Orange Octopus | Diary of an Adventurous Retiree

On Tuesday the Grade Ones met their Hoofie Leaders. At SVPS all the children are divided into families of seven, consisting of a child from each grade. These families meet once a fortnight and are headed up by a Grade Seven learner. Before these gatherings occur the Grade Ones are introduced to their Head of Family (Hoofie Leader) who explains how the whole system works. We find that having these families reduces the occurrence of bullying because the children learn to get on with the other kids no matter what grade they’re in and families stick together and help each other out in times of need.

I feel special with my Hoofie Leader

Getting to know what it is all about

I think I’m going to like this

This week was yet another busy one full of new learning experiences. We continued with shapes, colours and reading. What fun it was to create pictures out of our diamond shapes. We had to remember to use our shapes in size order too! That was tricky when you were concentrating on the creative side.

Kites are flying. Have I got the sizes right?

Do you like my colours and patterns?

This week we focussed on the colour Orange. What fun we had honing our cutting out skills and strengthening the small muscles in our fingers and hands by colouring Ollie as brightly as we could. We then mounted him on black paper all by ourselves. Getting him to stand out was quite tricky but we managed!

I must cut very carefully

Tongue out helps me concentrate

So How am I doing?

It’s a piece of cake!

Don’t rush me – I’m nearly done!

Aren’t we clever!

Homework for Grade Ones began at the beginning of this week. We do not require you as the parent to teach your child. Everything that comes home has already been taught and just needs to be practiced. Any new skill that is taught must be practised in order to perfect it and this is the reason we give simple homework exercises daily. Make sure your child does the required homework as specified in the homework diary, remove notices from it and sign. It should take no longer than 20 minutes per day. Then watch your child thrive!

Funny Story of the week:- One little lass had a tummy ache. “Tell me exactly how it feels.” I said. “It feels like my tummy is biting me.” She replied. I sent her home!

Smart answer of the week:- Question: “What is a widow?” Answer: “A black spider!”

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and parents, please cover the THRASS Book sent home with your child today. This book will travel back and forth from school to home every day – it needs to last the whole year so a good quality plastic cover is required.

What I just love about Grade 1 is the way they learn to read. How do they learn to read? Each child has a different way – for some it’s visual – for others auditory then again it may be a combination of both – tactile comes into it too. They use picture cues, contextual cues and a dozen other cues. Some children learn easily for others it takes longer and some might even need specialised help. The good news is that almost every child does learn in the end. I try to make each reading lesson fun and so far the girls seem to be enjoying it.

But before a child learns to read she should have had many many stories read to her. Parents and other adults in the child’s life should not stop reading to the child when she begins to learn to read to herself either. She will be gaining so much from having books with richer vocabulary read to her; books she can not yet read to herself. Hearing language builds language. I cannot emphasise enough how important this is. Then when it comes to helping your child at home the key is – no pressure. Do not ask her to sound out a word – or say things like – you know that word – you’ve just read it. It takes time for the new words to sink in. Make the reading session fun – read with your child – tell her the words she gets stuck on then come back to that word later.

Many parents say to me – my child doesn’t really know the words – she is reading the book off by heart. Or If I cover the pictures she can’t read the story. Please, parents – all of this is part of the learning process. Do not cover the pictures – they give important clues as to what is happening in the story. Learning by heart is also part of learning to read – eventually those words will be recognised. Let her read off by heart and then point to random words and see how many she eventually learns to read! Let her work out the word by its position in the sentence. Referencing is also a way that gets that word embedded into her head.

Over the past few weeks we have had fun doing lots of different activities.

We learned a new word – Symmetry – and filled in details on a face.