the words as you read and even allow her to read the easy ones if she wants to. Getting her to guess what the last word in the sentence is, is also excellent. Part of reading is inferring what the word could be. I never correct a child is she reads a word that is different but means the same as the one in the sentences. E.g. if she reads boy for lad – it’s okay – she has the sense of the sentence correct.

Some parents are worried that their children are reading books that are too easy or not challenging enough. Your child might bring home a book that is very short or easy. Remember that books sent home are to be enjoyed with your child. Sometimes they might be easy – sometimes a bit more challenging. If they’re too difficult let her read what she can and you read the difficult words with her. Once again – point to the words as you read. Discuss the story and help her anticipate what might happen next. If it is too easy and she reads it effortlessly in five minutes and then doesn’t bring another one home for a few days – don’t hesitate to read from your own book shelves or from the library. What is important is that your child is not only reading but being read to as well, the latter being the most important.

Here is a link to an earlier post regarding Reading to Children

https://puppy1952.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/back-in-the-classroom-reading-to-children/

Reading is not of course the only thing we learn at school. Number work is also important. We have been having fun with Mathematics and Money has been on our minds. It is amazing how money helps to teach number concepts. In the good old days I used to bring real money into the classroom but there is little you can buy with coins these days and credit cards have taken over so I don’t usually have denominations of R100 and R200 lying around in my wallet! But there is some very realistic pretend money which works just as well! So we have been playing with that. A good chart also helped and the girls were pretty good at pointing out the different coins and note. Great fun was had making a ‘coin’ die although there was some frustration when some of the little fingers couldn’t quite manage to glue it together. Luckily the more adept ones were willing to help!

What can we buy for R1,00?

Not even the tooth fairy brings 5c coins anymore!

R5 is a bit more valuable.

R50 in my birthday card would be okay!

A R200 note is the biggest amount – Just the right amount for a clever girl!

Two like this will be okay for this amazing lass.

Making the die cube

I’m ready to cut it out.

Today we had our Grade One cake sale. It was lovely to see that the girls were very aware of how much their money could buy! They spent their coins wisely and came back to class on a phenomenal sugar high! Who was the parent that sent those toffee apples! I’m not sure how much we made – but everything went! Thanks to the moms who baked, those who sent donations and the three fabulous ladies who did the selling! You were awesome and I didn’t even have to miss my break!

My R10 can get me quite a bit

Now what shall I buy

What lovely treats

I am going on a sugar high!

Yummy Toffee Apple

They were a hit!

The Boys and Me at False Bay Ecology Park

2014-06-08 | puppy1952

Temperatures have been hovering between 8 and 16 here in chilly Cape Town this week. Today though we had sunshine and it was a tad warmer. Earl had a fishing date with a friend and after doing a number of chores in town I really felt the need to get my teenage grandsons out of the house and into Nature.

Isn’t it amazing that you can go to the same place many times but each time it’s different. The light was good for photography and I gave Jay (16) my ex-camera, a Canon Powershot SX30IS and Josh and I used my Powershot SX50HS.

Black-winged stilt by Jay

Purple Swamphen by Jay

Flamingos

Black-headed Heron with an snack by Jay

Black-head heron – Jay

Egyptian Goose – Josh

Egyptian Geese

Hadeda Ibis – Josh

Cape Teal

Little Grebe

Levaillant’s Cisticola

Jay

Josh in front

We always look out for the Spotted Eagle-owls in their usual spot and today Jay and Josh found them easily. They were in the open, woke up and stared at us, preened a bit and then went back to sleep. We managed to get a few reasonable photographs.

Sleepy Head

Ho Hum

What are you looking at

Wink Wink

The African Fish Eagle is occasionally seen at The False Bay Ecology Park and today we were lucky enough to catch sight of two. I alerted the boys to one was flying ahead of the car when they yelled – Gran – look – there’s one next to us with prey! It was not easy to focus the camera but I got a very poor shot of it with a mongoose in its talons! It scattered the birds on the mudflats including a number of Spur-winged geese then settled on a mound some distance away.

Poor Mongoose

Fish Eagle

Fish Eagle – Jay

He flew off over the next pond, settled in a tree and then flew off again. We went in hot pursuit of a better photograph.

The Boys hoping to spot the Fish Eagle

Finally it was time to leave. Last shot of a male Cape Shoveller.

The boys agreed the excursion had been most worthwhile!

Back in the Classroom – A week of short days

2014-06-08 | puppy1952

The older children have been writing what used to be called exams. We call it Assessment Week and our learners write papers which form part of their term mark. During this week school closes an hour and a quarter earlier. The staff are then given a delicious lunch to build up their strength for marking. Everybody including the foundation phase staff and Gap students assist. At this school we believe in sharing the load. I enjoy it because it’s great to see how past learners are doing and it enriches bonds with my colleagues some of whom I do not have much contact with during the rest of the term.

Having a shorter day has forced us in the Foundation Phase, finished with our own assessments, to fit everything in before 1:00 p.m! The colder weather has certainly helped with this as the children have not complained about shortened outdoor exercise time! At this time of the year the little ones really start taking off. They now have enough Reading and Writing skills to begin to write their own creative sentences. Seeing that first tentative “all on my own” sentence on the page is one of the great thrills of teaching Grade One. We teach them to hunt for words they cannot spell. They find these words in their Reading word lists, the THRASS chart and around the classroom. When writing a story they try out their sentences on a rough sheet of paper first. When they get stuck they may ask the teacher for help and she will either write the difficult word for them or guide them to where they can find it for themselves. They also use their THRASS skills to build three letter words. They get really excited when they find how many words they can actually manage on their own.

Finding a word on the THRASS chart

Let me think about this

Now to draw the picture

I did it!

Yes – the girls are really surprising me in every aspect of their progress – Reading Writing and Mathematics. Keep it up, girls. You’re doing so well!

Doing our Mind Moves before a Writing lesson

Doing our Finger Exercises before a Writing lesson

Mind Moves to wake up the brain

Let’s get started

Posture perfect – Pencil Grip right!

Two Visits to False Bay Ecology Park

2014-06-01 | puppy1952

One of my favourite spots to visit in Cape Town is the False Bay Ecology Park. I have been there twice in the past seven days and have included photos from both visits in this blog.

This afternoon Earl and I were accompanied by two friends, Cheryl and Dot. The latter is a beginner and after we’d met up with some others girls at our monthly breakfast club, she asked if I would take her bird watching. Cheryl was also able to come along so I persuaded Hubby to drive us, picked them up at Cheryl’s home and we headed to our favourite spot.

The weather at this time year is chilly but also changeable so we were not too sure what we might see. Last Sunday there was very little but today was more productive although it was cold and windy.

Ever present are the beautiful Greater Flamingos

The pelicans were chilling on a distant bank.

My favourite ducks – they’re so photogenic

Cape shovellers taking to the water – all male except the one with the brown eye

A patient black-headed heron in the water

and out

A pretty little Black-winged Stilt

A Little Egret skulking in the reeds

A small flotilla of Littel Grebe (Dabchicks)

A small flotilla of Little Grebe (Dabchicks)

Here is a picture from last Sunday’s visit – a malachite kingfisher

An active, tiny bird – finally settled for a reasonable shot

A s silly moorhen impersonating a songbird!

A silly moorhen impersonating a songbird!

An African Pipit looking handsome

The purple swamphen (gallinule) is common at FBEP but tends to be elusive in the reeds. I am usually lucky and almost every time I visit I see at least one. Dot was very keen to get to see this lovely bird and I promised her we would. She missed the first one which was a bit far off and then decided to disappear before we could focus her attention to it. The second one was also hiding but Earl moved the car and we all got an excellent view of him showing off his very long and wide spread toes.

First glimpse of the colourful bird

Climbing up the reeds

Higher – Look at those toes!

Because of the very windy conditions many species of bird were congregated on Pond P2 which was slightly more sheltered. There were hundreds of yellow-billed duck, Cape shovellers, sacred ibis, stilts, avocets, Egytian Geese and Spur-winged geese amongst others.

Spur-winged goose with Sacred Ibis

While we were watching the frantic activity of the birds Dot called our attention to a small bird of prey flying at great speed and scattering a flock of common starling. It was a flash of rufous dashing just above the reeds – too fast for us to track. But then we saw it perched in a tree. Waving reeds make it difficult to focus unless you have a really fancy camera so Earl’s resulting pics were not particularly clear. Here is the best one from a bad bunch of a rufous-chested sparrowhawk.

An uncommon sighting at the best of times and the first time we’ve seen one here. A wonderful way to end our visit!

Back in the Classroom – Grade One Assembly and Farewell to a Legendary Colleague

2014-05-31 | puppy1952

My friend and Colleague whom I have known since High School retired on Friday. She has been at my school for almost 30 years and been in Education for 40. It’s a long time to invest in the youth of your community. She taught my grandson in both Grade 4 and 5. For both those years I had the privilege of being her room parent and relieved her for a few months in the classroom when she had surgery that required some recuperation time.

I knew I had to come prepared with plenty of tissues because she was going to have one amazing send off. But I did not anticipate that it would start first thing on Friday morning when, while sipping my obligatory caffeine fix, she came into the staff room, sat down to chat and we both had a little weep! A younger colleague was with us too and she just hugged her mentor.

Before the whole school assembled for the farewell ceremony our little Grade Ones had to do their assembly – “I am Special”. We’ve been practising for weeks and they did their teachers proud! I did not get a chance to take photographs but I know a lot of our parents were there. There is just one little story I’d like to share. A shy little girl in my class had to say a special line – My name is …….. and I speak Persian. I tried to coax her to speak her line loudly and clearly but during practice she was the quietest of all. On Friday, as instructed, she came dressed in an outfit a typical Iranian child would wear. We made a huge fuss about how pretty she looked. Her beautiful outfit must have given her confidence because when it came to her turn to speak she uttered her lines as clearly as a bell!

Our Precious Little Persian Princess with her Friends

After our little ones performed superbly in their Assembly we had a brief time to regroup while the intermediate phase came to join us in the hall. As “Little old Lady of Pasadena” rang out, Miss C was ushered through a guard of honour with two fairies in attendance. She then sat upon a throne and was later presented with her wings so she could fly to wonderful far flung places in this next season of her life.

Listening to stories of her life at SVPS

Both the Junior and Senior Choirs sang for her and it was all I could do to stop the tears from flowing even though I’d heard my girls practising the songs for weeks in advance. Two teachers also sang the powerful song, “You raise me up” which was my late mother’s favourite song so it was double reason to have me in floods of tears! And they sang it so very beautifully!

Some of the girls from my class who sang with the Junior Choir

I was so proud of the girls from my class who sang with the Junior Choir

Saying a few words of her own

There was a farewell tea later in the staffroom and tributes were paid to a teacher who is truly a legend in this valley. I was undone specially by what a number of they younger staff members said. She has been an amazing mentor and they all aspire to being just like her – a caring teacher, a wise teacher, a fun teacher and a very human teacher who has given her all to this profession and has absolutely no regrets for doing it!

Marilyn – I know our paths will cross many more times. Thank you for what you have meant to me so far in my life and to Jay in his. In his words – You’re the best!