Education South Africa Project #8713

Fund Life-Changing Education for 201 African Kids

by Action Change (Formerly GVI Trust)

Project Report | Dec 4, 2015
Monitoring early childhood development

By Kate Robey | Charitable Trust Operations Manager

Practicing our fine motor skills

Dear Supporter,

This month we have assessed the progress and development of the children at Nceduluntu Nursery in Cape Town.

Our goal is that at least 80% of the children will be achieving at their age appropriate level on concepts such as recognizing numbers, shapes and colours. We support the children to reach these developmental goals by providing fun, interactive learning experiences in partnership with the local teachers.

We are so pleased to announce that our recent assessments show that we have hit this target!

Our role is to work with the local staff to help children reach their developmental norms in all areas of development. We have set some learning focusses around numbers and counting, recognizing and hearing alphabet sounds and responding to stories. We have provided a range of tasks and assessed the children based on these tasks.

Each morning the children have circle time, where we sing action songs. Whilst this is great fun, the deeper learning aspect is that children are experiencing rhyming, social skills, movement skills and lots of English vocabulary.

After snack time, we have lessons with small groups of children. The children start with a story and then go through the alphabet sounds. Having picture cues around the room, as well as actions for each alphabet letter, helps the children to process and remember the sounds. The children then listen to a story and engage in a fine motor activity to reinforce the current theme topic.

One recent example is that the children used cut-out shapes to make a face. This gave children experience in cutting, matching, counting, recognizing shapes as well as recognizing facial features.

There are other parts of the day that also contribute to the children’s development. Snack and lunch time are examples where we can support the children to complete the handwashing routine, look after their belongings, eat independently and tidy up after themselves. These day to day living skills are an important part of their development.

The Results

91% were at or above standard with counting and numbers.
82% could name and identify at least 3 more shapes than they could earlier in the year.
100% of the children could identify and name between 4 to 10 new animal names.

Whilst we can measure these things, some of the big advances have been children’s ability to follow routines, learn a range of new songs and participate in class time.

These skills for learning cannot be underestimated.

Thank you for your support!

GVI Cape Town

Making faces!

Links:

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Sep 16, 2015
Cape Town's 1st Mad Makeover

By Kate Robey | Charitable Trust Operations Manager

Jun 23, 2015
It's always busy here at Ikhayalethem Sanctuary

By Kate Robey | Charitable Trust Operations Manager

Hard at work learning the alphabet.

Dear Supporter,

There is always something happening here in Ikhayalethem.

Our snack programme provides a healthy snack each morning for the children. While our volunteers prepare the snack, it frees up the carers for other tasks. It’s recommended that snack comprises two food groups so we provide a good balance for the children. Bananas, boiled eggs and yoghurt are among the children’s favourites.

Some of the children from Ikhayalethemba also started school. They are all really enjoying it and the ground work with reading and writing that our volunteers have been able to provide, since the children were very young, has particularly given them a head start with the English curriculum. We have been able to support the purchase of the children’s stationery and uniforms thanks to kind donations.

Class time continues with the younger children. They love learning the alphabet letters and our volunteers have some great ideas for reinforcing the concepts that the children learn. We try to make learning as hands-on, stimulating and varied as possible. We want the children to express their creative side.

One of the big expenses for Ikhayalethemba is nappies. All of the children with special needs rely on wearing nappies and as you can imagine this is a huge expense for the centre, especially as some of the children require adult sizes now they are growing up. We have been able to support the centre with funding the nappies and we are helping Mama and the team develop ways of managing this expense in the future.

Our work with the children with Special Needs continues. Unfortunately the Special Needs Sensory Room was affected by a leaking roof, leaving it too wet to work in and some damage to the equipment. We have been pleased to be able to support the centre to have the roof repaired using local workers. We also helped fund repairs to the children’s bedroom roof. Very heavy rains earlier this week showed that the work has been successful so we are well and truly back on track with working with the children in the Sensory Room to provide a stimulation and therapy programme.

Volunteers have been very busy painting the Ikhayalethemba Houses and giving them a bit of a colour lift. It’s certainly made a big difference..

On the 16^th June we celebrated Youth Day here in South Africa. Youth Day is celebrated in order to recognise the role of youth in the liberation of South Africa from the apartheid regime. The children made chains of children to acknowledge the day. Lots of creative work to be seen!

Thank you so much for your continued support.

Celebrating Youth Day

A fresh coat of paint goes a long way!

Links:

The Charitable Trust

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