PLAYDOUGH FUN WITH THE YEAR 2’S
“Play is the highest form of research” – Albert Einstein
Our Year 2’s had some fun experiment with playdough, discovering new ways to use it. There are many benefits of children playing with playdough including developing fine motor skills, creativity, vocabulary, literacy and numeracy and much more.
Playdough also:
- Motivates children to explore its sensory qualities.
- Strengthens small fingers, hands and wrists.
- Builds children’s imagination as they play with it, creating as they wish.
- Developing self-esteem – no right or wrong to play.
- It’s calming and helps children relieve stress through their hands.
- Involving them in making the dough and discussing things like colour and texture, and what happens when liquids are added.
The students experimented with moulding their playdough into different types of animals as well as various shapes like hearts and stars. Some even created small board games to play on like noughts and crosses. So much fun was had!
Siobhan Hendry
Year 2 Teacher
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Live Sketching in Arts and Craft Club
“Art has the role in education for helping children to become more like themselves instead of more like everyone else. “ – Sydney Gurewitz Clemens
The Year 1 and Year 2 students in the Arts and Craft club thoroughly enjoyed a quiet lesson on Monday, completing a live sketch of a plant. They had the choice between an orchid and a bonsai tree. This took a lot of concentration and visual analysis of the different parts of a plants structure which the Year 1 students mastered in Term 3.
A live sketch is also known as a life drawing which is the drawing of an object through observation. We found this form of art something new and different for the students to try which completely blew the teachers away by the interest, concentration and beautiful sketches that were completed.
We found this form of sketching encourages students to make use of visual analysis, a lot of concentration, aids in creative problem solving and helps hand-eye coordination as well as fine motor skills.
We are grateful to have such talented students in our Arts and Craft club and look forward to watching them continue to grow more skills over this last term.
“The arts can help students become tenacious, team orientated problem solvers who are confident and able to think creatively.”- Arne Duncan
Erin Hierse
Year 1 Teacher
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Welcome back to school!
There was much excitement in the Year 2 classes as they returned to school this week! Watching the different facial expressions as they walked into class, one could definitely see that, most of them were very happy to be back.
Within the first hour, however, questions like: When is it break? Can we eat yet? Do we have to do more work? Or statements like I’m tired, made me realise that it was going to take a while for the students to get back into their normal routine.
When asked what they missed about school, answers like, break time, playing with my friends, free time in class, or we missed you, were quite openly shared. Obviously school work did not rank high in the popularity poll!
However, given a few days to settle in, the students were soon eager and ready to start learning again. I was reminded that, especially, with younger children, their minds absorb information like sponges.
As we enter the final term of 2022, one looks back at the beginning of the year and appreciates just how much they have grown, academically, emotionally and socially.
Kim Coetzer
Year 2 Teacher
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Adventures In Space
In English this week in Year 1. we have been working on our creative writing skills as we dramatised stories of our adventures in Space. Turning our desks upside down in class, we pretended they were our ‘spaceships.’ The students worked in groups and had a lot of fun acting and narrating out their space adventure stories. We then used the ipads to video their stories before writing about them. The class has a lot of fun working together and creating their own space adventures!
Clara Chassungo wrote: “I am going to space, I’m taking my brother, Geraldo and am also taking my mum and dad. We are going to look at all the different planets and we are landing on the moon! We will land at 3 o’ clock in the morning and we see aliens and footprints. We will jump in the sky…”
Buhle Sibiya writes: “ I am going to space so I can see the 8 planets in the galaxy and I am taking Ozzie, she is my friend. We landed on the moon and we saw aliens and we are going to land…”
Charlotte Cronje
Year 1 Teacher
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Saving Water
The students in Year 1 have been studying the topic Earth and Space in their science lessons. They have learnt about the planet Earth and how it is made up of mostly water and that there is not much fresh water on our planet.
We looked at ways we use water at home and how best we can save water. Although they are too young to remember how close we came to ‘Day Zero’, many of the students have learnt to use water sparingly. They were able to come up with a number of ways to save water as well as spot the places where people waste water.
The water saving game was a big hit with the students.
Ann Cordner
Year 1 Teacher
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Litter Challenge
“Educating our children is a key ingredient in the recipe to save our Earth!”
This week our Year 2’s did a school litter pick-up! Before we went out we had a small class discussion where we reminded ourselves about what litter was and chatted a bit about what a good strategy would be in order to cover the area we were going to cover and pick up as much litter as possible. The students were excited at the idea of helping to make their school a cleaner place!
We made a plan to tackle the field and the surrounding areas, a few students carrying some plastic bags for any rubbish to go straight into, all of us walking in our smaller groups across the field making sure to keep a look out for any litter that may be laying around.
All of the students took their role in this clean-up very seriously and seemed to enjoy themselves as they went. Well done Year 2’s, you are making a difference!
Siobhan Hendry
Year 2 Teacher
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Spring Has Sprung In Arts And Craft This Week
“Reuse the past. recycle the present, save the future” – Unknown
In KS1 Arts and Crafts Club, the students have been making use of recycled goods to create a beautiful flower to welcome the start of Spring.
Teaching students about spring helps to develop life skills, observation skills and promotes a love for learning and nature. Helping children notice and celebrate the signs of spring is a wonderful way to sharpen their observation skills. This helps students to learn how to focus, to be present, and live in the moment. Observation skills help people become better writers, scientists, and global citizens. Using nature to teach these skills can shake children and parents alike out of the rut of the normal day-to-day life.
Using recycled goods such as bubble wrap and bottle tops help students realise that these items are goods and not waste. We can reuse them for Arts and Crafts activities, not allowing them to be thrown into bins or left lying around on the floor around us. Teaching students to reduce, reuse and recycle (the three R’s) can create a ripple effect on the lives of their loved ones around them.
We encourage students and parents to continue trying to follow the three R’s.
Year 1 Teacher
Erin Hierse
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Exploring Intaka Island
A very excited group of Year 1 students left school to visit Intaka Island on Thursday, 25 August. After a brief introduction to the origin of Intaka Island and the eco system found there, the students set off in groups to explore this small island in the middle of our busy city. Intaka Island’s wetlands and canals demonstrate how engineering and natural processes can be used to improve the conservation of water.
The students took a walk around the island learning about the medicinal plants and seeing how many animals and birds they could spot from the ‘hide’. We were extremely lucky to walk past a freshwater crab and to spot a Pied Kingfisher and a Malachite Kingfisher.
A highlight for the students is the boat ride on the canals, spotting the birdlife and some pets in the gardens of the townhouses.
Intaka island is a wonderful example of sustainability. They use solar power energy, energy through the use of a wind turbine and various bio digestive systems to supply their own gas and wormery’s to create their own compost and liquid fertilizers. The students learnt all about recycling, compost and the importance of sustainable living. The students also learnt how Intaka Island uses their own grey water and black water system to sustain their building and plant life.
It was a fun, interactive and very informative outing, which you can see from our photos!
Ann Cordner
Year 1 Teacher
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Looking After Our World
For Global perspectives in Year 1 this term, we have been learning about ‘Looking after our world.’ As part of the topic, we have been looking at the problem of ‘litter.’ The list of social problems caused by litter and rubbish is extensive.
Litter creates safety, fire, and a variety of human health hazards because of the organisms attracted to it. Oprah Winfrey says, “If every person picked up just one piece of litter today, there would be over 300 million fewer pieces of litter.”
The Year 1 classes have been on litter walks around the school grounds and picked up litter together. We have also made a classroom display from some of the litter we have found and the class have worked together to raise awareness about litter to educate others in our school. They’ve created some fantastic, colourful and interesting posters to raise awareness about litter in our school environment.
If you would like to view some of their work, it can be found in the Year 1 classes!
Charlotte Cronje
Year 1 Teacher
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The Day The Teachers Became Penguins
The Year 2 classes had visitors yesterday! Educators from SANCCOB came to tell us all about penguins and sea birds. The students thoroughly enjoyed watching videos about all the ways SANCCOB helps injured seabirds and penguins. Did you know that glass takes 1,000,000 years to break down? Plastic takes 200 years to disintegrate. The students were horrified to see some of the photos of how litter could harm these gentle creatures.
There were fun activities as well. In groups, we had to identify good foods and bad foods for seabirds and penguins. However, the highlight of the morning was the dressing up of three teachers in penguin suits! Mrs. Coetzer, Miss Hendry and Teacher Angelique were then ‘assisted’ by groups of students, leading them through the different rehabilitation stages. This included, x-rays, food-giving, receiving medication and finally, gently helping the ‘injured penguins exercise.
Great fun was had by all, even the teachers.
Kim Coetzer
Year 2 Teacher
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