VOLUME 26: 20 AUGUST 2021

The Grade 2s are excited about their new theme Nocturnal Animals. This week, they met two Game Rangers (The Wild Kratts sisters!) who came to speak to the children about what a game ranger’s job is, the importance of conservation, and nocturnal animals. There was much discussion about respecting our wildlife and the different experiences the children have had with wildlife. Adam and Zach were inspired to create their own Nocturnal Animal power point presentations to share with the class. We are so impressed with how quickly the children are learning to make their own power points in their ICT lessons and applying it to the work that we are doing in class. Sadie brought Popcorn, her hamster and nocturnal friend, to spend the day with us in class. What fun to be able to bring a nocturnal animal in to school! Matthew bought his nocturnal teddies to school and a group of girls

designed beautiful posters. Felix Artemis O’Carroll visited the Grade 2s on Friday with a hedgehog plush toy! Thank you, Ally! Well done, too, to Eva Capri who received Bronze Learn to Swim and Silver Stroke Development certificates for 2021!

NOCTURNAL ANIMALS AND GRADE 2 NEWS!

The Second Round of the South African Mathematics Challenge was written on the 26th of July. 480 learners have qualified for the Third and Final Round. We are pleased to announce that 7 pupils from Somerset House will be competing at this level. Congratulations to these pupils. This is an outstanding achievement!

• Thomas Niehaus (Grade 4)

• Ava Schreuder (Grade 4)

• Sienna Vonbun (Grade 4)

• Olivia Castleden (Grade 5)

• Nia O’Carroll (Grade 5)

• Jonathan Coolen (Grade 5)

• Nicolas Roberts-Meyer (Grade 5)

Congratulations to Lukas and Jana Ochsenbein on their fantastic achievements in the 2021 online Stellenbosch Eisteddfod! To get a Gold award, children need to achieve above 80%, and for a Cum

Laude award, they need to achieve above 90%. Lukas achieved the following results on his Saxophone: Baroque piece: Gold Romantic piece: Cum Laude Modern piece: Cum Laude Jana presented a Concert Programme (3 pieces played consecutively) on the Trumpet and achieved a Cum Laude.

CONGRATULATIONS!

EXCELLENT EISTEDDFOD RESULTS

The Grade 5s completed their ocean scenes by blending cool coloured inks into their artworks. The end results look amazing and they should be proud of the beautiful artworks they have created.

GRADE 5 ART – OCEAN SCENES

Four Grade 7 girls, Eva Herbertson, Joselyn Huggett, Shannon Buys and Kate Allwood represented Somerset House in the second round of the Astro quiz. The AstroQuiz™ Competition is an Astronomy-focused questions and answers competition for teams of learners. Initially founded in 2005 at Sci-Bono Discovery Centre, during the National Astronomy Platform month, the competition enjoyed almost instant success and was subsequently established as a fixed annual competition that gained a national footprint. The objective of this competition is to contribute to the improvement of awareness, interest, understanding, and insight into basic astronomy, as well as build an appreciation of and pride in South Africa’s history of science activity and achievements, amongst others. This round was answered online and the girls are competing at District level. They were very quick with their answers and had fun while they were doing it. Good luck, girls! #womensmonth

In line with our theme of different types of transport, the Dormice enjoyed learning to fly James’s toy glider. Great fun was had seeing who could create a loop-the-loop, as well as a fancy landing. The children in early morning care have enjoyed playing in the Dormice class on these cold mornings.

ASTRO QUIZ SECOND ROUND

DORMOUSE CLASS NEWS

A number of our pupils of various ages joined Coach Paul and Miss Mac for a Mountain Biking session around the campus on Friday afternoon. The cyclists enjoyed a scenic route around the campus, including up the avenue to Oakwood and back, before being put to the test as they completed a set course with laps to time. Their results were recorded and we hope that many of them will return this week in an attempt to better their times. New cyclists are also welcome! If you are joining us, please ensure that you have a helmet and that your bike is in good working order. We look forward to another fun session this week.

MOUNTAIN BIKING

We had great fun on Wednesday late afternoon / early evening as families arrived to enjoy a game of badminton. Some families enjoyed a leisurely friendly, while other courts were more competitive. The response was fantastic and as a result we will be running these sessions again next Wednesday. We would like to invite our parents to join in on the fun and will be hosting a Kids and Parents Badminton evening again next Wednesday, 25th August from 4pm - 6pm. If you would like to book a half an hour session with your child, please send Miss Mac an email sport@somersethouse.co.za. The following slots will be available on the 4 courts:

• 16:00 - 16:30

• 16:30 - 17:00

• 17:00 - 17:30

• 17:30 - 18:00

BADMINTON – CHILDREN AND PARENTS

Recently the Fieldmice enjoyed a rainy day 'Fieldmice Restaurant' at snack time.

FIELDMOUSE RESTAURANT

Thank you to all our staff and pupils for your co-operation and assistance while we carried out the PE Assessments. This week we challenged our children, testing their core and upper body strength as they had to plank for as long as possible and perform as many push-ups and sit-ups as possible within the allocated 30 seconds. Congratulations to Jonty Coolen who set the pace at a whopping 15 min 5 seconds for planking – and we thought that this record would stand. However, we were blown away by the efforts of two of our Grade 3 girls, who are also gymnasts and clearly have core strength. Very well done to Jade Botha and Chelsea Clayton who managed to plank for a total of 20 min and 5 seconds. This is the first time that these exercises formed part of our PE Assessments and they now hold the record. We challenge our pupils and parents to try and beat their time. Well done girls, this is a fantastic result! The world record stands at just over 4 hours, something to work towards!

PHYS ED ASSESSMENTS

The Grade 4s are reading a new novel this term - “The Fastest Boy in the World” by Elizabeth Laird. It is set in Ethiopia, a country on our continent that the Grade 4s realised they knew very little about. In order to better visualise the landscapes, cities, and characters, they spent some time learning as much as they could about our North African counterparts.

• They have a female president, Sahle-Work Zewde.

• Ethiopia is the only African country never to have been brought under colonial control – a fact that locals will never tire of informing visitors.

• You know your morning caffeine shot? You’ve got some Ethiopian goats to thank for that. As the story goes, a goat herder way back when noticed his flock’s fondness for a certain bush and decided to give one of the fruits a nibble himself. His day’s herding was notably more efficient for it – and the coffee industry took off from there.

• In 1960, an Ethiopian by the name of Abebe Bikila became the first black African to win gold in the Olympics.

• Ethiopia is perceived to be the diplomatic capital of the African continent.

• Ethiopia is the country with the second highest population in Africa, and with almost 1,5 % of the world population.

• At an altitude of 2,450 metres, Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, is the highest capital city in Africa, and the fourth highest in the whole world.

• The first African female to become an airplane pilot was an Ethiopian.

• Their currency is called the Ethiopian birr. The pupils loved learning all about this fascinating place and cannot wait to find out what the main character, Solomon, gets up to as he travels from the rural area he has grown up in to the capital city Addis Ababa for the first time!

GRDAE 4 ENGLISH STUDY

The Grade 3s have been very busy helping to save the environment. The Grade 3 teachers merged the two classes and tasked the children with making posters to go up around the school, helping children to be aware of the damage pollution is having on their immediate environment. The children worked collaboratively on the brief and the results are outstanding. In an extension of this the children helped manage the waste on Friday, recycling the yogurt tubs. We are so proud of these budding environmental officers.

3J made use of the beautiful sunshine today by doing a spelling test out on the tennis court with chalk. This whole body exercise is valuable for motor planning, fine and gross motor strength. They also consolidated the vocabulary used with an analogue clock by jumping times such as o’clock, half past etc on the chalk drawn clock face. Physical engagement with academics is such fun, especially in the winter sunshine.

GRADE 3 NEWS

Dinosaur means terrible lizard! Riveting or revolting reptiles? The children enjoyed the theme discussions and impressed their teachers with wonderful, creative art this week. Tracing dinosaur shadows, cutting shapes to design their own dinosaur, and drawing a busy city with a dinosaur on the loose. Well done. Grade Rs!

DINOSAURS IN GRADE R!

The Fieldmice (Grade 00) did some bubble-blowing to print the backgrounds to their space pictures.

CREATING SPACE PICTURES

In Drama, the Grade 4s and 5s have been doing African Tales of how the giraffe got its long neck and the lion got its mane. In groups the children made up there plays, either from existing

stories or creating their own. Each story had to have the elements of beginning, middle and end. Once they had finished, we told stories around the ‘campfire’ – I projected a camp scene on the wall and the stories flowed. I just love their vivid imaginations and ability to tell stories.

AFRICAN TALES

These are the Grade 2s completed self-portraits. They were given the choice of using warm or cold colours. Blending techniques were taught and they did a fabulous job of applying this into their portraits. They should be proud of what they have created!

The Grade 1s worked with inks this week. They created backgrounds for the hot air balloons they have been working on. There was a lot of fun had in this lesson and they really enjoyed the chance to work with this material. They were encouraged to create their own designs and patterns with the use of warm coloured inks.

GRADE 2 ART – SELF PORTRAITS

GRADE 1 ART – BACKGROUNDS

While learning about snails, the Bee Class (Gr000) worked really hard developing their fine motor skills by adding buttons to a spiral shape pattern. There was a serious amount of concentration while they chose and placed each button.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS

The Fieldmice (Gr00) completed their Space pictures with a collage.

SPACE PICTURES!

Suid-Afrika is 'n pragtige land met kleurryke kulture en unieke smaak. Daar is maar min goed so lekker soos 'n gesellige braai of ‘n stukkie biltong. Vellies is ook nou wêreldberoemd en natuurlik TROTS Suid-Afrikaans. Om als te kroon het ons die Kaapse fynbos en Tafelberg – letterlik so oud soos die berge! Die Graad 6’e moes navorsing doen oor ‘n paar onderwerpe eie aan Suid-Afrika. ‘n Paar van die onderwerpe waarna ons kon luister is: melktert, die springbok, galjoen, Knysna-verkleurmannetjie, koeksisters, bobotie en natuurlik Ouma-beskuit. Wel gedaan Graad 6’e!

TROTS SUID-AFRIKAANS!

On a beautiful winter morning, everyone was entertained by our talented saxophonists and brass players. From Classical compositions, Jazz tunes, a Tango, all the way to ABBA, they kept their audience entertained. We are very proud of all their beautiful and musical performances.

THURSDAY MORNING LIVE

While Ms Valentine was isolating, one of our Student Teachers, Ms Rohm, did an Art lesson with the Grade 1s, challenging them to create beautiful artworks from their hand-prints.

HAND-PRINT ART

The campus never fails to take our breath away, and the changing shape and hugeness of the clouds is often quite spectacular!

The Grade 5s carried out a scientific experiment to test the rules of the fire triangle. We tested what would happen if we put different sized jars over a burning candle to see how long it would burn. The conclusion was that the smaller the jar, the sooner the oxygen would run out in the jar. We have learnt that fire needs oxygen in order to burn. When the oxygen in the jar ran out, the flame went out.

SPOTTED!

THE FIRE TRIANGLE

The Fieldmice (Gr00) had such fun doing “Vicky Violet legs” in their movement ring.

VICKY VIOLET