Edelweiss School October 2014 Newsletter Update

Posted on November 22nd, by AlphaBet Club in charity, edelweiss, newsletter. No Comments

Visiting the Hindustan Aeronautical Museum (HAL) in Bangalore was a life changing experience for Edelweiss students as all experienced planes for the first time!  Children were thrilled to see full size planes and helicopters up close. Their imaginations have expanded by visiting this museum!  Diwali the “Festival of lights” was celebrated in October with great pomp and honor and all the ABC-Edelweiss kids enjoyed feasting on the special lunch that was arranged on Diwali day.

 

 Attendance and Nutrition

No. of students enrolled: 119

Total number of meals served this month: 2,460

No. of school days: 17

No. of Students Enrolled (Day): 89

Average attendance: 75

Attendance in %: 85

No. of Students Enrolled (ASP): 30

Total breakfasts served: 1,206

Total lunches served: 1,124

Total meals served at ASP
(After School Program): 130

Total number meals served since opening at Edelweiss: 117,221
Total ABC-BB School partnership meals since opening:  177,581

Curriculum:

K4 Math – Numeration 1-5, plus 0, Numeration 6-10 was the focus for the month.  Activities included Subtraction sacks, Clothespin drop, Drop a hanky, Tower equations, Hide it under a basket, Number plates, I can count, Number book, Number kites, Counting on cubes, Cards and counters, Number on a rope, Number cubes, Number line addition, Mother May I, and Symbolic representation. Keywords used were: counting on, four, empty set, member, symbol, plus, set, and number family.

K5 Math– Numeration 6-10 was the focus of the month.  Activities included Number cubes, Number line addition, Mother May I, Symbolic representation and Ten in the Bed.  This month K5 learned Math for two weeks and the remaining two weeks they learned about modes of transport “Air Transport” was used to facilitate the understanding of airplanes associated with the field trip of this month.

K4 English– letters learned were t, x, ch, sh, th, qu through stories and actions.  Formation words used were box, six, toolbox, chips, chain, chat, fish, shin, thumb, three, queen, quilt, and quill.

K5 English – reading of words and sentences from Pupil book – ‘We must eat the crust, too’, ‘The roses have thorns on the stem’, ‘I like the green socks best’, and ‘He was such a good boy on Tuesday’.

K5 children revisited the 42 sounds of Jolly Phonics.  K5 also practiced writing upper case and lower case letters.  In house evaluation happened through the timely dictation of words in class to gauge pupil’s ability.

K4 Social Science – ‘Weather helps’ was the topic for the month.  This was achieved through Indoor/Outdoor activity, Story, Comprehension, Language activity (Which one does not belong?), Math activity (Count the kites), Music/Dramatic play (The weather helps the farmer).  Plants little ant learns that plants have parts.  Centre activity (Plant puzzles), Math activity (Seed graph/Little ant’s home), Outdoor activity naming all flower parts), Art activity (Flower diagrams), and Language page (Listen to the sound).

K5 Social Science – Topic of the month was “My Country India”.  Children learned about India; its festivals, literature, famous personalities, how many states India has and the children were shown the map of India.

K4 Genki English – I like vegetables, winter clothes, fruit market, which was achieved through words pictures, mini lesson song, song game, and game karaoke.

K5 Genki English – ‘How many?’, ‘What time is it?’  Children learned the song using words, pictures, mini lesson, song, song-game and karaoke.

K4 Kannada – K4 children learned speaking numbers orally from 0-10 and practiced writing from 0-5.

K5 Kannada – K5 learned writing numbers from 0-9

K4 Character Development Card – Unselfishness was the theme of the month.  Why and what can we share at school was discussed under character development.

K5 Houghton Mifflin Reader –Children learned sight reading for these words – pig, wig, dot, fox, not, and yet.

K4 PE – A lot of fun was had at our shake up time!  Kids enjoyed doing One Foot Stand and  Dog walk.  Children also use the play area effectively during PE time.  Some outdoor games that they played were Duck Walk and Follow Me.

K5 PE – Finger play for ‘Hokey Pokey’, ‘Mulberry Bush’, ‘Ringa Ringa Roses’, and ‘Follow Me’.  Effective playing also happened at our outdoor play area.

Health and Hygiene

Routine practice of hand washing before and after meals are followed strictly to keep away from diseases

Nutrition

Well planned nutritious meals were served for breakfast and lunch.  Meticulous, non-repetitive menu planning was done by the center head which was cooked and served under hygienic conditions.

K5 Field trip – The highlight of the month was the field visit to the Aeronautical Museum.  A visit to the Heritage Centre is a most spectacular feast for the eyes and is unseen anywhere else in the country. HAL has given Bangalore an unique status as “City of Aeronautics”. Models of airplanes since 1940’s are on display.  Children learned about Air Transport in their classroom sessions.  Also, kids enjoyed making paper airplanes in the classroom and pretending to fly them up in the air!

 

Visitors

We had Rajeev and Bhakti, who came forward to sponsor two children of ABC Edelweiss this month.  These children are siblings who are studying in 3rd grade and 1st grade and will now be sponsored till they complete their 10th grade.  Congratulations Sahira and Muskan for getting this scholarship!

Special Celebration

Diwali also known as Deepavali is an ancient Hindu festival celebrated in autumn every year. The festival spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and hope over despair. This festival has relevance to the work that ABC-BB does of “providing a hope over despaired children by setting in the stepping stones of success through education”.

Diwali is an official holiday in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, Tobago, Suriname, Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji and Pakistan.

Volunteers

Gayatri, a first year law student at Christ University, is volunteering with us.  This is an internship that she has taken up with ABC-Edelweiss which is helping her gain social work credits for her college.  She has been of great help to our school.  Thanks, Gayatri!

Special Thanks to the staff that supports Edelweiss at our Implementation Partner, Building Blocks, and also to our Project Funding Partner, Alternatives 4 Children.