Our Age Groups

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  We continue to develop the big muscle (gross motor development) skills. This is very important and our well-equipped play areas in the garden contribute to this, as well as the teacher integrating activities which are structured, for example, obstacle courses, outside games and our bicycle and scooters.

Fine motor development, (fingers and eye to hand co- ordination), is further developed by using drawing and art tools, activities to strengthen fingers, using educational toys and fun craft activities.

Language development is very important. Children are encouraged to use speech to express themselves and to use sentences in order further vocabulary. This is needed so that when the time comes, in the next two years, the children are ready to learn to read. Stories and songs form part of this development area, as well as continuing to use a theme for each week. This develops general knowledge as well as vocabulary.

Fun is the cornerstone of learning in the early years. The alphabet is introduced by teaching the phonic sounds of letters, for example “a” is for apple, and so on. Again, this is laying the foundation for the following year where letter names are introduced. 

The children learn to count objects and to use fingers for counting. Age appropriate activities are used in this area of the curriculum. Our energetic teachers plan their work weekly in order to have the children ready for the following year.

  We follow on from what has been covered in grade 000. “Letterland” has fun songs and work sheets for the children to continue extend and reinforce what has been covered in grade 000. As well as letter names, (phonic sounds), the children learn letter names, A, B, C, D, and so on. Uppercase letters are introduced with songs and artwork. 

Language development is, of course very important. The children are encouraged to speak in full sentences and vocabulary is built further in this age group.

Number work is continued in this grade and the children are encouraged to recognise numbers and their value.

Fine motor skills, (hand strengthening and eye hand co-ordination), by use of crayons and craft and educational toys. All these activities are, of course at and age appropriate level. 

Gross motor skills are developed, (big muscles), in the play areas using the play equipment as well as using the bicycles’ and scooters. Teacher led activities are also used with games outside and singing and dancing. 

In the area of social and emotional development, the teacher encourages the children to become more independent.  The children are encouraged to deal with friends and adults in a respectful way. They are taught that they as individuals should be treated with kindness and respect. Conflict is discussed and the teacher will intervene in an appropriate way to help to deal with matters that arise. “Do to others as you would have done to you”. This is a biblical “golden rule” and is the bedrock of our behaviour. Independence and co-operation with peers and adults is worked towards. Again, such areas of development are at an age appropriate way.

  This is our senior class. The teacher works towards getting the children ready to go to school in grade 1 the following year.

Most importantly, confidence and independence are developed in all areas. That is: cognitively, socially, and emotionally. A confident child is a happy child. Our aim is to help develop confidence so that the children “can do” when the get to grade 1.

Social and emotional development continues. The children enjoy helping the teacher where they can and independence is developed as from the previous year.

The curriculum now includes emergent reading. The children revise letter sounds and names as well as building words – three letter words – and learning the blends of letters. For example: ‘bl’ as in ‘blue’, “cr”, as in ‘crash’, ‘sh’, as in ‘ship’, and so on.

This area leads to the children starting to read. For those who can, we encourage reading the first levels of readers used in schools. This is part of what Secret Garden is known for. That is, children leaving our grade R class are well and truly ready for grade 1.

In number work, we continue to build on what has been covered in the previous years. The children, by now, understand the concept of numbers and can deal with them in and abstract way rather than only in a physical way.

Simple addition and subtraction are introduced. We use games led by the teacher and age appropriate worksheets. The children learn to count in 2’s 5’s and 10’s. 

This is a fun year for our “big” children at Secret Garden. We follow themes, developing general knowledge and working further on vocabulary. As in the previous years, gross motor skills and fine motor skills continue to be developed through age appropriate activities using all sorts of resources in our well-equipped classroom.