A unique Primary School, offering a British based, child centred education in the Turks and Caicos Islands
The children and teachers throughout the school were very excited to meet a real life Canadian Mountie, Mr. Mark Larkin. The first thing the Year 1 and 2 children noticed were his big shiny brown boots! Dressed in his full uniform, he talked to the children about where he was from in Canada and then he read the book ‘M is for Mountie’ (which he kindly donated to our school library).
Last Thursday, as part of the Year 5/6/7’s History lesson, Mrs Karine organised a mini Olympics, based on the 5 events of the pentathlon. The children were split into 5 teams, Argos, Corinth, Athens, Sparta and Megara and all took part in a sprint, arm wrestle, discus, javelin or standing jump. As we have learned, the 5 city states were very competitive, and our children were wonderful in role. We definitely had lots of cheating Spartans! It was a great morning with the Athenians coming out as the overall winners. Well done, everyone!
Outdoor Adventurous Activities is a unit of study that is part of our PE curriculum. In this unit, children take part in simple orientation activities using maps and diagrams. They are set physical challenges and problems to solve, and work on their own and in small groups. An important part of the learning is to observe what they and others have done and use their observations to improve their performance.
At the end the unit, Year 2 children invited their mums and dads to come and find some treasure! The children worked on developing their instruction, thinking and movement skills while they created their own trails and maps for their parents to follow. The children watched carefully to see if the parents worked collaboratively, listening and helping each other in their groups, just as they had needed to do when they created the Treasure Trails.
Super work was achieved and it was lots of fun had too. Oh, and parents… the children said you worked successfully together, using great collaborative skills. Well done, we hope you enjoyed the treasure you all found, too.
Year 2 have been working out some challenging subtraction number sentences in Numeracy today. They involved subtracting a two-digit tens number from a three-digit tens number, crossing the hundreds barrier! We teach children to use mental methods when appropriate but when faced with a calculation that they cannot do in their heads, they are encouraged to use an efficient written method. How would you work out 220 – 70? What strategies would you use to help you?
The Preschoolers have been exploring, learning and having conversations about seeds, leaves, soil, flowers and thinking about “How things grow”.
They have been enjoying our sensory table working with real dirt using rakes, spades, and shovels. The Science table has had an array of leaves, plants, seeds and books to explore. The children have made threaded bird feeders and have hung them around the school for the birds to eat. They have also created their own flower and plant pictures.
The children are particularly excited to share with you their latest recipe for “Dirt cake”. They made it together using chocolate pudding, gummy worms, marshmallows, and crumbled up wheat and dairy free chocolate cookies: – ). After a thorough mixing, the “Dirt Cake” was shoveled into a pot and a beautiful flower planted in it. Moments later, it was served up with a spade and enjoyed by all! See the photos of our all of our fun activities.
Congratulations to all our teams who played well in the Inter-School Soccer Tournament.
Our under 11 boys played really well and were commended for their team spirit and tremendous efforts.
Both of our under 13 girl and boy teams successfully reached the finals and came second place. The boys team was praised for their amazing come back from 3-nil down at half time to 3-2 by the end of the match, almost equalising at the end. They played really well as a team, with players ranging from 9 – 12 years old competing against a team with mainly 12 year olds. One of our nine year olds received the ‘Most Valuable Player’ trophy.
Well done, everyone.
Year 5 have been using their observational skill to look closely at the different elements of still life paintings from the contemporary artists Jereme, Vicini Genevivien, Hundertwasser and the impressionist, Matisse.
Click below to see all of the beautiful, colourful and vibrant pictures. Fantastic artwork, Year 5!
On Friday afternoon Year 1 and 2 invited parents in to join in with their final theme week activities. Year 1 worked in groups to create the tallest newspaper tower they could build and Year 2 designed chairs for Barnaby Bear. They also shared some of their work that they had done over the week. It was also an opportunity for Year 2 to play the board games with their parents, which they had made about famous great thinkers I played the Florence Nightingale game and learned lots of new facts about her life. See a slideshow of photos of the afternoon.
We ended our theme week with an opportunity for the children to come to school dressed up as a great thinker. We saw a wide variety of characters and everyone was able to express why they thought their chosen character was a great thinker. The teachers all dressed as Provo Primary Students to celebrate the fact that we all think that our students are great thinkers!
Early Years opened an Art Gallery to display and sell the fantastic creative art work that the children have produced during this week’s theme week. Pieces went from 25 cents to $2 with families pleased to take home their child’s masterpieces. All the classes in the school also enjoyed seeing what the younger children in the school had been working on during their theme week activities. What a wonderful way to end this enjoyable week.
In keeping with our ‘Great Thinkers’ Theme Week, we hosted a fun, family quiz night. It was a great night, with eleven teams made up of international members, young and old. Well done to everyone who came along and participated and thank you to all the members of staff who helped out.
I couldn’t resist putting up these great photos of Year 2 thinking about ‘who or what made the tracks?’, today’s daily challenge thinking question. After much deliberation, the class decided that it was elephants that made the tracks. They chose to work together in groups to create the elephants as junk models.
Click bleow to take a look at the elephants and to see the children in further thought… I wonder where the elephant was going? Where in the world were tracks were found? What were the tracks found in… mud, sand, chocolate, butter? Shall we follow them? I love the deep in thought expressions on the children’s faces as perhaps they ponder these questions.
Mrs. Shara presented a creative challenge in Gym class as part of our Thinking Skills Theme Week. The children were given a famous quote and were asked to imaginatively interpret the essence and meaning of these through movement. Forming small groups of 3, they discussed their ideas and began exploring the concepts. At the end, they performed their creative pieces to their classmates, who tried to guess what the quote was about.
Today’s Theme Week challenge for our mixed aged teams was to create the best hat they could out of newspaper. Within a time limit of 20 minutes, a frenzy of designing, cutting, taping and decorating took place, with teams working together, listening and talking with each other, adapting ideas and overcoming challenges. The children really enjoyed the activity and there were lots of smiles as they completed the task and shared their team creations. What really struck us all was the complete diversity in the finished hats. No hats were the same, with each group creating them for different characters, occasions and climates. From crowns to caps, business hats to beach sombreros, helmets to sailor hats – what amazing creativity! Which one would you wear? See a slideshow of the children busily making the hats and see the final products being modelled.
The Early Years began their Theme Week of “Creative Minds at Work” by collaborating to create a story together. The Preschool, Junior Kindergarten, and Kindergarten all sat in a circle in the Preschool Room and together made up a wonderful tale. They decided to add illustrations to it and also to retell the story in their individual classrooms, revising it if desired. What a wonderful way to celebrate Literacy, the creative imagination of a child and the wonder of storytelling. The stories can be found displayed in the walkways or in the classes. Do come and enjoy them.
Our Thinking Week theme week started off with great success today, with ‘guess the character’ posters, daily class challenges, mixed-age team challenges and lots of classroom activities to keep them thinking all day long! See a slideshow of some of today’s activities. A big thank you to all the teachers who have worked hard to plan and organise activities both for their own classes and the whole school.
Thinking skills are becoming essential tools in our rapidly changing global information age. We want our children to be able to analyze information, make decisions and come up with creative ideas on how to solve problems. Over this week, we strive to ask questions and provide fun activities that will deepen the children’s thinking, encourage them to think logically and critically, to work together with others and celebrate their individuality and amazing creativity.