High Frequency Words
In term 2, our Reception students have been introduced to High Frequency Words. High Frequency Words otherwise known as sight words, Dolch words, refer to a set of words that most commonly are found on any page of text. Readers need to instantly recognize these words in a text and often the words cannot be sounded out. Readers therefore need to memorise these words in order to read more confidently and fluently. Learning High Frequency Words is an important skill that is incorporated into reading homework. It is therefore essential to learn High Frequency Words in fun ways. Listed below are some ideas for flash card games:
Flash Cards Games
- Can you find? Lay cards on a table. Ask the student to find a given word. If they find it, they keep it. Keep going until all the cards are picked up.
- Who has more? Show the cards to the student. If they read the word within 5 seconds, they keep the cards – if not the parent keeps the cards, the goal is that the student has more cards at the end.
- Concentration – Using double copies of words take turns turning over 2 cards at a time, trying to make a match. The player must read the words correctly to get the match.
- Go fish – Use double copies of cards, pass out all by 5-6 of the words. Put these in a stack face down on the table. Look for matches in your set of cards. (each player must be able to read the word or the set goes in the stack on the table. Take turns asking each other for cards to make matches. The person with the most matches at the end is the winner.
- Slap Jack – Draw a star on a blank flashcard. Place this star card and the other flashcards face down on the table. Take turns turning over a card and reading a word. When the star card is turned over, the first player to slap it wins.
Bronwen Nuthall
Reception Year Teacher
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Pre-Reception Learning All About Reptiles
For the past week, Pre-Reception have been learning about Reptiles. They loved painting and making different Reptiles. The students also played games like snakes and ladders, learnt various Reptile rhymes and songs.
The highlight of the week was definitely when the Reptile Man came to visit, bringing his great collection of snakes, lizards, geckos and tortoises.
Some Reptile facts the students have learnt:
- All reptiles lay shelled eggs.
- A reptile breathes air.
- They have bony shells or are covered in scales.
- Majority of reptiles are cold-blooded.
- The most diverse reptiles are snakes and lizards.
- Most eat insects and small animals.
Our students were very brave and eager to touch and learn about the various reptiles. They couldn’t stop talking about all the wonderful things they saw during the special presentation by the Reptile Man.
Cindy Nunan
Pre-Reception Teacher
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The Brothers Grimm
What do ‘Snow White’, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Rapunzel’ have in common?
They share the fact that they were first written down and published in a book over 200 years ago by The Brothers Grimm. Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm born in Hanau near Frankfurt in Germany studied to be lawyers and later became university professors, but their most loved hobby was collecting stories, especially fairy tales. This led them on a trip across Germany and Europe in search of all the many folk songs and folklore that was rich to those areas. In 1812, they first published ‘The Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ in two volumes called Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales) with over 200 stories that have endured to this day for the young and old.
One of these perhaps lesser-known stories ‘Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten’ (The Bremen Town Musicians) came to life in the German classroom in Book Week this term.
The Year 1-6 students were all introduced to The Brothers Grimm and enjoyed watching and listening to the fairy tale all about the four animals. Der Esel (the donkey), der Hund (the dog), die Katze (the cat) and der Hahn (the rooster) were on the way to Bremen (a city in the north of Germany), to become the town musicians after no longer being of any use to their owners. On the way, they had some adventures and learnt that through teamwork anything could be accomplished.
The students especially loved singing along to the song with much enthusiasm:
Wir sind die Bremer Stadtmusikanten-holla-di-ladio! (We are the Bremen town musicians- Holla-di-ladio.)
Der Esel macht I-Ah, I-Ah.
Der Hund der macht Wau-Wau, Wau-Wau.
Die Katze macht Miau, Miau.
Der Hahn macht Kikeriki, Kikeriki.
Sie singen so wunderbar! (They sing so wonderfully!)
It was wunderbar to be part of Book Week and celebrate ‘How do you Book?’ by bringing to life a fairy tale with a song.
Click here for the link to the music and the song to sing along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUU5gNPpJ70
Frau K. Pani
Primary School German Teacher
WATCH:
Reference:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Brothers-Grimm
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Multi-Sensory Learning
The importance of teaching and learning with more than just sight and sound lessons.
Multi-sensory learning has the benefit of reinforcing strengths, improving students’ weaknesses and assisting the brain in making connections between current knowledge and the new knowledge that is being taught. It also helps students who differ in learning styles to make concrete connections during the lesson.
In the BIS Library – learning is dynamic, engaging and often involves more than three of the body’s senses. The ‘/j/’ sound lesson is the perfect example of a lesson where students are facilitated in remembering the sound by tasting jelly. After singing the jolly phonics song for ‘/j/’, they move their bodies like wobbling jelly and read a book about jelly. The students then have the opportunity to enjoy smelling and tasting some jelly. Multi-sensory lessons seem more like playing than learning to children and as research has shown, this is one of the best means for children’s brains to make connections and store information.
Facilitating learning through the senses is important, in particular learning to read because reading always leans towards sight and sound. Reading is an abstract concept that requires concrete learning methods in its teaching, and not only for those who need it with regard to their learning styles.
Kirsten Stoffberg
School Librarian and Teacher
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Book Week 2022: Foundation Phase And How To Ensure Success When Reading With Your Child
From the 3rd to 6th of May, we celebrated Book Week throughout the school. We do this to help foster a love and excitement for books and reading. There was a wide variety of fun and interesting events that took place.
On Tuesday, Hooked on Books came to school to entertain the students. They performed short excerpts from age appropriate books and the students even got to act out a poem with the actors’ guidance.
On Wednesday evening, the students joined their teachers in their pyjamas for hot chocolate and bedtime stories. It was an evening full of laughter, cuddles and creating fond memories with friends.
Throughout the week, The Book People gave students the opportunity to peruse a large variety of books and some purchased a book to add to their home library.
On Friday we had a character dress up day. It was wonderful seeing the creativity and pride that the children took in dressing up. During the week, Reception and Pre-Reception classes also swapped teachers at story time so that they could listen to the stories represented in the other classrooms.
Below are some tips you can use at home to make reading fun and to ensure success when reading with your child:
When you are creating fun reading activities for your children, you need to be excited about the activity too. You want to create something that is worth your child’s time to sit, listen, and learn. Here are some tips to help you succeed:
- Have a happy voice: Children are smart. If your voice is monotone and you are trying to cram in a book before bedtime, they will know it. Make your voice sound excited when you read the words. Remember to smile and have fun!
- Take your time: Plan ahead to make sure you have enough time to read before nap and bedtime. You don’t want to do fun reading activities when you or your kids are tired. They will be less likely to be engaged.
- Read over or skim the book before you get it: I found many books were not appropriate for children. They had things in there I was not ready to discuss at their young age. Protect their innocence and choose books that represent the same values you stand for at home.
- Don’t quit: Your children may not be excited at first. Keep working at it. Try different things to see what works. Don’t give up. Reading needs to be a lifelong skill that gets encouraged from when your children are young.
- Empower your children: Get your children to pick out books, give them a choice between two fun reading activities, let them pick out which book to read at bedtime, or let them choose a book to give another child as a birthday present. All these things give them ownership. If they come up with the idea or make the decision themselves, they are more likely to be engaged.
Kim Hahn
Reception Year Teacher
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Key Stage 2 Book Week 2019
The history of our beautiful land can only be depicted through the magnificent stories and writings told by our talented authors. This week BIS has dedicated Book Week to honor our South African Children’s Authors.
On deciding to do this, I, myself had surprisingly made the discovery of how many brilliantly written local children’s books existed. I took some time to read a few books, and was touched by the realities and beauties of our very own land. It is so important for us to pass on the diversity of cultures and heritage to our children and the best way to do this is through a book.
On Tuesday we were fortunate enough to receive a visit from an amazingly talented South African Children’s author, Lori-Ann Preston.
“Lori-Ann Preston is an award-winning children’s author who lives in East London. She won the Golden Baobab Prize in 2016 for her Early Chapter Book, The Ama-Zings! Her picture books, Mr Cocka-Rocka-Roo and Snails Have Feelings, Too! were short- and long listed for the same prize, respectively. She holds a BEd Honours degree from the University of South Africa and spent 20 years as an educator.”
A magical week was had by all. We had many other visitors and events at our school, “Help the Rural Child” mobile book shop, “Hooked on Books”, Story Book Character Dress up day and a Cake sale, all of which makes Book Week something to look forward to every single year.
“When we read we are able to travel to many places, meet many people and understand the world”
-Nelson Mandela
Let us continue to empower and grow young minds through reading. Happy reading all.
Nadia Mahomed
Year 5 Teacher
From the Principal’s Desk, 22 August 2019
Dear Parents
This has been an exciting week as we celebrated Book Week in our junior school.
We had a visit from South African author Lori-Ann Preston who addressed our Key Stage 2 students. She is a seasoned South African educator with more than twenty years of experience. She has a Bachelor of Education Honours Degree through the University of South Africa.
Lori-Ann won the Golden Baobab Prize in 2016 for her Early Chapter book ‘The Ama-zings!’, a fast-moving, fun-filled adventure story, and received the New Writer of the Year award in 2016 from the South African Writer’s Circle.
She just launched another book called “Thabo, the Space Dude“ which promises to be an interesting and compelling read to our children.
Our choir participated in the West Coast Song Festival last night and the organisation of the event at Woodbridge Primary was exceptional. Thank you to all the parents who came to support our choir.
On Friday we will have our Storybook Dress-up Day and we are looking forward to our students creative costume ideas. This promises to be a fun-filled day at school, signaling the end of another successful Book Week.
Next week we have the opening of our high school’s 2019 musical ‘Little Shop of Horrors. It has been was such a pleasure to see how actively this was promoted by our students this morning as they sang and danced in the car park, inviting parents to come and see the production. They have all worked tremendously hard over the past months to ensure we have a potentially award winning show.
I wish you a wonderful weekend ahead.
Kind regards
Edna