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Grade R decided to have a fun DRESS UP day this week – the children could choose any outfit of their choice. Due to Covid regulations, dress-up activities at school have not been allowed yet and they have missed their role play corners. Oakwood was alive with an array of colours and different characters and we also respected those that do not like to dress up. It was lovely to see a polar bear, a unicorn and a pyjama princess being so creative!

GRADE R DRESS UP DAY

VOLUME 37: 6 NOVEMBER 2020

We started the week with a few inspirational items! Kate Bands, Jayde Botha and Sophia Castleden each created their own power point presentations called ‘Happy Birthday Somerset House!’ Jayde then spoke to the class about inspiration - what it is and what inspires us in life. We continued with our ce (s) phonic sound and made posters with a partner writing our words in different ways. For example: words written backwards, writing words in rainbow colours, thinking of a rhyming word, writing the word as a pyramid, writing the word in a silly sentence, using our non-dominant hand to write the word, writing the word in fancy letters and writing the word in bubble writing! Marli showed us a lovely presentation on South Africa. Christian shared information on heart surgery. Guillaume presented his tie-die shirts. Emma showed us her silk worm cocoons.

GRADE 2 NEWS

Luca has been learning about our Solar System. To show what she has discovered, she put together a big presentation about our solar system, with interesting facts about each planet, the phases of the moon and emitted hot facts about our Sun. Well done Luca – you are a Super Star!

Well done to Oscar Burger and Ethan Mehtar for achieving their Coding certificates this week!

SOLAR SYSTEM PRESENTATION

CODING STAR

The Grade 1s have completed their bird sculptures after many weeks of hard work. Aren’t they so colourful and creative!

BIRD SCULPTURES

The Grade 3s used mnemonics this week to help them learn words that are commonly misspelled. These are some of the examples they came up with:

• Rebecca Angus: TRULY: Tip Rhino Uses Lily’s Yoyo

• Josh Burger: UNTIL: Usually Nobody Thinks Ivan Listens

• Olivia Hipkin: TWELFTH: The Whales Eat Less Fish Than Hairs

• Adam Sulaiman: USAGE: Under Sand Adam Gets Eggs

• Alex Monteiro: TRULY: Thomas Runs Under Lee’s Yoghurt

• Xander Diesel: UNTIL: Under Nut Table Is Light

• Micah Macun: UNTIL: Uncle Needs Time In Los Angeles

• Mae Fuller: ORIGIN: Ozzi Runs In Grass In the Neighbourhood

• Thomas Niehaus: USAGE: Under Sausages Are Giant Earthworms

• Lee Seloka: TRULY: Terrible Ryan Uses Long Yo-yo’s

• Noah Da Costa: USAGE: Uncle Sandy Ate Green Eggs

• Esme Hall: TWELTFTH: Tiny Women Eat Little Fish That Hang

• Zahra Staples: PASTIME: Please Ask Stacy To Invite Me Every Day

• Grace Lavin: PASTIME: Pentagons Allow Sausages To Illustrate Memories Elegantly

GRADE 3 MNEMONICS

The Dormice have been enjoying creating with the construction toys as well as drawing with chalk outside on the bricks. Body symmetry has been a fun concept to learn too, and building 100-piece puzzles with friends has been a task greeted with whoops of excitement.

CONSTRUCTION AND SYMMETRY

The Grade 4s concluded their Advertising Unit by creating their very own advertisements for some fantastic new products. A lot of planning went into ensuring they used the elements of advertising in their planning and design process. The end results are quite mouth-watering!

CREATING CAPTIVATING ADVERTISEMENTS

Here are some pictures from the Drama lessons this week.

DRAMA

The children of Oakwood were learning about some farm animals this week, specifically those that are in Old Mc Donald's poem in isiXhosa. They have learnt about 'umalume' who is the farmer in the poem. In the end they decorated animals and made puppets that they were allowed to take home.

ISIXHOSA

It was so nice getting back into the pool this week. Some children were wearing our new swimming costumes and looked very smart.

BACK IN THE POOL!

The Grade 1s were so excited to get real money to do sums with. The children were given various advertisements and flyers from some local retail outlets. They were then able to explain why a company would send out advertisements and who would want to read them. We had a look at some of the deals that showed that when you buy two for a particular price and work out the price for one item, that it is not actually cheap. The children enjoyed doing calculations by adding two items together, as well as working out what notes and coins they would use to buy a particular item. Watch out shops, here they come!

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY!

Well done to all who participated in our double mini concert series this last Wednesday. We were all amazed at the wide variety of musical styles and instrumental timbres we experienced during these amazing concerts. The different interpretations of the ‘smart casual’ dress-code by various performers was just as entertaining. Every parent and child who attended left richer because of the stellar quality of the music were experienced. Thank you to each performer for giving of your best and sharing the music.

VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE

We spoke about generosity in our JP assembly and what it means. There are many ways that we can show generosity, not only with gifts or money, but also through acts of kindness, making something special for someone and giving of our time and love. As a JP Phase we can practise being generous by making our friends at Tereo a Santa Box this Christmas. The children watched a video showing what items can go into their Santa Boxes. Once parents have filled out the Google form, they will receive more information and a checklist in due course. Start collecting and decorating your shoe boxes in the meantime!

GENEROSITY

After learning about persuasive writing and advertising techniques in English this term, the Grade 7s were given the task of creating their own adverts in line with their EMS E-Day happening next week Friday. Lots of fun was had dressing up and filming the adverts this week. Grades 1 – 6 will have the opportunity to watch these adverts during register period next week and we hope it inspires many sales and a successful E-Day.

PERSUASIVE WRITING & ADVERTISING TECHNIQUES

The Ladybirds have been hard at work practising their fine motor skills. They have enjoyed picking up small objects with tweezers, stretching elastics on pin boards, making patterns on the peg boards, sorting stikeez into colour groups and drawing and painting pictures of themselves. They love their quiet time at the end of the day when they can enjoy paging through books and sharing and discussing the illustrations.

DEVELOPING SKILLS IN GRADE 000

We enjoyed our hot days this week and spent some time discussing summer food and keeping safe from the sun. The children made some paper ice creams with sprinkles with a variety of mediums and they used a template to cut out and make some sunglasses!

GRADE R ENJOYING SUMMER

We went hiking on Sunday and it was quite a hot day. I went hiking with Mia and my parents. The challenge was climbing up onto things because there was loose rocks, it was quite hard to get a grip on some things to reach a flat surface. My favourite part of the hike was the view because it looked really nice and we could see all the houses in Somerset West. We didn’t get lost, we followed a map to check if we were on the right path. I enjoyed the hike and I might do it again. I have a big blister from the hike which is quite sore. We saw a Gymnogene on the hike.(Olivia Hipkin) I completed the Grade 3 Hike last weekend with my family. We took the Leopard Loop route. I was with my family and Olivia H’s family. I saw a beautiful river and lots of rocks. It was really tiring but now I know that I can do it! (Mia Steyn) I walked up the Helderberg last weekend. I went with my family. I saw mountains, the ocean, forests and lots of trees. I also saw two squirrels fighting over food in the trees. The experience was lots of fun it made me very tired. (Oliva Burger) I walked on the mountain last week with my family. My brother moaned the entire way! (Simon Wiehahn)

GRADE 3 HELDERBERG HIKE

Olivia Castleden and her mom made this delicious biscuit to commemorate "said". In English the Grade 4s looked to improve their sentence writing and worked on direct and indirect speech. We laid "said" to rest and instead practised choosing better, more expressive words. I think it is safe to say that said is dead.

Being able to effectively use a dictionary is a very important skill. The Grade 4s were challenged to put their newly-learnt skills to the test by pairing up and finding the answers to questions posed in a scavenger hunt. Their competitive sides came out and it was fantastic to see them navigating their way through the dictionary with confidence, as well as being able to differentiate between which entries were applicable to the questions being asked. What fun!

RIP SAID

DICTIONERY SCAVENGER HUNT

When the weather is great – why not take the learning outdoors? We have so many wonderful places around the campus for pupils to get comfy and let the learning begin. Here are some Grade 3s doing Singapore Maths in the fresh air!

The Grade 4s have improved their presentations skills over the course of the last 2 Units in our PBL. We have had terrific presentations on the Moon and much has been learnt about our satellite.

GRADE 3 OUTDOOR SINGAPORE MATHS

GRADE 4 PBL

The Grade 5s have been learning about mining in Social Science. After learning about both the positive and negative effects of mining, the pupils were asked to explore the statement: Mining ensures our modern lifestyle. They had to decide whether they

agreed or disagreed with this statement and present their argument in the format of a poster or a Sway. Many persuasive arguments have been made and it is clear that they all have strong feeling about mining one way or another.

PERSUASIVE ARGUMENTS ABOUT MINING

Thank you, Somerset House! Books and Biscuits would like to thank Grace Boustead and Esther Benson, Grade 7 pupils, for doing a collection for our programme in Sir Lowry’s Pass Village. Thank you for the time you took and the organization of this drive. The children will enjoy each and every book and toy donated. We would also like to thank Somerset House School for their help incredible ongoing support. Receiving the Founders Day owl cake was an honour. The kindness of the School and greater SH community is sincerely appreciated. There are some very exciting developments in our programme.

We are planning on setting up an education centre to serve the Sir Lowry’s Pass Village community. From the Knowledge Centre, to The Storey Block to Sir Lowry’s Pass, Somerset House is making a difference in the lives of the future generation of our nation. SH truly lives out their motto of Non Nobis Solum - not for ourselves alone! Thank you for sharing the Owl Cake with the children in Sir Lowry’s Pass. From the pictures you can see how much they enjoyed it!!! (Tracy Elliott)

NON NOBIS SOLUM

As extension in Mathematics, the pupils were able to work on some Math Puzzles to consolidate their understanding of some of the content covered this year.

GRADE 4 MATHS