Quarter 1 Newsletter 2021

6 PREPARATORY FACULTY GRADES 1 - 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From the Principal’s Office Lee-ann Steynberg After an interesting start to the quarter we finally began to settle into the routines of the day and connected with our friends and classmates. A shining moment of the quarter is always the joy we see when our Grade One learners begin the exciting journey of learning to read. The excitement is visible when they put pen to paper and write their first story! This quarter has been a whirlwind of activity from at school, to online, to back to school and not all could be easily captured in our weekly memo. The learning, exploration and discovery has reached across all grades and taken on a variety of forms. As always we say thank you to our educators who invest time in preparing lessons and engaging with learners on this journey. To our parents, thank you for your support and for sharing encouraging emails and words of kindness with us. We wish you a safe holiday and look forward to seeing you all on the 13 April. A GRADE ONE LEARNING ADVENTURE… “You're off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So... get on your way!” - Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go! Our first Quarter of Grade One saw our learners getting on their way with great enthusiasm to learn new things. Taking all the new routines and rules in their stride, they have managed to make school a happy home away from home. We have watched the Grade Ones grow as readers as they learn new sound spellings and sight words every day. This group also loves to build phonemic awareness and skills on their individual dry erase boards. Mathematics class has offered opportunities to think about the world, and the learners have begun studying real-life word problems each day. Many other days like Friendship Day and Dr Seuss’s Birthday were enjoyed, with Friendship Day allowing us to reflect on how important our friends are. The classes were full of red, white and pink and we spent the morning creating with dough. Dr. Seuss’s Birthday brought rhyming to life and we all got to be a part of an assembly. The other highlight to end the Quarter was the Dog Show where our furry friends performed amazing tricks and our Inter House Sports morning where we learnt that agility and teamwork go a long way. Thank you, Grade Ones, for all your hard work, smiles and enthusiasm that have made this first Quarter one to remember. A GRADE TWO LEARNING ADVENTURE… “The more that you read the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you’ll go” - Dr Seuss We celebrated Dr Seuss’ birthday by surrounding ourselves with his stories. The learners explored words and recreated a scene with Thing 1 and Thing 2. Many Grade Two’s are now huge admirers of Dr Seuss! Within and around the classroom, Grade Two learners resembled hives of busy bees as they explored the wonderful world of minibeasts. They pretended to be entomologists who discovered a completely new species of mini beasts. While developing Book Creator skills, they documented their findings and incorporated their 3D pictures designed in Art. They presented orals on various insects and were in awe of some of the interesting insect facts. They also recreated insect movement and sounds in their Drama lessons, and enjoyed an augmented reality encounter with some of the world’s largest bugs during Book Enquiry. As a conclusion to our minibeast project, the Grade Two learners will share their new discoveries with the Grade 5’s. Poetry Day presented an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful sunshine as groups gathered outside to prepare and then present their poems to the class. Ken Nesbitt was the Grade 2 Poet of the Day. Learners also tried their hand at a “Colour” poem which engaged the five senses and encouraged their enjoyment of poetry. The Grade Two learners have progressed in leaps and bounds in all academic areas this first quarter, and we are looking forward to continuing this adventure in the second quarter. A GRADE THREE LEARNING ADVENTURE… Dive into learning! You could start now, And spend another forty years learning about the sea without running out of new things to know - Peter Benchley The Grade Three learners embarked on their journey of exploration and discovery using Under The Sea as a central topic. We learnt poems about sea creatures, figured out sea riddles, completed comprehensions and sailed the seas during creative writing. Learners presented orals on the sea creatures of their choice and told us many interesting facts they learned while researching their topics. Did you know: The pressure at the deepest point in the ocean is equivalent to one person trying to support 50 jumbo jets? Mathematics lessons were filled with bar graphs, sea pictographs, tallies and fun, hands-on practical Maths activities. Our number range grew bigger and our brains were kept stimulated. One of our many highlights was playing, “Who wants to be a Millionaire” to revise the concepts of capacity and mass. ICT was integrated: we created a water safety booklet and a booklet discussing the effects of water pollution on the sea creatures. We started sports, celebrated Friendship Day, World Language Day, we sang Happy Birthday to Dr Seuss and we were entertained by the Incredible Dogs at the end of the quarter. Our learners adjusted to the new curriculum and the increased workload with ease. How exciting it was for us as educators to have all our learners in the classroom (both face to face and some in our virtual classroom). The sounds of laughter fill our hearts! We eagerly await another fun-filled quarter with our Grade Three learners.