Dear everybody
After a very long Christmas holiday at home in the cold, the POCS Kindergarten has had a fantastic start into the new year. We spent the first 2 months, settling in and getting to know all the new children by playing, introducing the classroom, fun activities and excursions. We have used the hot weather to our advantage and have been doing a lot of water play too.
Furthermore we’ve been working on several different topics like the recognition of the letters “a” and “b”, the numbers 1 – 4, self-perception, colours, our bodies etc. We have had an amazing training which was held by one of our teachers, Nadine Gah, who has worked with children with autism + has a degree in Montessori teaching. This gave us many new ideas to make phonological and mathematical development more exciting and understandable for the children.
Orange stripies
I would like to say a big THANK YOU for providing our school with 30 "traffic stripies"
. When I was home in December I spoke to Sonya about introducing the children to traffic awareness. Even though we live on a farm, most of the children walk to school and therefore are often not very careful with cars. We have been using the stripies on our walks to teach the children when to stop, how to behave on the way to school etc. We will also be wearing them on excursions to town.
Toothbrushes
Also I would like to give a big THANK YOU to Anke Benoit, who has provided us with new toothbrushes and toothpaste. As you all know, the children in my kindergarten eat a lot of sweats and don’t get any dental hygiene awareness from home. Therefore it is super important to me to keep this project going and to teach them as much as possible about a good dental care.
The start into this year has been amazing so far and I am very happy with the group of children. They enjoy learning new things every day and have improved a lot on their English skills since the beginning. I do however feel that this amazing experience is slowly coming to a close as I will leave Okonjima in 5 months. Therefore I am trying to teach them as many of my own values before I have to go.
Thank you all for your amazing support. I will keep you all updated (next blog will follow soon!).