Back in the Classroom – Foul Weather, Food Pyramids and Fun in Afrikaans

2013-08-24 | puppy1952

This has to be the coldest and wettest winter we have had here in the Cape for many years. Or is it that I am getting older and feel the elements more intensely? Here in this southern nook of Africa we are lucky enough to have a Mediterranean Climate – warm, dry summers and cool, wet winters. I like winter because many of the days are clear and sunny and the wind doesn’t blow. But this winter we have had so much rain that the dams are over 100% full and there is snow on the mountain which means it is freezing! After a couple of days of heavy rain there was river flowing outside my classroom door!

A River Runs Through It

Every day I pray that the rain will let up at 10:30 – break time – so that the children get to go out and release their pent up energy – mostly my prayers are answered and luckily inspite of the excessive rain we do find at least a few minutes to get out and play.

A break in the weather and fun on the swings

Something in the weather has caused the birds to visit the garden – when the children are not around. I captured these feathered beauties enjoying some rare sunshine.

Cape Canary

Chaffinch

It has been a busy week and the girls have worked hard. After their two day Funscape they were keen to share their experiences and wrote good sentences about what they had done.

Look what I did at Fabric Painting

Pieces of Eight My Hearties

Anyone for cookies?

Working on our Funscape Report

Having someone different in the classroom is always exciting for the girls and I have been so proud of their welcoming attitude to our visiting student and one of our own GAPs. What a fun lesson they had learning all about the food pyramid and which foods we need for energy, muscle building and fighting illness.

Carbohydrates for energy

Learning a second language can be challenging but doing a familiar movement song in Afrikaans makes learning the parts of the body fun and easy.

Kop en skoures, knie en tone, knie en tone

Neus?

They also learned an old favourite fairy tale in their second language – the same one we have been working on in our regular Afrikaans lessons.

“We know this story,” piped up one bright spark – “but we don’t do it like this!”

I am proud to say that in spite of that they remembered the vocabulary and thoroughly enjoyed the new presentation of an old favourite.

‘n Mandjie vol Kos

Sy pluk blomme

Die Wolf in Ouma se Klere

Another full week has flown by. Assessments are complete and report writing has begun. The rain has gone for now so enjoy your weekend everybody.

Back in the Classroom – Fabulous Funscape

2013-08-16 | puppy1952

Our week of hard work and assessments ended with a rewarding two days of FUNSCAPES. Parents, I am sure your little girls have told you all about it and I will be getting them to report back on what they did early next week – so watch this space. For me FUNSCAPES was just fabulous. Imagine being able to use two school day to indulge my passion – BIRDS. I was delighted to hear that my club – Bird Watching – A Hobby for Life was filled very quickly. Those who did not get in – Don’t worry, it will be offered again next year. Twenty-one girls and boys from Grade 1 to Grade 5 entered my classroom on Thursday morning and when I asked – “Why did you choose Bird Watching as your Funscape this year? – these were the replies. ‘I see birds all the time and I like watching them.’ ‘I went to a place with my family once and saw all these birds and ever since then I’ve wanted to learn more about birds.’ ‘I like all animals and I think birds are interesting because they are so pretty.’ ‘My grandpa loves birds and so do I.’ ‘Well, I have two reasons – no actually three reasons. I think birds are interesting. I like all animals and a bird is an animal and I want to save the birds.’ Every one of these kids was there because something inside them made them interested in birds and they had a hunger to learn more. The weather forced me to have our first day in the classroom instead of going on an excursion to Rondevlei. I have used this programme before but it was geared to Grade 3 and above. There was a lot to pack into those four hours and I had a mixed age group – how to manage the content to suit them all was a challenge. Putting them into mixed groups of three was the answer. I made each session short – first a PowerPoint presentation on bills and beaks followed by a group activity – then an outdoor break and back to feet and legs and a group activity on that. Last of all a PowerPoint presentation on the birds we were likely to see followed by creating a card game to help us learn their names. All their handouts were given to them in a Flipfile and one of them said – Do we get to take these flip files home? ‘Of course,’ I replied. “Cool!” One satisfied customer!

I think I know the answer

The older ones helped the smaller ones

What do you think the answer is?

The weather today was not much better but our destination was The False Bay Ecology Park. The ponds here are home to a huge variety of birds. Had the weather been better I would have had the children out of the cars but it was wet and freezing so in the cars we stayed using walkie talkie radios to communicate. The roads were muddy and at one point we had to turn around for fear of getting stuck! My husband was helping with lifts in the Fortuner and went to investigate which roads would be suitable and in his brief separation from us, found a spotted eagle owl. The youngsters with him were over the moon. “Not fair,” I said “that they got an exclusive sighting!” “Tough!” said my deviant husband!

The exclusive sighting – Spotted Eagle Owl in his usual spot.

In spite of muddy roads and inclement weather we had a very successful trip. The children were keen to get the 30 or so target birds on their tick lists and except for a few that eluded us they did very well. They were also thrilled to see a little slender mongoose while we were sitting still eating our lunch. I told the children that we were unlikely to see a pied kingfisher – but I was wrong – right at the end, kingfisher was called! Take a look at some of the amazing birds we saw. As one little lass said – It’s like a bird paradise here!

The best place to find Flamingoes

Red-knobbed coot

Cape Shoveller

The Gulls Flushed into the air caused great excitement

Purple Swamphen

A tricky bird to find – but he appeared just as I’d lost hope of seeing him

Thank you very much to the three parents who gave up their precious time and braved the muddy roads to assist us on this outing. It is really very much appreciated. A big thank you too to my hubby who took the day off from work to help us. Of course he didn’t listen to any of my instructions and spoilt the kids rotten!

Back in the Classroom – Mini Funscapes and Staff Development

2013-02-23 | puppy1952

This week was a short one. We had what we call Mini Funscapes on Monday. Each child pays a nominal fee to have a day of fun activities with their teachers at school. Normal school work happens until 10 and then each grade has four stations of activities with a teacher in charge of each. The Grade 1s had – Movement to music and making a musical instrument, A session of making a beautiful mask for a ball, A delicious session of cookie baking and out on the field there was a slippy slide! My station was the mask making and oh boy was it interesting to see the difference between the boy and girl classes! They all loved it but the girls certainly have the edge when it comes to cutting out and pasting at this age. The boys took a little longer but were just as creative. Each session was 45 minutes. We were having so much fun that I forgot to take photographs!

But here is one of the girls on the slippy slide.

Fun on the Slippy Slide

On Thursday, the children were sent home at 12:00 for a long weekend. Lucky for them they do not have to return until Monday morning. This happens every year so that the staff can get together for some training and team building.

Once we’d seen our learners off we indulged in a delicious lunch, listened to our principal on the topic of bias, had a discussion on how we could handle this in ourselves and came up with ideas on how to teach our children to understand, deal with and control their own bias.

Then the fun began. We all got up and danced! We were ably instructed by an expert who patiently demonstrated the steps while her regular pupils dressed in red t-shirts were there for us to copy. Then the music started and we were off! Now I am notorious for my lack of coordination and although I might be fit when it comes to remembering a sequence of dance steps – I am a complete dummy. But I was concentrating for all I was worth and getting the hang of the step together step touch, vine, vine etc and delighting in my grace and rhythm when – oops I went the wrong way and stepped on a colleagues toes!

Getting into the swing of it

Some of our young male colleagues were showing just how good they were at this and were coaxed on to the stage to demonstrate their prowess.

Cool moves

Look at those legs

Move it, move it

They had us in cheering, wolf whistling and laughing and completely leaving our serious teacher personae back in the classroom.

On Friday, we started the day with a wonderful Continental Breakfast – the croissants were to die for. They feed us well at my school. (Overheard:- “You can’t complain when your mouth is full”)

On our tables we found a small packet filled with little treasures – a pack of highlighters – the foundation phase teachers oohed and aahed – nothing like colourful stationery to excite our breed; a notebook and pen, peanuts and raisins, Smarties and a flash stick. I just loved that our school’s name was on the cover of the notebook and the pack of highlighters. I a a bit of snob about brand names!

There was also a programme and a grid to show us where we were to go when; as we were divided into five groups of 14. It took our dull brains a while to figure out the coordinates on the grid but we didn’t feel so bad when even our boss got it a bit confused too. When it was finally worked out we set off to the different seminars – an hour long each with of course breaks for tea (delicious pastries) and lunch (mouth watering briyani).

I will not go into detail as to what we learned but each workshop was absolutely excellent. We did not sit and listen to long and detailed lectures – we got involved, we discussed topics and learned from each other. Our groups were a mix of different genders, generations and phases – pre-school, foundation phase, sports staff, high school and intermediate phase. We got to grips with issues that bothered us and to understand why this school puts the things into place that it does. We were inspired to go back to our classes with fresh ideas for digital teaching, effective discipline, movement, care and effective report writing I am proud to be working at such a dynamic school where we have to work as a team, where we involve parents, where the child’s interests are paramount and where we provide a safe base for them to learn. We are truly a 21st century school and we are teaching children for the future.

Thanks to our Leadership team for a great Programme. Thanks to the secretaries, catering and estate staff for all the background work. We really appreciate it all.