This was truly a busy week filled with so many different visitors. Thank you to all of the families that brought their wonderful pets to school for the Squad to have a look at and play with. They truly had so much fun and could not stop talking about them all week! We loved hearing about all the different types of pets that we get, big and small.

Writing and Phonics: We finalised the alphabet this week by learning about Yy and Zz. On Monday, we introduced the phonics part of this where we played games that consisted of finding the letter, and saying words that start with the letter, also those words that rhyme with the letter. Letter formation is very important and should be implemented at a young age so that by the time that they are in Grade 1 they are able to write independently. We ask that you can practice this at home, ask your child to write their name and then see how they are forming their letters. If you need any assistance, we have an open-door policy and can provide extra worksheets.

Maths: Counting is an essential part of Grade R and we have been really working on counting to bigger numbers as the weeks go on. This week we focused on counting to 20, counting backwards from 20, counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10s. The Squad are getting there and are always so excited to learn new things.  We had a fun worksheet for the children to complete, it was a connect the dots and colouring based worksheet. The boys and girls created such colourful fish!

Life Skills: Courage! When asked what courage means, the Squad had some weird and wonderful ideas. However, when we mentioned that it means that we are brave enough to try new things that might scare us, they knew exactly what it means to brave. We truly do have such brave Smart Squaders! Some of them overcame their fears this week with seeing different pets – spiders, bunnies, and dogs. Well done, Squad!

Art: We completed two sets of art pieces this week, one of which was a still life drawing of their pets. We printed out a picture of their pet and then the children had to draw the picture to the best of their ability. They did so well. Our next art piece was a dog or cat creation. The Squad had to use their cutting and pasting skills to create their very own ‘class pet’. These came out so beautifully that we have decided to keep them for the Art Expo. We also added an interesting experiment to the books this week, the ‘rainbow rain’ experiment. We will continue to do more experiments as the weeks go on.

Sight Words: look, at, me, in, here, on, she, he, the, it, is, I

 It has been a lovely week, see you all on Tuesday. Enjoy the long weekend!

Our HAPPY Squad !