A unique Primary School, offering a British based, child centred education in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Who is Iggy Peck and have you heard his fantastic story? Year 1 was introduced to ‘Iggy Peck the Architect’ by one of the children in the class (They love this story because their Dad is an architect). An architect is someone who designs buildings and structures. In the story, Iggy builds a suspension bridge from boots, tree roots and strings, fruit roll-ups and other things. Year 1 decided to see if they could follow Iggy Peck and build their own bridges.
A big thank you to all of the children and parents who made Teacher Appreciation Day such a special day for all of our teachers today. The smiles, thoughtful messages, letters and cards, generous gifts, lunch duty cover and delicious luncheon were a wonderful expression of thanks for all they do. Thank you everyone – your appreciation was truly heart-warming.
Over the past few weeks in Year 2, the children have been exploring measurement. We have looked at measuring cups, rulers, weighing scales and thermometers to figure out how to accurately find out the length/ height, capacity, weight and temperature (how hot or cold) of various objects found around our school. We also thought about where we have seen different examples of the those kinds of measuring tools, such as the scales in the fruit and vegetable area at IGA and the scales at the doctor’s office.
Every Friday afternoon our KS1 and 2 classes gather together outside for our Celebration Assembly – a time to share and appreciate great effort, attitudes and achievements within the school.
Often, we find the need to pause patiently for a moment to wait for the distant rumble of an aeroplane flying overhead to fade (rather than see this as an noisy interruption, we sometimes wave to the tourists on board and wish them a wonderful holiday or return journey home). From the skies this past Friday, however, we heard rather a lot of squawking!
Looking up, it would appear that many birds seemed to want to be part of our assembly, perching to watch, gliding and swooping as they sang. The birds were American Kestrels, bird of prey in the Turks and Caicos Islands that are members of the falcon family. They are also known a Sparrow Hawks.
What a fantastic start to kick off Kindergarten’s new topic Roots, shoots and leaves. Kindergarten were lucky enough to receive an invitation to visit an amazing garden belonging to one of our families. In case you didn’t know they have a garden that is full of seeds, vegetables, plants, trees and compost.
The first part of our garden tour included an explanation of what the different parts of a plant were. Lots of us discovered they have roots, stems, leaves and flowers. We also talked about what a plant needs to grow…water, nutrients, light and carbon dioxide!
Then we got to smell, touch and taste some of the plants they grow and also got to plant some seeds… [Read more…]
During MindUp this term one of the things we have been talking about in Year 3 is the word ‘Gratitude’. We had lots of fun making our Gratitude Post Box, plus thinking, talking, discussing and role playing what the word actually meant! After much deliberation, we came to the conclusion that to us it meant being ‘truly truly thankful’ for all good things, however big or small that passes our way.
Thank you to all our Early Years’ Jingle Jammers! Our festive bonanza, ‘Jingle Jam’ was a fun event for our younger children and families back in December and generated a whopping $1,101 to go towards teaching and learning equipment for our Early Years Unit.
Well, we are very pleased to report that our new resources have arrived and are already making a ‘splash’ and being enjoyed by our younger students! Here are some photos of our amazing new ‘Water Wall’ and new replacement ‘Caterpillar’. It was lovely to hear and see the children’s excitement when they saw these new resources for the first time. They are both great additions to our playground area – I think the children’s faces and focused involvement in the photos demonstrates this clearly. [Read more…]
Here are some photos of our Preschool children enjoying World Book Day. See them dressed up as nursery rhyme characters, choosing books at our Book Swap and enjoying reading them in different places – like our garden area and playground – you read anywhere! Our activities are a super example of how home and school are working together to develop a love of reading. Thank you everyone for making our Preschool World Book Day such fun!
Read on to see more photos and read an interesting article from ELTLearning.com on 5 Reasons Why Reading Habits Are Important.
The home is the first learning environment for young children and parents are their first teachers. It is the best place to begin the cultivation of reading habits. Here is a great booklet with ways to promote reading at home.
Once again Education Week was a fantastic success in Early Years. With a great number of parents coming to see their child’s progress throughout Education week, SK decided to take the opportunity to showcase not only their most recent Talk4Writing story, The Enormous Turnip, but the previous ones too – The Three Little Pigs and The Little Red Hen. One of the major elements the children have enjoyed when learning the Talk4Writing stories is the opportunity to practise it in Spanish too. With our talented Spanish teacher, Mrs. Yorka, the SK class can not only name the single nouns such as animals and people in the stories, but elements of story telling language as well. What makes this even more exciting is that for some of these children, they are learning another language in school in addition to already speaking two or even three languages at home. They really are a talented bunch! Please take the time to watch our video of the children performing La Gallinita Roja (The Little Red Hen) in Spanish.
A proud moment for Provo Primary when our Science Team were announced 1st place winners in the FortisTCI Annual National Science and Technology Fair Science Project competition.
Congratulations to all our amazing students involved and to our incredible team leader, Mr. Jason (our Year 6 teacher and Science Fair / Quiz Coordinator this year). We were particularly proud of the students knowledge of the experiment, their use of scientific language and advanced level of understanding during their presentation before the judges. Well done everyone for all your hard work and effort and thank you to all who have supported them along the way.
As part of our topic on ‘Space and Segregation’ we have been studying in detail the famous ‘I have a dream ‘ speech by Martin Luther King Junior. After identifying all the techniques he used so well to make such a powerful and emotive speech, we decided to write our own speeches. Year 5 were encouraged to think of any issue at all that they felt really strongly about or wanted to change on a global or personal scale. The range of issues is both interesting and thought-provoking. The children then drafted and re-drafted their speeches in their best handwriting, ready for our classroom wall – please feel welcome to come in and read them. They then had to memorise their speech (as much as they could) before being filmed performing it. We hope you are inspired by their persuasive and compelling reasoning and formal, emotive language!
Take a look at our amazing Year 1 Architects in action! What a variety of creative bridges, palaces, campfires, tepees, hotels, resorts, homes and dens they have built!
One afternoon, Ms Shara brought in 3 big tubs of wood for the children to use to create structures. Working alone, in pairs or in a group, they thought, planned, explored, made decisions, built, changed their plans, started all over again and finally built a structure that they were proud of.
As you will see in the photos below, a selection of small and large wooden pieces, patiently balanced with precision, can create all sorts of wonderfully creative designs.
What a lovely evening of stories we enjoyed at our Provo Primary ‘Storytelling Evening’ on World Book Day.
A huge thank you to David for captivating us all with his ‘Anansi the Spider’ tale – we were super amazed by how his flexible body created Anansi!; to all the amazing teachers and Mrs. B who followed suit with stories in the classroom; and to Lise and Steph for organising and serving the PTA milk and cookies. Finally, a big thank you to our delightful audience of children – young and old, parents and friends. It was great to see so many of you dressed up in your colourful PJs and to meet all of your bedtime cuddle toys!
We hope that everyone thoroughly enjoyed the evening of tales- Happy WBD!
Yesterday was a fun packed day of World Book Day activities. Marking its 20th anniversary, this annual celebration of authors, illustrators and reading is recognised in more than 100 countries around the world.
The main aim of World Book Day is to encourage children to explore the pleasures of books and we certainly had lots of opportunities for this throughout the day… click on to see photos of our Book Character Dress Up, Book Swap, Non-Fiction Quiz and BWIC drama skits.
How did you celebrate World Book Day?
Learning about the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’, has lead the Preschoolers into an array of activities involving retelling the story; exploring buildings and building materials; and sorting and naming shapes.
The children have been excited to take on lead roles in acting out the story. The highlight has been listening to the children change their voices for the different characters (especially the Big Bad Wolf) and seeing them taking turns in conversation and with taking on the different roles.
Everyone has joined in with building the pig’s house with brick… using the pebbles; the house of sticks… using popsicle sticks; and the house of straw… using spaghetti. We even set up an experiment to see if we could blow down our brick house with the strong force of air from a hair dryer – it didn’t blow down!
Join us for a wonderful evening of storytelling (5-6pm). Children are encouraged to come dressed in their PJs and to bring along their favourite night time cuddly toy companion and a comfy pillow or blanket. Then they can sit back, sip on a glass of milk, munch on a cookie and enjoy the evening’s bedtime story time atmosphere.
We begin our night of stories with David Bowen sharing an ‘Anansi the Spider’ folktale up on our stage. After this, teachers/other adults will be reading stories in the classrooms and around the school.
The PTA will be providing cookies and milk to add to the evening’s bedtime story time atmosphere.
All children under 5 need to be accompanied throughout the evening.