Nomasanto is helping the children in Izithole class to use animal templates.

Some of the youngest children playing a matching game, note the nice warm hats! These games develop language and memory skills.





Elam and Oyama are busy with some small world play toys to develop creative language skills.

August 2007

Our Local Spaza Shop next door to Emyezweni.

The local wildlife!

Our neighbours run a car repair shop.

Just a few pictures of life in and around Emyezweni this winter. It has been cold and wet but we have had lots of visitors to cheer us up. It was great to see Vanessa after her African adventures and Heather and David Edwards have visited several times, we are hoping to rope David in as a regular as the boys particularly enjoy having a guy to play with.
On a sadder note one of our families have experienced the death of their 13 month old little girl this week, Lulu didn't attend Emyezweni but her older brother, Masimakhe, is in our 4 and 5 year olds class. The funeral is next week and we will be doing some grief and bereavement work with the family in the next few weeks.

Grade R trip to the Two Oceans Aquarium.

Thanks to our funding from Ukuthasa we were able to take the whole Grade R class to the aquarium in Cape Town as part of their topic on animals.
On the morning of the trip the children arrived at school in a high state of excitement and had to be persuaded to eat their breakfast; we then sent them outside for a much- needed run around before the bus arrived. We had a wonderful band of merry helpers from HCC who arrived at Emyezweni and were equipped with first aid packs, group lists and Xhosa phrases for the day! We matched up children and helpers into small groups and boarded the bus at 9.00am.
Even the drive to the aquarium was good fun, the driver slowed down for us to see a plane taking off from Cape Town airport and the children were incredibly excited to see the harbour as we approached Cape Town.
We were dropped off at the entrance to the aquarium and spent the first half an hour together viewing the amazing tropical fish and sea life in the tanks. The spider crabs and 'Nemo' fish were the biggest hits and many of us returned later to these exhibitions.
At 11.00am we were entertained by a Xhosa puppet show about the various food chains found in the ocean, the children and staff loved this and it gave a good focus for the rest of the trip as they were able to identify creatures from the show and work out if they were predators or prey.
After the show we watched the seal feeding programme and learned about the individual seals and their needs. The children were amazed at how the seals swam right up to the glass tank wall and gradually they overcame their fear and began to put their hands on the glass so the seals could interact with them.
After the seals it was time to see the penguins being fed, this was a truly multi- sensory experience as they smelled dreadful but the children didn't seem to mind and really enjoyed the sights and sounds of the small colony.
We then had some time with our individual groups until lunch which we ate outside in the sunshine; then it was back inside for a last 30 minutes before the bus came to take us home. It was very quiet on the return journey as nearly everyone fell asleep!
For the rest of the week the Grade R class were busy writing thank you letters, accounts of the trip and playing wild games of prey and predators in the playground and now, several weeks on they are still talking about their experiences there.

Emyezweni Babies Class

Lolwethu and Sinalo love playing with the dolls and having their picture taken! They are our youngest children, Lolwethu has been coming to Emyezweni since she was 3 months old as she is the daughter of one of our members of staff.

Leekho is one of our happiest children and even finds eating his lunch funny! He loves meeting new volunteers and visitors and makes new friends incredibly quickly. We think he is going to have a career in tourism or international diplomacy!

Making the most of the winter sunshine

Waiting for the playground to be swept by Mama Pauline.

Avela watches a game of soccer in her favourite spot.

Sanele wants to join in with the game but isn't sure what to do.

Anele is happy on his scooter.

Some photos from the last few weeks at Emyezweni

As part of our animals topic Julien brought in his corn snakes for us to handle.


Our weekly Good Work assembly is proving a big hit as children receive certificates and stickers for excellent work or behaviour.


Izithole Class have turned their home corner into a class zoo for a few weeks. Masimakhe is being the zoo keeper and feeding the animals.

Emyezweni News June 2007

Grade R Trips.
Thanks to the Ukuthasa sponsorship of Grade R places we have been able to take our oldest children on an outing to Helderberg Nature Reserve. Twenty five children and eight helpers spent a very enjoyable morning exploring the flora and fauna of the Helderberg Mountain following a natural world treasure hunt. We had an enormous lunch and the children enjoyed playing with bats and balls and exploring the stream until it was time to go home. For most of the children this was the first time that they have been to the nature reserve and seen the big tortoises, Bonte Bok, and amazing plants and views of the mountain up close. Lots of follow up work was done back at school and we are now planning our second outing, this time to the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town.

Child Protection Policy.
Emyezweni staff have been very busy working on our child protection policy, we held workshops with parents, staff and children to identify areas of concern and how we can best protect our children in our own particular situation. The staff then spent a day in the holidays drafting a policy with a provisional list of procedures in order to implement the policy. The parents and children were then consulted and the policy was revised and finally written up! We are very conscious that our child protection is a huge area of concern and we plan to regularly update and revise our policy with new parents and staff. One practical outcome of our work in this area has been to set in place a fire and gun procedure that has resulted in some wild role play and fire practises recently!

Grade R school Places .
This time of the year is when we begin the procedure of searching for school places for our Grade R children. The local Primary School in Lwandle is very overstretched and the classes are huge (50 children being the average class size) with very little resources and overworked staff. As a result some of our parents want their children to go to other schools in Somerset West and we have to prepare children and parents for interviews and generally help with the admissions paperwork. This year we have been able to build on good relationships with two main schools and we are hoping that all of our children will be successful in their applications.

Extra English lessons.
As part of our preparation for admission into non-Xhosa speaking schools we have begun extra English as a second language classes for our most able pupils. These sessions are very practical with lots of role- play and fun activities; so far the children have been on a sleep over to an English speaking family and visited the cinema to watch the film 'The Reef.'

Training.
Vathiswa Hela and Nomasanto Ndlovu, two of our teachres are continuing to work hard and enjoy their level one Child Care and Development training which we have been running in Lwandle with the help of Share Educare a local adult training centre. The students have been regularly visiting Emyezweni to see best practice in the areas of play, early maths work and classroom management, which has made Emyezweni staff, feel very good and has encouraged individual classes to work hard on display and planning.

Networking
We have continued to develop relationships with other crèches and pre-schools in Lwandle and our neighbouring township of Nomzamo. Our school doctor, Susan Bingham has provided some excellent training on identifying skin problems in young children at our last two network meetings and we are planning some training on nutrition and classroom management for later in the year.

Logo
One of our supporters from the UK, Sally Spires has created a logo for us, Sally used pictures from the children and our mission statement to make us a logo which really captures our heart for our children and we have been busy putting it on our correspondence and paperwork. We are also looking into using it to make School T-shirts ready for next summer.

Grade R outing to the Nature Reserve

On 29th March we took the Grade R children to Helderberg Nature Reserve. Helpers from HCC collected children from Emyezweni and we drove to the Nature Reserve together.
The first thing we had to do was stop for our morning snack break, then children went off in small groups to complete a picture trail of various animals and plants in the nature reserve.
as groups finished their trail they gathered back at the picnic site to play on scooters and bikes together.
At 12.00 we had a huge picnic lunch together and then returned to school for an afternoon nap.
Photos will follow asap!