Mate Vanda

1st Grade Preparatory Camp 2021 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,

Ágnes Forro ' 1st grade teacher

Joseph Williams English 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

Vanda's language skills She is a very nice and active girl. She participates a lot in the activities.

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.

Vanda's motor skills Vanda has good fine motor skills, she is able to form shapes out of plasticine and she enjoys taking part in all games involving 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.

Vanda's social skills Vanda is a reserved, well-mannered girl who is always helpful and polite with both classmates and teachers. She is able to express her needs and ideas in a proper 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.

Vanda's mindfulness skills

Vanda paid attention to the instructions and was trusting enough to let her focus be guided toward internal and external events. She did well in team work as we could connect to old and new peers as well. She sometimes prefered the social elements of the tasks to the actual work, which is understandable in a new classroom setting.

Máté Vanda

My favourite moments

I liked... ... playing with clay ... drawing and painting ... the team-building games

Thank you for joining us!