Where has the time gone?

Wow it's been nearly 2 months since my last post and much has happened. We had our annual Christmas Concert and prize giving. We had a lovely Christmas vacation of 3 weeks. Lovely hot weather, a visit from the American family and myd her brother and partner. The weeks just flew by and sooo it was back to school time!

I decided to go with a superhero theme this year and thanks to twinkl and all those lovely teachers that pin on pinterest I have some lovely charts and desk labels.I made the superheroes to look like my children and put each child's initials on the round label in the front so they all had to find which one they were.
We are now into week three and I cannot believe how little the children read - is it that they are lazy? the work is too advanced? or have they just not been taught how to read instructions? So this week I am concentrating on making them READ instructions not listen to Instructions - Lots of anchor charts are the order of the day!I will let you know how it goes!
Reading other blogs I noticed a lot of 100 day activities - still so far away for us!

Children of the World Day



Dressed to the 'nines'.

 It has been a long time since our last blog and a lot has happened. We celebrated 'Children of the World' by dressing up as children from various countries. We also tasted foods from selected countries (our class did USA and Holland). A great time was had by all and they all looked lovely - even the teachers got in on the act!







Friends.





Sweet girls.





Pretty teachers!





Beauty!

A good time was had by all!

Smarties!

This week my 'smarties' worked with 'Smarties'. Each child had to bring a 40g box of 'Smarties' to school. First we estimated how many sweets there were in our box.Next we counted them. Then a variety of tasks had to be done. How many of each colour?  Which colour had the most?  Least? Subtract and add problems etc. Well they certainly worked hard and the payoff? Well neat work was done by all!!! and of course they ate the 'Smarties at break time- What a good job!

 Let's put all the colours together!

 Mmmm! I wonder if it will make any difference if I eat one now?

 Add them all up and what have I got?

 What do you think?

 Does it have the answer on the box?

24, 25, 26...

Fun Run and Ocean animal projects

Well our annual Fun Run went off without a hitch and the weather was perfect except for the wind which decided to blow stronger as the day progressed!
Then Friday was project day and all the Grade 2 children ( except 1 - there always has to be one!) arrived with their projects. We had such a lovely variety although sharks were of course a favourite. I had allowed any type of format - poster, book, model etc. So we have a lovely variety of works. I am so proud of them - well done you are all stars!

Regatta

Well we spent the weekend catering for the school's regatta ( about 12 private schools from Western and Eastern Cape get together once a year to row against one another for the weekend). We raise funds by catering for them - breakfast and lunch only. This year was a very cold and wet weekend with many schools from the Eastern Cape wondering if they would be able to get home due to flood washing away roads - luckily they all got home safely! Naturally everyone was exhaused by the end on Sunday! Well  done ladies you were stars!


Rain, rain go away!




101, 102, 103 - keep going!




3 exhaused ladies!




Our Headmistress doing her bit!



African Penguins and natural forests

 Last week was African Penguin day and the children did some lovely pictures of penguins.

We have also celebrated Arbor day and the children are very aware of our forests (We are so lucky to be surrounded by indigenous forests) I felt that a lesson on drawing 'proper trees' with light and shadow was in order and the kids did me proud - not one lollipop tree!



Busy drawing!





Some finished products.



 I also want to post a picture of the children using our spelling mat. They jump from letter to letter and spell out the weekly words - this has helped some of my weaker spellers - hurrah!!!!

Next weekend is our annual Fun Run at Leisure Isle - lots of fun for all!!!!!

Coastal Clean up day.

After a lovely 2 week break it was back to work for the final term! A hectic week getting the kids back into the swing of things in what I hope will be a more restful and less stressful term ( high hopes with reports, concert and Eco file looming!) As it is Coastal clean up week we ended the week off with a clean up of the lagoon area. We took a walk up to the lovely walkway overlooking Thesen Island and boy did we pick up a lot of litter and junk. Each piece had to be recorded by the group leader so that we could tally up the types of litter found for the Nature Conservation Group. The children did feel so important with their clipboards, gloves, bags and were very earnest in their duty. When we were 'all done!" We dropped off the litter at the waste depot and were treated to a demonstration of the conveyer dumping the rubbish into the compactor. The rubbish in our town is road railed to Mosselbay to be burned as we no longer have a landfill area. In order for it to be cost effective the rubbish is compacted before it is loaded onto the trucks.

Ready to go!

Thesen Island behind us!

Picking up and recording with Teacher Margaret's help!

Outside the waste depot.

Inside!

Pointing out the process!

Up the conveyer belt goes our waste!

A most enjoyable and educational outing!