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
Ă ron's language skills Ă ron was extremely happy to be in the classroom and equally eager to participate. He demonstrated excellent overall comprehension of all that happened.
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!
Áron's art skills Áron showed enthusiasm during music sessions. He really enjoyed the games and he was especially punctual with rhythm reproduction. Áron has a great imagination. He has advanced fine motor skills. He can work independently. He uses the colors and the forms freely. He tries to make not only an object but a real picture using background objects.
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.
Ă ron's motor skills Ă ron has good fine motor skills and he enjoyed the activities that required detailed work and attention.
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.
Ă ron's social skills Ă ron has improved a lot in the sense that he overcame his worries and showed us his great and funny personality during the camp.
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.
Ă ron's mindfulness skills Ă ron took some time to feel comfortable in the class, but once it happened, he became active, paid attention to the instructions and commented on classroom events. He was very determined with his tasks, and successfully turned his focus to internal and external stimuli as well. With his task.oriented sense of humour he often motivated his peers. Sometimes he had a hard time letting himself get totally involved in the tasks as he wanted to be reminded of the time left and the next programs. I am sure this explicit need for security will decrease with time and let him be more focused.
Zrupkรณ ร ron 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!