On Friday afternoon Year 1 and 2 invited parents in to join in with their final theme week activities.  Year 1 worked in groups to create the tallest newspaper tower they could build and Year 2 designed chairs for Barnaby Bear.  They also shared some of their work that they had done over the week.  It was also an opportunity for Year 2 to play the board games with their parents, which they had made about famous great thinkers    I played the Florence Nightingale game and learned lots of new facts about her life.  See a slideshow of photos of the afternoon.

We ended our theme week with an opportunity for the children to come to school dressed up as a great thinker.   We saw a wide variety of characters and everyone was able to express why they thought their chosen character was a great thinker.  The teachers all dressed as Provo Primary Students to celebrate the fact that we all think that our students are great thinkers!

Early Years opened an Art Gallery to display and sell the fantastic creative art work that the children have produced during this week’s theme week.  Pieces went from 25 cents to $2 with families pleased to take home their child’s masterpieces.  All the classes in the school also enjoyed seeing what the younger children in the school had been working on during their theme week activities.  What a wonderful way to end this enjoyable week.

In keeping with our ‘Great Thinkers’ Theme Week, we hosted a fun, family quiz night.  It was a great night, with eleven teams made up of international members, young and old.  Well done to everyone who came along and participated and thank you to all the members of staff who helped out.

I couldn’t resist putting up these great photos of Year 2 thinking about ‘who or what made the tracks?’, today’s daily challenge thinking question. After much deliberation, the class decided that it was elephants that made the tracks.  They chose to work together in groups to create the elephants as junk models.

Click bleow to take a look at the elephants and to see the children in further thought…  I wonder where the elephant was going?  Where in the world were tracks were found?  What were the tracks found in… mud, sand, chocolate, butter?  Shall we follow them?  I love the deep in thought expressions on the children’s faces as perhaps they ponder these questions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mrs. Shara presented a creative challenge in Gym class as part of our Thinking Skills Theme Week.  The children were given a famous quote and were asked to imaginatively interpret the essence and meaning of these through movement.  Forming small groups of 3, they discussed their ideas and began exploring the concepts.  At the end, they performed their creative pieces to their classmates, who tried to guess what the quote was about.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s Theme Week challenge for our mixed aged teams was to create the best hat they could out of newspaper.   Within a time limit of 20 minutes, a frenzy of designing, cutting, taping and decorating took place, with teams working together, listening and talking with each other, adapting ideas and overcoming challenges.  The children really enjoyed the activity and there were lots of smiles as they completed the task and shared their team creations.  What really struck us all was the complete diversity in the finished hats.  No hats were the same, with each group creating them for different characters, occasions and climates.  From crowns to caps, business hats to beach sombreros, helmets to sailor hats -  what amazing creativity!  Which one would you wear?  See a slideshow of the children busily making the hats and see the final products being modelled.

The Early Years began their Theme Week of “Creative Minds at Work” by collaborating to create a story together.  The Preschool, Junior Kindergarten, and Kindergarten all sat  in a circle in the Preschool Room and together made up a wonderful tale.  They decided to add illustrations to it and also to retell the story in their individual classrooms, revising it if desired.  What a wonderful way to celebrate Literacy, the creative imagination of a child and the wonder of storytelling.  The stories can be found displayed in the walkways or in the classes.  Do come and enjoy them.

Our Thinking Week theme week started off with great success today, with ‘guess the character’ posters, daily class challenges, mixed-age team challenges and lots of classroom activities to keep them thinking all day long!  See a slideshow of some of today’s activities. A big thank you to all the teachers who have worked hard to plan and organise activities both for their own classes and the whole school.

Thinking skills are becoming essential tools in our rapidly changing global information age.  We want our children to be able to analyze information, make decisions and come up with creative ideas on how to solve problems.   Over this week, we strive to ask questions and provide fun activities that will deepen the children’s thinking, encourage them to think logically and critically, to work together with others and celebrate their individuality and amazing creativity.

Suzie, an adult female green turtle and first turtle in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) to be fitted with a satellite transmitter tag, arrived back in the TCIs’ coastal waters on Sunday after an amazing 6,000 kilometre migration around the eastern Caribbean.

Earlier in the year, Brian and Natasha from the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources (DECR) came to visit our Year 3/4 class to talk about sea turtles (See our previous blog post).  The children created some turtle art work and this is currently displayed at the Environmental Centre opposite the Children’s Park in the Bight.   Click on to learn more about Suzie and her travels.

Read the rest of this entry »

With reports going out this week, it is common to see learning a particular set of multiplication tables written as one of a child’s targets for improvement.  We often hear “How can I help my children memorise their multiplication tables at home?”  Well it’s basically all down to practise, practise and even more practise, so here are a couple of website links that will help you support this practice at home with a variety of fun interactive online games to keep you all from boredom and frustration.  Let me know your favourite games and let’s hope they help your child achieve those targets by the end of term!   Of course in my day, I recall just reading and reading them over and over from my no-nonsense, pink “The Old Fashioned Multiplication Table Book.” No fun computer games in my day!  Click on to find the game links…

Read the rest of this entry »

Year 5 teamed up with one of our Year 1 Literacy groups to read some information texts together. This linked in very nicely with our Turks and Caicos Education Department’s ‘Join the Reading Rush 2010’ celebrations

Both classes really enjoyed the session and a variety of  knowledge was absorbed!  Well done, everyone!

Read the rest of this entry »

There was a distinct feel of autumn/fall time in the playground yesterday.  Over our half term break, the leathery leaves of our almond tree have started to turn red and brown and many have fallen to the ground.   There are very few deciduous trees here in the Turks and Caicos and so this was an exciting rare experience to enjoy on our return back to school.  Read on and see photos of the children enjoying the leaves.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Junior Kindergarten are learning about people who help them in the community.  One of their dad’s is a plumber and he came in to talk to them about his job.  He brought in lots of water pipes, levers, switches and tools for them to explore and connect.  Together, they made a model of a simple desalination plant, which changes salt water to fresh water.

Since his visit, the children have continued to enjoy using the water pipe pieces in their free play.  When creating hotels, homes and hospitals with the big bricks and waffle blocks, they include the water pipes to construct water systems and take on the role as plumbers and maintenance workers.

Here is a slideshow of the children building with the water pipes. This project has introduced lots of new vocabulary, encouraged logical thinking and provided lots of practise of using fine motor skills.  Best of all, it has used real life materials that have tremendously enhanced and extended their play.

Hello Provo Primary! Since leaving Providenciales in 2004, I have never forgotten our friends and colleagues at Provo Primary School.  My family (Husband Brent and son Russell) and I hold many great memories of living on the island and meeting so many wonderful people.  I frequently peruse the Provo Primary website and blog and really enjoy reading the current events and looking at photos of so many familiar faces.

I now work at an ESL school, in Toronto. I continue to have a passion for fundraising and when the Haiti disaster occurred, I wanted to help. My thoughts and prayers were with our many friends on Provo, from the Haitian community. Our school, ILSC-Toronto held a week long fundraising event. Read the rest of this entry »

Year 3/4 has been working exceptionally hard during their Literacy lessons to learn how to become journalists!

After studying a variety of local newspapers and  identifying their key features, the class split into pairs and chose a fairy tale or story of their choice to write a report about.  Some chose Little Red Riding Hood, Matilda, Cinderella or Snow White. Each pair was given the task of reporting the story from a different perspective.

The children impressed their editor so much that all the children’s reports made the front page!  This of course meant the children had extra work and had to prepare headlines, photographs with captions and even create appropriate adverts!

If you would like to read the children’s front page stories they are in the Library and Miss Steph’s classroom…

Children grow up so quickly and every parent wants to remember each step of their child’s life.

School photos have a special place in every  families’ hearts.  Each year, for as long as I can remember, an amazing team from ‘Brilliant by Tropical Imaging’ have come to take ours, capturing the vibrancy and diversity that is the beauty of our school.   They seem to have the natural ability to connect with each child, to capture their unique personalities and the magic in their smiles.    Thank you Anita, David, Kellie and Krys for your wonderful work, tremendous patience and boundless energy.  You really make this day a fun day for all.

School photos allow every child to cherish a keepsake of themselves and their fellow classmates, so don’t forget to order yours, today.

Please visit the Brilliant by Tropical Imaging’s blog to see some of this year’s amazing photos.

Yesterday, a special family tour was arranged by the kindergartners, to share all the wonderful minibeast topic work that they had been doing this past month.

The room was buzzing (excuse the pun) and the children were really keen and proud to show everyone around and to talk about what they had been learning about.  The tours were very thorough and no areas were left out as they circulated the room.  Parents expressed their thanks and appreciation, and went on to say that it was really lovely to see both the creative side and the more academic areas being explored and covered through this topic.

Well done to Miss Tracy and all the children, and thank you to everyone who came along.  The  Kindergartners’ next topic is ‘families and pets’ and I am sure that in a few weeks time they’ll want to have another tour to share all their learning again.  Until next time…

Year One’s art topic this term has been texture and pattern.  Last week, they looked online at some aboriginal paintings.  They used their interactive whiteboard to look closely at the patterns and talked about how they could imitate them using everyday objects from their classroom.  As their classroom is called the Gecko room, they decided to make geckos.  First, they created a sandy background by marking brown, yellow and beige paint with their fingers.  Then they each printed a pattern on their geckos using the wrong end of a small paintbrush.  These were inspired by the aboriginal designs that they had seen.  Click here to see a slideshow of them  printing their geckos.  Look at the level of concentration on their faces.  This activity required a great deal of patience and careful control of their fine motor skills.  Do come and see all of the children’s geckos displayed in their classroom.  I’m sure the children would love to show you their art work.

The Preschool has been exploring a variety of sensory experiences that we like to call ‘Messy Play’  Together they have made ‘Clean Mud’, which is made from soap and tissue paper. They have also created ‘Wet Mud’ with soil and water.  Drawing in shaving cream sprayed onto a table top is also a favourite activity.

Through ‘Messy Play’ they have had experience and practise of small motor skills, language development and multi-sensory exploration.   Click here to see a slideshow of the children busily enjoying their ‘Messy Play’.