Namaste!

This week we are in India. One of our pre-school teachers, Vanessa, has recently come back from India. She went to learn to become a yoga teacher. She stayed in in Ashram in the south of India. She came and told us all about her visit. It was very interesting to hear about all the things she did. To finish off she taught us a few yoga positions.

Once she had gone we ended off our introduction to India by attempting to learn the steps of the Jai Ho dance, from slumdog millionaire! We will have to keep on practicing!

Shopkeepers - Tye and Swara

Tye and Swara had a variety of goodies in their shop. I was pleased to see how confident they were when adding up and giving change. 

Making Gods Eyes

Last Friday, we ended off our time in Mexico by weaving God's Eyes. Originally the Mexicans made these when their children were born. They believed that they would protect them from evil spirits. Today they are made mainly as decorations. 

Some children found it a bit tricky to start, but soon they got the hang of it, and were so pleased with the end result.

Paralympics

We have been watching the progress of the South African athletes at the Paralympics. We were so proud of Ntando who is only 14 and won a silver medal.  He ran 200m in 24 seconds - we wanted to go out and see how fast we could run that distance.

It was raining so we will try tomorrow instead. We looked up in YouTube and found out all about him.  

This lead to discussions on other Paralympians - we were so amazed at how people without limbs can swim so well.

 

Then the discussion turned to the amazing things these physically challenged people do - we tried writing names with our toes and mouths.

I could see how intrigued my class was, so tomorrow we are going to have our own Paralympics - with a few challenging events lined up - watch out for the photos.

Shop keepers - Kaydon and Kripa

There was so much excitement today as we started our weekly shop keeper.  A practical way for children to gain confidence by working with money.

Kaydon and Kripa were fantastic shop keepers. They had a wonderful selection of goods. They confidently added up the prices of their goods and easily gave change. Well done!

Save our trees!

Both Brazil and Mexico have rain forests. But sadly today they are diminishing with devastating results. These rain forests are home to more than half of the worlds total plant and animal species.

Mexico has thousands of Monarch butterflies that migrate there every year, but deforestation is having a huge impact on this. 

After discussing the effects of deforestation we made posters about saving trees that are on display outside the classroom. Do come and see them.

Matadors in mexico!

 In Mexico the sport of bull fighting is very much alive. I showed my class a few clips of matadors in action. The boys of course loved the gory aspect, and the girls of course didn't! The videos inspired a huge amount of discussion! I therefore decided to separate the boys and girls and try and get them to debate the pros and cons. The boys had to say why bull fighting had to continue and the girls tried to convince us that it must stop.

This was a very difficult exercise for them, but it was very interesting to see what they came up with. What we all discovered is that it was easier to say that it had to continue, mainly from the money it generates. Hence one of the reasons why it is still a popular sport in Mexico today. One or two children said that we should bring all the bulls to South Africa where they would be safe!

Super stars of the week

Congratulations to our Gold Medal winners of the week!

Kaydon our very own champion!

Kaydon recently won the Championship trophy at the KZN Maths Championship. He was one of the youngest in his level writing with Grade 4 children. he made the National team to represent KZN in October in Johannesburg!
What a fabulous achievement Kaydon, we are so proud of you!

Henri Matisse cut outs

Whilst in 'France' we learnt about the famous artist Hemri Matiesse. After years and years of hard work behind him, he decided to make his artwork using paper cut outs. I showed my class a number examples of his work. It may appear to be simple, but they were to discover that it was not as easy at it looked. Looking at the finished product, I am must impressed! 

World map

I am impressed at how well my class is able to recognise the continents and oceans. A big part of of this was the fact that they were all involved in making a big map for our display. Each group of children were responsible for a different continent. Sadly I was off sick when they did this so I dont have any photos. But the finished product looks amazing!

Around the world

Each week we have traveled to a new country - so far we have visited France, Brazil and Mexico. To start we made our passports that are stamped as we reach our new destination. There is so much excitement as we learn about each new destination.

passport control

Enjoying a baguette
and cheese from France

Third term activities.

I cant believe how fast this term is going. it is the third week already and I haven't got to post  anything. So here is a catch up with what has been going on so far!


Mandela Day
We started the term on Mandela Day. I discussed with my class the ways we could make a difference, not just on Mandela day, but always. We wrote some of the ways we could help on individually designed 'Madiba' shirts

Time

We are almost finished with time now, but we made clocks that have really helped with the understanding of time, especially when it comes to the 'to' times, which many find difficult.

Round the world
This term we are travelling the world! Seeing that the Olympics are on in Rio, it is the perfect theme to do so. 

I am sure that many of you would have noticed that each classroom has decorated their doors. We had an Olympic draw, our class drew Chile. We made little characters dressed in traditional clothes and put them around a volcano. Chile has more than 1200 volcanoes, many of them still active.

We made Olympic rings for book covers.

Gold medalists.

Well done to these superstars from last week, they were awarded gold medals for their efforts.