Addition And Subtraction In Year 2
In Year 2, we have been learning to add and subtract numbers in different ways.
In the first lesson of the week, we had fun learning about Four way sums, also called turn around sums, that can be made up of numbers. Four way sums mean that there are two addition sums and two subtraction sums that can be worked out.
For example:
2 + 9 = 11
9 + 2 = 11
11- 2 = 9
11 – 9 = 2
To help the students work out their sums we learnt the number facts that the answer to an addition sum is always the highest number and the first number in a subtraction sum is always the highest number.
Then we learnt about bonds of 20 or numbers that can be added or subtracted to make 20. We also calculated the answers to Four way or turn around sums with these numbers in our workbooks.
In lesson 3, we looked at how to add and subtract 10’s and how knowing bonds below 10 helps us work out sums of 10. For example, if we know 2 + 5 = 7 it is easy to work out that 20 + 50 = 70.
Lesson 4 was also very fun. The students learnt how to use a number line to add and subtract 3 or more numbers. We learnt that the answers stays the same when we add the same numbers in a different order. For example 4 + 3 + 2 = 9 and 2 + 4 + 3 = 9
During the last lesson of the week, we did a revision activity. Each student was given 3 cards. They wrote 5 sums of 20 on the first card, 5 sums of 10 on the second card and 3 train sums on the last card. We strung the cards onto some wool and tied it at the end so that the cards stayed on. Some students wanted to put the cards up like bunting in their room and some of the students wore their new sum necklace.
The students have really enjoyed learning about addition and subtraction of numbers in fun ways and have certainly learnt a lot during these lessons.
Bronwen Nuthall
Year 2 Teacher
Read More
Faces In Art
In the Jelly Fish class, we have been learning about different parts of the face as well as the function of each of these parts.
Our little students had an amazing time creating different pieces of art to represent their own faces. Some of this art was product focused with the aim being that students create a face with all the right parts in all the right places, an introduction to portraiture.
Other art activities were focused on the process of making art rather than the end result, giving our students the opportunity to select their own materials and create their own artwork which is inspired by an image or object that has been provided. The purpose of this is to provide students with the opportunity to channel their creativity, plan, problem-solve and express themselves without restriction of resources or space.
Activities included drawing a picture of their own face which was inspired by a photograph of themselves, making a face from shapes and newspaper cut-outs and ice painting with primary colours so that we could use sight to observe what happens when these colours mix. Students were captivated by the formation of secondary colours each time the primary colours mixed, this proved to be a great introduction to science within art.
The main purpose of creating Art in the Foundation Phase is not to achieve perfection in a final product, but rather to encourage creativity and self-expression, develop fine motor skills through the manipulation of different materials, and to cultivate a love and appreciation of art.
Candice van der Vyver
Jelly Fish Class Teacher
Read More
Fine Motor Club
It has been a pleasure to host the Fine Motor Club in the Junior Primary this term. A group of keen Year 1 to Year 3’s have been putting effort into strengthening the muscles in their fingers, hands, wrists and shoulders. We always warm up by doing hand and finger “gym”; exercises, strengthening and conditioning. This helps to “wake up” the muscles the children will be needing for our session. These are also useful, fun actions that they can implement in their daily routine, and they can practise doing these before completing tasks like homework or handwriting lessons.
During the course of our first lessons, we have used common items, which they can easily find at home or in their class, to complete 3D shape construction, building and weaving. These processes allow for creativity, whilst subconsciously still strengthening their fine motor skills. Simple items such as playdough, prestick, pasta, matches, pipe cleaners, blocks and toothpicks can all be used in a variety of ways to stimulate your child’s development.
Examples of some fun activities include:
- Making 3D shapes, such as a pyramid or a cube, using toothpicks and Prestick or matches and playdough
- Wrapping pipe cleaners around straws, forks, chopsticks, etc. to create curls
- Threading macaroni/looped cereal onto spaghetti or pipe cleaners
- Place sequins/buttons/small items onto the sticky side of Cellotape (try to make a repeating pattern)
- Balance playing cards/dominoes and build stacks or A-frames
- Pick-up sticks (make your own by painting or colouring in Skewer sticks)
- Make your own playdough/salt dough and build letters and numbers to make spelling and maths practise more interactive
- Instead of using your fingers to pick something up, use a pair or tweezers, a peg or kitchen tongs
- Shadow puppets
- Window tracing
- “Ceiling” art – paste or tape a page under a table/chair (correct length for your child’s arm length), lay down on the floor and draw or write on the page (wonderful for shoulder muscle development!)
- Using a ruler to draw lines or measure
- Using a dropper, teaspoon or syringe to do art/mix colours/explore with consistencies of materials (such as oil and water).
Make these activities into timed races and compete as a family – your loadshedding entertainment is now sorted!
Kim Hahn
Year 1 Teacher
Read More
Mathematics Can Be Fun!
If you’re like me, Mathematics at school was always a daunting subject! However, I have discovered that the key to motivating children in any subject, but especially Mathematics is to make it fun.
Counting in various intervals, e.g., 1’s, 2’s 3’s 4’s 5’s, forwards and backwards, etc. is crucial to laying the foundation for mathematical skills. Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are all based on counting. If a child have a solid understanding of counting in different intervals, they find the transition to the later operational activities much easier.
A study by researcher Louis Manfra from the University of Missouri suggested that teaching pre-schoolers to count, better prepares them for success in mathematics once they start school and found that children who could recite and count to 20 in preschool had the highest mathematics score in first grade.
(Origo Education)
In class we played a ball game to make counting more fun. I gave one student a number to begin with. They had to say the next number and throw the ball to a friend, who then followed with the number after that one. We had a lot of fun during this activity.
Kim Coetzer
Year 2 Teacher
Read More
The Year Ahead
Monday, 16 January was a beautiful sunny day and the Teachers at Blouberg International School welcomed their new students. As the new faces arrived in Year 1, some very excited and others a little more apprehensive, they quickly settled into their new class and greeted friends from last year. There is always a buzz on the first day as students reconnect and tell their peers all about their holiday.
Some comments from the Year 1 students about the year ahead.
I am excited to do ballet. – Purity
I am excited to learn about maths. – Nikraad
In Year 1 am excited to do gymnastics. – Chaitrika
I want to learn about how nature works. – Ayominde
I am excited to learn more maths. – Sofia
In Year 1 am excited to do maths and drawing. – Lolwam
I like to do colouring. – Tiwatope
In Year 1 I love doing maths. – Jonah
I am excited to be grown up and I want to be a soccer player like Ronaldo. – Chimdindo
I am excited to make new friends in Year 1. – Isabella
I am excited to learn about stories. – Tinashe
I am excited that there are new people and I get to play with Daisey at playtime. – Juliet
I want to learn new things. – Anam
I am going to do maths. – Somto
I am excited to be in Year 1 because I will be 7 years old. – Luka
This year we all get to play on the big field and we write sentences. – Alupheli
I like learning about science. – Likani
I like to draw and learn new things. – Marcus
I want to be in Year 1 because it is fun for me. – Naleli
I like to work and be kind to people. – Leah
Ann Cordner
Junior Primary Coordinator and Year 1 Teacher
Read More
High Frequency Words
In term 2, our Reception students have been introduced to High Frequency Words. High Frequency Words otherwise known as sight words, Dolch words, refer to a set of words that most commonly are found on any page of text. Readers need to instantly recognize these words in a text and often the words cannot be sounded out. Readers therefore need to memorise these words in order to read more confidently and fluently. Learning High Frequency Words is an important skill that is incorporated into reading homework. It is therefore essential to learn High Frequency Words in fun ways. Listed below are some ideas for flash card games:
Flash Cards Games
- Can you find? Lay cards on a table. Ask the student to find a given word. If they find it, they keep it. Keep going until all the cards are picked up.
- Who has more? Show the cards to the student. If they read the word within 5 seconds, they keep the cards – if not the parent keeps the cards, the goal is that the student has more cards at the end.
- Concentration – Using double copies of words take turns turning over 2 cards at a time, trying to make a match. The player must read the words correctly to get the match.
- Go fish – Use double copies of cards, pass out all by 5-6 of the words. Put these in a stack face down on the table. Look for matches in your set of cards. (each player must be able to read the word or the set goes in the stack on the table. Take turns asking each other for cards to make matches. The person with the most matches at the end is the winner.
- Slap Jack – Draw a star on a blank flashcard. Place this star card and the other flashcards face down on the table. Take turns turning over a card and reading a word. When the star card is turned over, the first player to slap it wins.
Bronwen Nuthall
Reception Year Teacher
Read More
Pre-Reception Learning All About Reptiles
For the past week, Pre-Reception have been learning about Reptiles. They loved painting and making different Reptiles. The students also played games like snakes and ladders, learnt various Reptile rhymes and songs.
The highlight of the week was definitely when the Reptile Man came to visit, bringing his great collection of snakes, lizards, geckos and tortoises.
Some Reptile facts the students have learnt:
- All reptiles lay shelled eggs.
- A reptile breathes air.
- They have bony shells or are covered in scales.
- Majority of reptiles are cold-blooded.
- The most diverse reptiles are snakes and lizards.
- Most eat insects and small animals.
Our students were very brave and eager to touch and learn about the various reptiles. They couldn’t stop talking about all the wonderful things they saw during the special presentation by the Reptile Man.
Cindy Nunan
Pre-Reception Teacher
Read More
The Brothers Grimm
What do ‘Snow White’, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Rapunzel’ have in common?
They share the fact that they were first written down and published in a book over 200 years ago by The Brothers Grimm. Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm born in Hanau near Frankfurt in Germany studied to be lawyers and later became university professors, but their most loved hobby was collecting stories, especially fairy tales. This led them on a trip across Germany and Europe in search of all the many folk songs and folklore that was rich to those areas. In 1812, they first published ‘The Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ in two volumes called Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales) with over 200 stories that have endured to this day for the young and old.
One of these perhaps lesser-known stories ‘Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten’ (The Bremen Town Musicians) came to life in the German classroom in Book Week this term.
The Year 1-6 students were all introduced to The Brothers Grimm and enjoyed watching and listening to the fairy tale all about the four animals. Der Esel (the donkey), der Hund (the dog), die Katze (the cat) and der Hahn (the rooster) were on the way to Bremen (a city in the north of Germany), to become the town musicians after no longer being of any use to their owners. On the way, they had some adventures and learnt that through teamwork anything could be accomplished.
The students especially loved singing along to the song with much enthusiasm:
Wir sind die Bremer Stadtmusikanten-holla-di-ladio! (We are the Bremen town musicians- Holla-di-ladio.)
Der Esel macht I-Ah, I-Ah.
Der Hund der macht Wau-Wau, Wau-Wau.
Die Katze macht Miau, Miau.
Der Hahn macht Kikeriki, Kikeriki.
Sie singen so wunderbar! (They sing so wonderfully!)
It was wunderbar to be part of Book Week and celebrate ‘How do you Book?’ by bringing to life a fairy tale with a song.
Click here for the link to the music and the song to sing along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUU5gNPpJ70
Frau K. Pani
Primary School German Teacher
WATCH:
Reference:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Brothers-Grimm
Read More
Multi-Sensory Learning
The importance of teaching and learning with more than just sight and sound lessons.
Multi-sensory learning has the benefit of reinforcing strengths, improving students’ weaknesses and assisting the brain in making connections between current knowledge and the new knowledge that is being taught. It also helps students who differ in learning styles to make concrete connections during the lesson.
In the BIS Library – learning is dynamic, engaging and often involves more than three of the body’s senses. The ‘/j/’ sound lesson is the perfect example of a lesson where students are facilitated in remembering the sound by tasting jelly. After singing the jolly phonics song for ‘/j/’, they move their bodies like wobbling jelly and read a book about jelly. The students then have the opportunity to enjoy smelling and tasting some jelly. Multi-sensory lessons seem more like playing than learning to children and as research has shown, this is one of the best means for children’s brains to make connections and store information.
Facilitating learning through the senses is important, in particular learning to read because reading always leans towards sight and sound. Reading is an abstract concept that requires concrete learning methods in its teaching, and not only for those who need it with regard to their learning styles.
Kirsten Stoffberg
School Librarian and Teacher
Read More
Book Week 2022: Foundation Phase And How To Ensure Success When Reading With Your Child
From the 3rd to 6th of May, we celebrated Book Week throughout the school. We do this to help foster a love and excitement for books and reading. There was a wide variety of fun and interesting events that took place.
On Tuesday, Hooked on Books came to school to entertain the students. They performed short excerpts from age appropriate books and the students even got to act out a poem with the actors’ guidance.
On Wednesday evening, the students joined their teachers in their pyjamas for hot chocolate and bedtime stories. It was an evening full of laughter, cuddles and creating fond memories with friends.
Throughout the week, The Book People gave students the opportunity to peruse a large variety of books and some purchased a book to add to their home library.
On Friday we had a character dress up day. It was wonderful seeing the creativity and pride that the children took in dressing up. During the week, Reception and Pre-Reception classes also swapped teachers at story time so that they could listen to the stories represented in the other classrooms.
Below are some tips you can use at home to make reading fun and to ensure success when reading with your child:
When you are creating fun reading activities for your children, you need to be excited about the activity too. You want to create something that is worth your child’s time to sit, listen, and learn. Here are some tips to help you succeed:
- Have a happy voice: Children are smart. If your voice is monotone and you are trying to cram in a book before bedtime, they will know it. Make your voice sound excited when you read the words. Remember to smile and have fun!
- Take your time: Plan ahead to make sure you have enough time to read before nap and bedtime. You don’t want to do fun reading activities when you or your kids are tired. They will be less likely to be engaged.
- Read over or skim the book before you get it: I found many books were not appropriate for children. They had things in there I was not ready to discuss at their young age. Protect their innocence and choose books that represent the same values you stand for at home.
- Don’t quit: Your children may not be excited at first. Keep working at it. Try different things to see what works. Don’t give up. Reading needs to be a lifelong skill that gets encouraged from when your children are young.
- Empower your children: Get your children to pick out books, give them a choice between two fun reading activities, let them pick out which book to read at bedtime, or let them choose a book to give another child as a birthday present. All these things give them ownership. If they come up with the idea or make the decision themselves, they are more likely to be engaged.
Kim Hahn
Reception Year Teacher
Read More