A unique Primary School, offering a British based, child centred education in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Our beginning topic, Journeys, has allowed us to explore the different ways that people take journeys or trips by air, sea, space and land. Our first week back at school, we looked into journeys by land and the inventions of the wheel.
Did you know that a long time ago people rode bicycles that had a humongous wheel in the front and one small wheel in the back? They were called ‘high-wheelers’ or the ‘penny farthing’.
Provo Primary Students have successfully elected their school council members for the academic year ahead.
Competition for School Council was fierce and Years 2 to 6 got busy campaigning, in a number of ways, to persuade their classmates why they would make an invaluable member to the council this year. From multimedia presentations, posters and worthy speeches, the school was buzzing with tremendous enthusiasm and dedication from all students who participated. Unfortunately there could only be 2 members from each year group and those who didn’t make it should be extremely proud of their efforts and commitment to ensuring that all voices in our school are heard.
This term we have set ourselves some SMART targets to work towards achieving. Please see our Action Plan below for this first term.
The toddler children have been ‘busy bodies’ over the last few weeks. In our topic, All About Me, we have been exploring ‘Me and My Body’ and this week we have been using our senses in a variety of activities – including tasting lemons and making lemonade. Hmm… tasting lemons. Do you think the toddlers liked the taste or not?
The news that ospreys have been spotted on our adopted nesting platform in the Children’s Park has been received with great excitement. Ospreys were first seen at the site last week, gathering nesting materials and building their nest. It’s a wonderful community place to see ospreys living amongst us and we hope they will be happy with this busy location – hold on tight to your fish on ‘Fish Fry’ night!
During World Osprey Week earlier this year in March, our Year 2 children went to see the platform being erected. It was a joint venture between Fortis TCI and DEMA and was inspired by Provo Primary School alerting them to the World Osprey Week celebrations.
We look forward to watching the ospreys and hope that eggs and chicks will soon follow.
Our theme for this term’s ‘Keeping Healthy Week’ is healthy communications and a variety of activities on the importance of learning about how we communicate are planned for both children and adults to participate in. Take a look at some of the events planned and remember to make talking about communication a topic of conversation with your family this week.
Communicating to other people and understanding what others are saying is very important skill in life. If people did not communicate, we wouldn’t be able to know what others wanted, what to do, or where to go. Signs of good communication include the ability to express your needs, wants, and feelings appropriately in different situations.
Monday October 13th is National Heritage Day. It is a Public Holiday and school will be closed.
Island events:
The First Ever Simultaneous Nation Wide Flag & Float Parades…
Happy Birthday Mishka – our special Provo Primary honorary canine student!
Two today. What better way to celebrate than to walk on the beach with a new ball.
See you in school on Tuesday for a special happy birthday sing song!
When the quails first arrived Year 3 went ‘all out’ to research into finding the answers to the many questions they had about these teeny little birds. They found out lots of interesting facts. Here are some of the answers to the questions we asked:
* Quails only fly when they are frightened.
* They eat seeds and grass. They like to eat green things, and many are vegetarian. However some quails do like to eat insects and worms.
* Some Californian quails are blue and red.
* Male quails sing to attract their girlfriends.
* Quails hover like helicopters.
PROVO PRIMARY SCHOOL
SATURDAY, 11th October
9:00AM-11:00AM
Bargains and refreshments!
Our very first Flamingo and Chicks sessions have been a HUGE success.
The toddler chicks have been enjoying an outdoor play time, sand and water play and have made a paper plate flamingo craft using paints and tissue paper.
They have tumbled around in soft play and joined for a circle times of songs and instruments and a stories. Parent Flamingos have seemed to be very happy with the morning activities and our Toddler Chicks certainly have been having fun!
To find out more about our sessions, please see this poster and contact Alison at 431 6327.
In addition to lots of new books purchased over the summer, we have just purchased a further $700 worth for the library with our Scholastic points. It’s a win-win situation, families get to purchase books through the scholastic book club and the school gets points for each purchase. Thank you everyone for your support.
Sometimes the library points are allocated to the teachers to choose books for their rooms, and sometimes we use the points to buy books for the library or for guided reading.
As part of large selection of genre, we are pleased to have a new class set of Spanish / English visual dictionaries… Miss Cara is looking forward to using them in her Spanish classes!
Happy reading!
We have been investigating states of matter in Science and we are currently looking at gases. We knew a lot more than we thought but then we decided to investigate air and what it does and how it acts in different situations. We did a round-robin of short scientific investigations exploring air.
From squeezing a sponge in water, running with a large piece of card to pushing a beaker into a bowl of water we had lots of fun! Before we did anything, we discussed our predictions on what we thought would happen in each one and most importantly WHY, using as much scientific vocabulary as we could. As we carried these out, we recorded our observations on what was happening, focusing specifically on the particles of air and what they were doing. You might like to try your own experiments at home or try these online ones.
Each year during the month of October ‘The Week of the Young Child’ is celebrated here in the Turks and Caicos. This year the week commences October 6-10, 2014 under the theme:
“Quality Matters in Early Childhood Care and Education”.
Quality in Early Childhood settings enables children to grow and learn in environments that develop their social and cognitive skills with positive long term effects.
From quails and chicks to Migratory birds!
On 11th October, join in with a guided bird walk or enter a bird photography contest… just two ways to celebrate International World Migratory Bird Day. Both of these activities are organised by Amy Avenant at the Department of Environment and Maritime Affairs (DEMA). Click on the image to find out more.
This year’s theme is ‘Why Birds Matter?’ Not everyone is aware of the diversity of birds around the world, the amazing migrations some take, and the phenomenal range of behaviours, plumages, and songs they exhibit. International Migratory Bird Day 2014 shares the many ways in which birds matter to the earth, to ecosystems, and of course, to us.
On Tuesday 7th October @ 6:15pm Ms EvieAnn, a certified Child Life Specialist, will be offering a workshop for parents/teachers and Community members on enhancing life skills, reducing anxiety and stress in children.
Come and find out how you can help empower your child during times of change, with separation anxiety, friendship issues, exam taking and illness.
All parents/teachers/friends welcome.
On most mornings, the busiest room at Provo Primary is the school’s ever expanding library, a comfortable, well-lit space filled wall to wall with books (over 4,000 at last count!) just waiting to be discovered by a student, for the first or fortieth time.
A love of literacy is integral to the curriculum at Provo Primary and clearly on display as students, ranging in age from Year 1s to Year 6s, exchange books under the watchful eye of volunteer parent librarians, who often assist with selections as well as the logistics of checking titles in and out.
This past summer, over $7,500.00 was spent on compelling new literacy resources for the library and individual classrooms, a testament to the school’s dedication to fostering a love of reading in all students.
In recognition of our National Week of the Child, Ms EvieAnn, a certified Child Life Specialist (awarded by The Child Life Council), will be offering a
about
Come and find out how you can help empower your child during times of change, with separation anxiety, friendship issues, exam taking and illness. Be prepared!
All parents/teachers/friends welcome
There’s a lot of excitement at Provo Primary School this morning as our quail are finally hatching. 13 have hatched, two are hatching and there are a few more yet to pop out. We have to move them from their birth home (an incubator) to a temporary home where they’ll stay until they’re big enough to join our other quail in their coop.
Our chicken eggs are due to hatch in about 3-4 days. Let’s see if chickens are better time keepers than quail!
“With the start of the new school year, routines are taking shape. Youngsters are assembling the complex puzzle in which homework, activities, sports, social life and family time compete for a limited number of hours in the day. Frequently it seems there’s not enough time to do it all, that something’s got to give. What often gives? Our children’s sleep.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends the following amounts of sleep for children and teens:ii
1-3 years old = 12-14 hours of sleep
3-5 years old = 11-13 hours of sleep
5-12 years old = 10-11 hours of sleep
12-18 years old = 8.5-9.25 hours of sleep… [Read more…]
In Kindergarten class, we have been exploring our bodies this month to find out how and why we’re so different to each other! From measuring our height and collecting information about hair and eye colours in school, we’ve been busy thinking about how different our bodies look.
Read more to see more photographs of us learning…
We feel that with all that is going on at Provo Primary, children must have lots to talk about when asked this question, but if your children sometimes give you a blank stare when you ask about their day, here are some tips you might want to try from mommy blogger, Liz Evans. Before Liz was a mom to three, she was a teacher and comes with an expert’s eye on how to get kids to spill.
Her post 25 Ways to Ask Your Kids “How Was School Today?” WITHOUT asking them “How Was School Today? has had more than two million page views.
Let’s us know some of the responses you get from your children.
The JK’s are quickly becoming comfortable with their classroom daily routine. The daily routine supports children’s choices, decisions, and plans which are the basic framework for development. Two of the structured activities in our routine are “Linking in” and “Job Chart”.
Here is the school-lunch-form-oct-2014 for October. If you would like your child to continue having hot lunch, please complete and return the form to the office, together with payment.
PROVO PRIMARY SCHOOL
SATURDAY, 11th October
9:00AM-11:00AM
$25 per Table
FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO BOOK A TABLE CONTACT:
NIKIFLOWERS@GMAIL.COM OR 343-4716
What a wonderful range of creative topics our children are learning about this term in Years 1 through to 6. They will take our children on learning journeys around the world, back in time and into the future.
It’s always exciting to see how these topics develop as children’s interests, growing knowledge and questions lead them further into exploring different aspects.
Click on the image to see what your child’s topic involves and let’s work together to bring these topics alive with learning both at school and at home.