ABC Freesia team has made us proud by winning the second place for their superb demonstration of musical instruments and how to use them. It was done in an engaging story form using homemade puppets. Our Teacher Training Program makes a constant effort to improve the skill levels of teachers! This month too, all the teachers of Building Blocks Schools had workshops on Phase One Jolly Phonics Aspects and were also given a topic on which the teachers had to make lesson plans, demonstrate and present the topic in front of all the other schools.

Attendance and Nutrition

No. of students enrolled: 107

Total number of meals served this month: 2,756

No. of school days: 20

No. of Students Enrolled (Day): 92

Average attendance: 83

Attendance in %: 90

No. of Students Enrolled (ASP):  15

Total breakfasts served: 1,501

Total lunches served: 1,255

Total number meals served since opening at Freesia:  91,029

Total ABC-BB School partnership meals since opening: 249,841

Curriculum

Math

Fun with Math

Workbooks help to reinforce learning

This month they learned about even numbers, odd numbers, before and after numbers and in between numbers. They learned to read and circle the correct number of tens and ones plus addition of numbers through concepts.  Also they learned to write numbers from 1-100 and to identify and write missing numbers.

Our K4 Children learned numeration with activities like – additional sacks, counting clovers, empty sets, equation board and ordinal numbers.

English

Learning the vowels of English language

Identifying colors with color charts

In Jolly Phonics children reviewed the Jolly sounds for the alphabets. They continued learning blending, segmenting, reading high frequency words, CVC words and tricky words. They learned to blend words using diagraphs.  Also, they were introduced to reading simple sentences from simple readers.

Our K4 children learned the sounds of letters f, b, j, z, a, i, r, m, d, g with stories, actions, formations and with blending examples.

Local Language Kannada

Practice writing in Kannada language

This month children reviewed all the letters of Kannada language.

Social Science

With the ears’ headgear children are taught – learning through hearing!

This month they learned about Weather.  The topics discussed were – seasons in a year, we dress according to the weather and weather help us in many ways.   Also, Children learned that plants are living things and need water, sunlight and nutrients to stay alive and grow

Value Education

The topic for this month was – “Treating everyone fairly”. This was achieved through the story “The small boy’s big heart”

K3 Program

Activities build to increase their concentration levels

Group learning helps children learn quicker from each other

The whole month was packed with activities. Children learned about textures, sinkers and floaters, identifying sounds of various objects, matching shadows etc.  In Jolly Phonics they continued learning Jolly Phonic aspects for letters s, a, t, i with the help of story, action and formation. They learned to be attentive and to tell a story – “I am hungry”.

Physical Education

K4 kids at outdoor playtime

Children are encouraged to play in our outdoor playground.  Every day, 15 minutes of physical activity is included in the schedule. This month too, children played outdoors whenever weather permitted.

Nutrition

Kick starting the day with a healthy breakfast

Well balanced nutritious meals were prepared and served every day.  Children were served with breakfast and lunch on all working days.  A total of 2,756 meals were served for our children

After School Program (ASP)

ASP kids of Grades I and II completing their homeworks

With a total of 15 students of grades 1 and 2 the ASP program is going very well.  This program helps the students in the evening with their homework which they bring back from their respective schools.  This program is a supportive program which assists our previous graduates to keep up with their school work.  This month the program ran for 15 days with a total attendance of 210 children.

Teacher’s Training

A “Phase 1 Phonics” workshop was held at Daisy school, starting at 10:30 am on Saturday, 3rd October. The managers and teachers from all of the schools were present.

Each school had been briefed to put together a new lesson based on one of the “7 Aspects” of Phase 1 Phonics.  Each school was required to do a demonstration lesson, provide a detailed lesson plan, and describe their first experience of using Phase 1 Phonics.

The teachers showed a high level of participation and demonstrated an impressive selection of activities based on their particular aspect.  They showed good team work when delivering the lessons and used a variety of musical instruments and props to make the lessons more interesting for children.

The teachers learned a great deal from observing the different ways of doing things and then discussing their ideas and opinions of what they thought of each lesson.

Certificates awarded to the best performing schools:

First place went to Edelweiss for a very child-friendly “alliteration” lesson, involving a sandpit, digging activity, and a catchy song.

Second place went to Freesia for their superb demonstration of musical instruments and how to use them.  It was done in an engaging story form using homemade puppets.

Third place went to Carnation school who gave five short examples of “blending and segmenting” lessons. Their demonstration showed a clear understanding of technique and made effective use of props.

All the schools were congratulated for their participation and contributions to the workshop. We are happy to say their understanding of Phase 1 Phonics continues to improve and benefit their students.

Special Celebrations

Monica celebrating her birthday with her friends

Birthdays are special for everyone.  Children express great joy in celebrating their birthday with their friends! Here are a few pictures from the birthday celebrations.

Parents Meeting

Parents meeting on the savings scheme

A parent meeting was conducted by Christina – Social Worker and Paul – Freesia Project Manager on the monthly savings scheme.  This scheme has been stopped because of irregularity of payments from the parents every month and Building Blocks informed the parents to collect their savings money from the Freesia center head.

A special thank you to the staff that supports Freesia at our Implementation Partner – Building Blocks, and also to all Infrastructure Funding Partners, AlphaBet Club donors and volunteers, Rotary Club Amsterdam International and Wilde Ganzen.