Class Teacher - Mrs Ju-Koningswoud

Teaching Assistant - Davie

Welcome back after the Christmas holidays! We are happy to meet again after the holidays and we are welcoming two new children in our Songani Class. It was great to catch up in the first week: telling each other stories about the holidays, finding out how many sounds we still remember and playing and learning in our role play area.

We started our new topic 'All about me'. We decided to set up a hospital in our role play area. We will learn about our body parts, our senses and all about the different roles in a hospital and their tasks (nurse, doctor, patient). We have to sign in at the reception (writing activities), count the tablets when we hand out the patient's medication (counting activities) and write a report about the patient showing the heart beat, temperature, height, weight and the reason for coming to the hospital (writing/reading/maths activities). 

Once a week we're going for a sound hunt or word hunt in our classroom. It's called 'Read the room': walking around in pairs, looking for sounds, sounding them out, writing them on our whiteboards and sharing all the sounds you found on the carpet with your friends...... great learning!

Our great learning is taking place every day, even during the last weeks of term 1. We are still enjoying outdoor learning (as little scientists), we are able to jump in and start floating during the swimming lessons, making beautiful art and we use our fancy reading glasses to read words!

Songani shared their learning in an amazing class assembly! There was dancing, singing and an update about the topic 'water'. They also showed their great reading and counting skills. Well done to all the children for a wonderful performance.

During DT Day we made our journey through different fruits together with 'The very hungry caterpillar'. We looked at the different shapes and structures before and after cutting the fruits from the story in smaller pieces. We also used some of the pieces to print our own caterpillar or butterfly with paint. And of course....we ate the fruits after all.

Songani's (Reception Class) role play area changed into Mulunguzi Dam because of our visit just before half term. Visitors to the dam have to buy a ticket before they enter the Dam. They can go for a picnic or a boat trip after that. People working at the Dam are busy measuring the water level (in the 'tower'), catching fish and selling the tickets. They have to keep a record of everything in their journal.

In the last week before half term Songani Class went to the Mulunguzi Dam (together with Nawimbe Class). We visited the Dam because of our topic about water. We saw the main source of our tap water in Zomba. We had fun and learnt a lot more about water during this trip. It was lovely to have so many parents joining us!

This week we had some parents coming in to give mini-workshops about life skills around the topic water. They showed us how to bath a baby, how to do the laundry and how to wash the dishes. We could all give it a try and we are capable of helping our parents at home too. It will also improve our skills by playing in the role play area (the house).

Our first (whole school) topic is about 'Water'. We talked about different ways of using water in the house first. In our role play area are we busy doing the laundry, washing the dishes, cooking, bathing baby Rosa and drinking tea. Our builders at the construction site are busy with creating a network of pipes for the water from our tap.

We had a lovely first week in Songani Class. We're happy to have 27 children joining our great learning. Look at the pictures and get an idea of our play based learning (activities), snack time, carpet sessions and swimming lessons.

Our topic for term 3 in Songani is about wild animals. There is one wild animal to learn more about for every week. In our role play area our rangers and explorers go on a safari in a jeep and are staying at the campsite in a National Park. 

We went to Mrs. Ju's garden to hunt for the big five (BBC Earth) and the little five. We played games about wild animals too. And we had our class picnic on the deck... we had a great time!

We went for a safari walk on our school ground as little explorers. With our safari hats and binoculars we found amazing things.......baboons, butterflies, feathers, beautiful flowers, dragonflies, ants, etc.

Our writing that morning was all about our great experiences.

In Songani's construction corner are we building cars, houses and other buildings with wood. 

After a lot of learning about the farm (how does our garden grow?) in our classroom, we went on a trip to Mrs. Pambala's house. She taught us how to plant maize, add fertilizer, plant sweet potatoes and sugar canes and we had a look at the different crops in her field. That was a great adventure!

We enjoyed working with clay in Songani Class. Our Secondary students showed us how to make a clay pot and after that we tried to make one out of playdough first. The next day we were able to make our own clay pots.

For the second half of term 2 we are learning about 'Farming': how does our garden grow? We are working at the farm in our classroom. We've got a garden with beans and groundnuts growing, we've got a barn with some farm animals and every morning we have to check how many eggs we can find in our chicken house. Because we have to show that every day in our chart on the chalkboard.

By coming back after the Christmas holidays we started a new topic. We are learning and playing around the topic 'My Toys'. In our role play area we have a toy shop at the moment with shopkeepers and customers. It helps us to get better at counting and adding small numbers. We practice our number formation in our handwriting lessons to be able to write a receipt for our customers. Besides all this great learning we are still working on our blending and segmenting, counting by 2's and 10's and writing short words. And......our bookcorner has got a special reading cave at the moment.......we really enjoy our reading in there!

While we are learning and playing about a topic, we love to go somewhere for a visit or bringing the real world into our classroom. Around the topic 'Toys' we had a visitor coming in. He showed us how to make a car from wire. 

During our topic about the history of Sir Harry's we talked about the past. In our own families we have different generations, our journey of life. In our role play area we went from the house to our grandparents house for a sleepover. But everything starts by talking about which family member you want to be that day....

By talking about our families we also found out that taking pictures is important when you have that special family time. That was one of the reasons to create a photographer's studio in our role play area.

For our Science Week about 'Exploration and Discovering' we made a bug hotel. Every day we were counting how many bugs were visiting our hotel. It was interesting to compare our predictions to the results in our chart. 

We also planted beans during Science Week. It's great to watch them growing. First at the window, then outside in the garden.

For DT Day this term the whole school was preparing food from the past. Our Songani Class was cooking nsima, vegetables and bean soup. We went to the market to buy charcoal, flour and vegetables. We had great help from Liya's Mum, Dylan's Mum and Dylan's grandparents. After cutting, washing, cooking and preparing everything it was finally time to enjoy the yummy food!

We visited a construction site because of our great learning is about how our school was built in the past. We saw the cement mixer, the construction workers measuring the ground and using the bricks to build the new building, etc. 

In 1959 they were planting a tree in front of our school. Mr. Ben could tell us everything about it. We went to the new Secondary building to have a look and planted our own 'Songani tree' in the garden there. 

Our first topic is 'The History of Sir Harry's'. This is a whole school topic. In our Songani Class we will be focusing on 'Time travel....me and my school'. In our role play area we have a buidling site at the moment. That's the place where our construction workers are making plans and realizing the most impressive buildings.