Singakwenza: We can see the difference you make!

The fourth term is a busy one, with the end line testing for our ELOM Monitoring and Evaluation process starting, plus free eye-screening for all the children who will leave the creches at the end of the year.

Our Occupational Therapist (OT) has adapted some ‘play’ glasses to block the children’s individual eyes when testing, as it is easier than getting them to block one eye with their hand. It is fascinating to see the impact that these glasses have on the little ones’ characters. It is almost as if the glasses give them a super-power and even the quietest children become more confident. The OT has picked up a number of issues, both in the children and in the practitioners, and has referred them for further testing and treatment. We are very grateful to Hilliar and Gray Optometrists for their generous donation of the very valuable (and very expensive) eye-screening charts for both our Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg branches.

Helping children to understand that the symbol of each numeral (for example ‘3’) represents a certain number of items (●●●) is one of the fundamental skills required in numeracy. We have lots of activities that help the children practice this and these are a few we have done in the past few weeks. We wrote the numerals on a polystyrene tray and the child had to poke the correct number of matchsticks under each number. We wrote the numerals at the top of a piece of scrap paper and the child had to match the lids with the correct number of dots under each symbol. Then we used those same lids with a dice made from a toilet roll inner and the child had to choose the correct lid to correspond with the numeral they rolled on the dice. These activities fit into Early Learning Development Areas (ELDAs) 1, 2, 3 & 4 of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) that are stipulated by the government. It has been exciting for our practitioners to see that numeracy development does not have to be restricted to just pencil and paper or workbook tasks.

Thank you for your wonderful donation of R1,972.65 received today. We can see the difference you make!

Kind regards

The Singakwenza team