Walk like an Egyptian

On Wednesday we celebrated Egypt Day … in style!  Everyone dressed up as an Egyptian character, from pharaohs, to mummies, to pyramids!  There was great excitement among all the children, as the knowledge that they had gained over the last few days about Egypt seemed to come alive.

Once the photo session was done, we started with our activities for the day.  These included making canopic jars, mummies and sarcophagi out of clay.  We started our research on pyramids, which we will be using during our ILT next week.

And of course we also had to dance to “Walk like an Egyptian”!

Practical and Engaging efforts

Onthouboks Decorating

During the past couple of weeks the children have been engaged with numerous practical tasks. These play a vital role in their development with regard to their use of creativity and stretch them to solve problems and look for solutions. During the course of the last few weeks they had to create a dramatic presentation in a group which would portray the ‘Photosynthesis process’ to others. Good co-operation, self discipline and creative effort is of utmost importance with this task. The children did a good job and we had many a giggle in between all the serious jargon.

Maths was brought alive by beautiful, jade green three dimensional shapes which had to be explored and defined. The morning light captured the interesting shapes with green shadows on their faces. This was also a group activity and the children were left to solve problems in a collaborative fashion.

Glue, glitter, colorful photos, words galore, personal drawings, verses and lovely Afrikaans woordeskat was used to start their ‘Onthouboks’ project. It was lovely to hear the banter and sharing while they spent time decorating their memory boxes which will be used as a visual contribution during an Afrikaans Mondeling which is being developed. Various stages of Afrikaans discussion, written pieces and an interview with themselves will form the basis for this Mondeling. We look forward to seeing the final product. The children are certainly encouraged to let the creative juices flow during these wonderful tasks.

They also did a ‘Dustbin’ exploration where as part of their Social Science curriculum were instructed to decipher certain ‘sources’ which would help them fill in a table about certain people and households. This was once again a lovely hands on task. I can now just leave you with the unbelievable thought that we are halfway through the third term.

Hexagonal Prism … Square Pyramid … Cube ….

As part of our exploration of shapes, the children discovered the names of various three-dimensional shapes by looking at their properties.  Once they had learnt the properties of polyhedrons and prisms, they applied their knowledge as a group and set out naming the shapes – and they were very successful!

Vertel my meer …

Vir Afrikaans het die kinders ‘n taalspeletjie in hulle groepe gespeel, om hulle aan te moedig om te gesels.  Die kinders het antwoorde op vrae voorberei en moes daardie vrae aan hulle groep in volsinne beantwoord wanneer hulle op daardie blok op die bord beland.  Die kompetisie-gees het hoog geloop en die kinders het mekaar beter leer ken.  Hulle het ook dieper vrae beantwoord soos:  Hoe voel jy wanneer iemand jou terg?

Emotions were running high!

We have been taking a closer look at how we are feeling and taking our emotional temperatures.  Some open and honest discussion took place in the classroom and we came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a “wrong” emotion.  The differentiator in our relationships is how we choose to act upon our emotions.  The children worked in pairs to prepare skits that display four different types of emotions.  It made for a good few laughing opportunities, which of course forms part of everyone’s favourite emotion – joy!

Let’s talk about seeds

The children worked in groups to conduct a seed search using a variety of fruits.  Paw-paw, kiwi fruit, tomatoes, avocado pears and many more were brought along for our seed party.  They discovered and recorded the size, shape, position, colour and texture of the seeds and made some beautiful drawings.  Everyone took part in eating the spoils afterwards, even the lemons!

Is it raining today?

As part of our preparation for our Weather task in Social Sciences, the children worked in pairs and used their WeatherSA app to write weather reports for various towns and cities across South Africa.  The children made rain gauges in the Design and Technology classroom, which they are currently using to measure rainfall, while also recording the temperatures and the weather for one week.  All of this information will be collated into a Keynote presentation, along with a written weather forecast for one day of the week.  It would seem that we have quite a few budding climatologists.

 

ILT

Last week the Grade 5’s had their second term ILT where the aim of this ILT was to foster an appreciation of local cultures of Southern Africa and to create an awareness of how culture has influenced housing.

They were put in groups and had to research one of our historic South African cultures.  They had to take the information and present it to the class in the form of an informative dramatic presentation based on fact.  They had to write their plays in the form of a script and then had to perform their play to teach the rest of the class about their specific culture.

In their groups they also had to price a number of materials to help Bob the Builder to build a new house for Mr Preston.  They were given a Builder’s Warehouse catalogue to choose the materials from but had a budget to stick to.

Lastly we then watched a number of videos on the housing in informal settlements and the children then wrote individual blog posts of a day in the life of a child in an informal settlement.

Working together – both challenging and fun!

The last week or two in Grade 5 has often required children to work in pairs or groups, flexing and stretching their collaborative skills.

Afrikaans orals involved working in pairs to plan the script of a conversation about the holidays, using a variety of question words to evoke appropriate answers. English language games in small groups got the children to brainstorm vocabulary and synonyms linked to verbs.

Measuring their partners and then drawing each other to scale, 10 times smaller in their SS Books, was also great fun.

Reading each others’ blogposts and posting positive and polite comments was another way to encourage constructive interaction and the sharing of ideas. Please be sure to read your child’s blog and to also add your encouraging comment!

On a larger scale, during Drama, the Grade 5 classes have been practicing synchronised movement in time to music, which has been beautiful to watch!

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On Wednesday we begin our ILT where group work is integral to successful learning and presentation of the finished product. 

A time to give too…

Great little helper

It has been tremendously ‘ On the Go’ in Grade 5 during the past few weeks, with a multitude of assessments and cycle tests. In the busyness of it all it is just wonderful to stop and think of others too. On Wednesday 17 May we had ‘ One day without shoes’ and we managed to collect 550 pairs of shoes, which will be distributed in DuNoon to those in need. The children came to school barefoot on the day, in order to really get to grips with what it is like to go without shoes for the day. The children certainly rose to the challenge and were wonderfully committed to the cause.

We are all practicing our times tables like crazy at the moment and what better way to do it than with a helpful App on the iPad. Drilling , practicing and testing are beneficial skills to get the children on top of their tables.

During our Social Science lesson the children were introduced to scale and the children did a practical task afterwards. They had to measure each other and then draw a picture of their friends to scale in their school books. The children love seeing how tall they really are.

We have also been having discussions around the topic of bullying and cyber safety during our life orientation lessons. These discussions are invaluable to all and I am sure that the children will continue to benefit from the sharing and opportunity to be informed around these topics.