My first week in SEK school - Ben-David Avigail

1st Grade Preparatory Camp 2020 AUGUST

Welcome in our 1st Grade!

What happened this week?

For the 1st week of camp, the students were introduced to a variety of activities, from storytelling, to vocabulary games, to interactive smartboard games.

These activities were introduced to have the children use their comprehension skills, a bit of literacy skills,

Ă gnes Forro ' 1st grade teacher

Joseph Williams 1st grade teacher and an introduction to digital learning.

These activities were chosen to give the students an equal balance of usage in literacy skills.

Storytelling was an excellent way for the students to stay focused for an extended period, and their interaction of opinion and feedback gave them an opportunity to demonstrate comprehension.

The vocabulary game was an excellent way for the students to do some decoding, and the smart board activities were a way for them to recognize words and objects, matching them to demonstrate their comprehension of both.

With a changing world of technology, smartboards will become a dominating piece of equipment as the students progress during the school year.

Language skills

Avigail's language skills Avigail demonstrated excellent overall comprehension skills during the week. She is always eager to participate while having a smile on her face.

Art & music skills

From an outside point of view, during a music activity seems just having fun, dancing, singing, playing. Well, that is true, but I should mention the „hidden" parts as well, since when children participate in music and movement activities in a group, they also develop and refine they social skills, they learn to work as a team, they learn to share and they learn how to be creative in a group environment. In Art and craft, the task was to make a fish from clay. They work as a really good group!

Avigail's art skills Sparkling personality! She is happy to participate in every kind of task. Because of the piano studies, she possesses high-level music skills. Avigail’s work is full of fantasy.

She used cold and warm contrasts well. Her forms are well developed. She has independent ideas and a helpful personality.

Fine motor skills

Fine motor skills are essential in aquiring first grade's most important task that is in reading and writing. In the camp we had so much fun through activities where we trained the muscles in our hands and fingers just like creating wonderful shapes and forms out of plasticine or learned some rhymes and games for training our fingers. In our games we traveled through forests and jungles, imitating rain and thunder and wind, all of these complex activities in order to get us ready for the most exciting challenge in first grade that is learning to read and write.

Avigail's motor skills Avigail is always enthusiastic when it comes to drawing, coloring, or even tracing letter elements. She is attentive and has very good fine motor skills.

Social skills

Strong social skills are as important to success in school as academic ones. Sharing, being polite, resilience, the ability of being patient are key elements of a successful start at school. Students in first grade need to learn how to communicate their needs appropriately and how to interact with their teachers and classmates. The activities, role plays, drama games we involved in the camp’s schedule have been designed to help them achieve these goals.

Avigail's social skills Avigail is able to make friends easily. She is a wellmannered, polite girl who is able to express her needs and thoughts in a very mature way.

Mindfulness skills

Mindfulness is a mode of mind with a conscious awareness of ourselves and our environment. By practising mindfulness students can improve their emotion regulation, emotional flexibility, empathy, self-awareness and self-acceptance on the long term. With mindfulness approach the students can learn how to decrease their stress and anxiety and prepare themselves for challenging situations. In the preparation camp the idea of mindfulness was introduced to the students starting with the initial steps: observation and participation.

Students tried fun relaxing, calming, energizing and selfesteem boosting techniques as well as observational pair work.

Avigail's mindfulness skills Avigail was very task-oriented. She followed through the instructions precisely, although first she showed a few signs of caution. I am sure once she gets used to the mindfulness approach she will further benefit from these tasks and see them as tools more than compulsory tasks.

Ben-David Avigail My favourite moments

I liked... ... ... ... ... ...

playing with clay the treasure hunt drawing and painting playing with Moka, the therapy dog ' the team-building games

Thank you for joining us!