Community Helpers

As part of our theme "Me and my World" we have been learning about people that help us in our community. A community is a group of people living together in one place. We talked about the people who help us in the Bagamoyo community.

Michael the Bear helped us learn about community jobs.

 We have had fun dressing up our new classmate 'Michael the Bear' in all sorts of different uniforms. Michael was donated by some students from Lonestar College in Texas, who recently visited us.

These are some of the people that help us in our community:


Doctors
Doctors help us when we are sick. They work at the hospital. They give us injections. Sometimes they take some of our blood to check if we have malaria. Michael is wearing surgeon clothes. Surgeons are special types of doctors. They wear the mask so that they don't breath in bad diseases and get sick. They wear the special clothes to keep the blood off their body.

Doctor Michael

Builders
Builders help us by building things. Soon, we will have a new classroom. A builder will come to the school to build it for us. They have lots of tools they use to build. Sometimes, they wear special hats to protect their heads if something falls on them. We learnt that carpenters are people who make furniture. They are a bit like builders.

Builder Michael

Firefighters
Firefighters help us when there is a fire at our house or school or some other place. They come to where the fire is and they use a big hose to put out the fire. They wear special clothes so they don't get burnt. It is a very dangerous job. We have not seen firefighters in Bagamoyo but there are some in Dar es Salaam (the big city 2 hours drive away). Once in Bagamoyo when there was a fire near Salama's house, all the neighbours helped to put out the fire. They put buckets of water on the fire to stop it.

Fire fighter Michael

Police Officers
Police officers are very important in our community. They make sure people follow the rules of the community. If someone breaks the rules and maybe steals something then the police takes them to jail. They have to stay in jail for awhile so that they don't do the wrong thing again. Sometimes the police help if there are a lot of cars on the road. They direct the drivers so they don't crash. Police check people's documents and they sometimes check cars.

Police officer Michael

There are lots of other people that are important in our community. Pilots, plumbers, teachers, chefs, farmers and nurses all help us in different ways.

We have enjoyed changing Michael into new clothes every morning. We hope that we can find or make some more costumes for him to wear!

Questions
1. Who helps you in your community?
2. What do doctors do in your community? Why are doctors so important? What would happen if there were no doctors?
3. Jobs are very important. Why do you think people work?
4. Research one job (for example: chef, actor, pilot, fisherman), and write a paragraph about what that person does and why.

Super Swimmers

Steven Tito Academy is located on a farm near a town called Bagamoyo. Bagamoyo is a coastal town, so it has a great beach. A lot of us go swimming on the weekend so it is really important that we learn how to swim and stay safe in and near the water.

Running along our beach

Once a month, we get to go swimming at a local hotel. They have a nice big swimming pool. They have a deep pool and a shallow kids pool. A while ago some people donated bathers and so most of us have bathers to swim in. If we don't, we just swim in shorts and a top.

Getting ready for a swimming lesson in the small pool.

Waiting for their turn to swim.

Group 6 waiting in the big pool for their turn to practise breaststroke.

We each have a swimming group. In our group there are 4 or 5 people. Our teachers teach us how to kick and move our arms in the water. Some groups are learning the frog kick. It is called the frog kick because your legs move like a frog. You need to know the frog kick to do breaststroke.

Teacher Laura helped us out for the day. Thanks Laura!

Learning to kick with Teacher Lauren

While we wait for our swimming lesson we play on the beach with Teacher Leonard. We build sandcastles, play football and find shells.

Playing football on the beach

After everybody has had their swimming lesson, we get free swimming time. We have to follow these rules:

• No running
• No jumping or diving in the pool
• No pushing
• No splashing
• Listen to the teacher and do as they say

We have rules so that no one gets hurt and everybody has a safe and fun time in the pool.

We love going to the pool and look forward to it every month. Thank you to Monica from Australia who donates the money to pay for the pool. We hope to get really good at swimming so that we can be more confident in the ocean.

Thank you to Salim for taking most of the photos for the blog this week. Good work Salim!

Questions
1. What are the five rules for swimming?
2. Why is it important for us to learn how to swim?
3. Research some different swimming strokes? How many can you find?
4. Do you do swimming at your school? Write about it.
5. Have you been to the beach before? What do you do there?

A Tanzanian Birthday

Last week we celebrated a birthday at Steven Tito Academy! Hadija, one of our Prep students, turned 6.She had a beautiful cake with green writing on it.

The students singing 'Happy Birthday' to Hadija

Putting on the hat

We all sang 'Happy Birthday' to Hadija. In Tanzania we sing:

'Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Hadija,
Happy Birthday to you
How old are you you now?
How old are you you now?
Happy Birthday dear Hadija
Happy Birthday to you.
Cut the cake today
Cut the cake today'
Then we clap 6 times (because Hadija turned 6)

Cutting the cake

In Tanzania the birthday girl or boy has to feed a piece of cake to each of the guests. It takes a while but it is a lot of fun.

Giving cake to her Dad

Feeding cake to one of her friends

Feeding cake to Grace, the mum who looks after Hadija

Little Nadya, from the preschool, enjoying a piece of cake

The students were all very happy to get their piece of cake

After enjoying the cake we all went back to class.

We have been learning about celebrations in class. We all drew a picture of either our birthday, Christmas, Eid or some other celebration. Then we wrote about what we do on that day. Here are some examples:

Eid - Ally (Grade 3)

In our family we like to go to the Mosque. In our family we celebrate Eid because it is a fun day to celebrate. On the day for Eid we go to the Mosque. We eat pilau and meat of cow. The day of Eid we play games like football.

 My Birthday - Salama (Grade 1)

On my birthday we have bananas and bread. People eat cake. I play with my friend. I eat the cake. I play with balloons.

 Christmas by Sabra (Grade 2)

I have a fun day. I play with the dog. We all eat chips. We put a Christmas tree. We all dance. We eat cake. We go to the beach and eat chips and chicken. We put a tree for presents.

This week Athumani took the photos for the blog post. We think he did a pretty good job. Thanks Athumani!

Questions:
1. What is one thing we do to celebrate birthdays in Tanzania?
2. How do you celebrate your birthday? Do you have cake?
3. Ally celebrates Eid. Research what Eid is and present to your class.
4. Which celebration would you most enjoy: Eid with Ally, a birthday party with Salama or Christmas with Sabra? Why?

Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds

Next week is our mid-term break. The first half of this term (Term 2), we have been learning about how to keep our bodies and minds healthy and fit.

Heart Health
We learnt that exercise is good for us. We did an experiment. First we checked our heartbeat. You can check your heartbeat by holding your wrist, putting your fingers on your neck under your chin or if it's beating really hard you can sometimes feel it through your chest. We wrote down how many times our heart beat in 15 seconds. Then we ran around. After we ran around we checked our heart beat again. It was beating much faster. We learnt that your heart beats faster because it is trying to pump the blood to the parts of your body that are moving a lot. The blood carries oxygen which the muscles need.


Dental Health
We love smiling and we know that our teeth are very important. We learnt that first you have baby teeth and then they get pushed out and you get big teeth. Once, you get your big teeth (adult teeth) then you don't get any more. So....it's really important to keep your teeth healthy and strong!

Salama's poster explaining how to take care of your teeth.

In Science, we learnt that there are lots of things you can do to take care of your teeth. We learnt that sugar is the enemy of teeth. Thanks to a donation of toothbrushes and toothpaste from Switzerland we now brush our teeth after lunch. We all line up and get out toothpaste and water and then brush out teeth to make sure they are clean. We don't any of them falling out or getting cavities.

Healthy Eating
Did you know that some food is good for your body and some food is not so good? The good food (which you can have lots of) is called healthy food. The not so good food (which you should only have a little bit of) is called unhealthy food. We had to guess which foods were healthy and which food was unhealthy. We each got a picture and had to stick it on the board. Sabra really hoped that lollies (candy) were healthy but turns out she was wrong. Too much sugar! 

We noticed that all the fruit and vegetables were on the healthy side and all the treats like cake and chocolate were on the unhealthy side. Turns out sugar is bad for your teeth and the rest of your body as well. Teacher Lauren said it's okay to have sugar sometimes but not all the time. We have a new school rule. No lollies at school (especially in the morning)!

Cutting tomatoes for the guacamole we made for lunch.

We made guacamole. We put in lots of vegetables so that it was very healthy and good for us.

Questions:
1) Why does your heart beat faster when you exercise?
2) Check your heart beat for 15 seconds. Run around and then check again. How many more beats did you count the second time?
3) How can you keep your teeth healthy and strong?
4) Do you brush your teeth at your school?
5) Do you know the different food groups? Can you list them
6)What are some ways you can keep your body and your mind healthy and active?

From Tadpoles to Frogs

We love learning by doing!

A few months ago one of our teachers, Teacher Leonard, found some tadpoles when he was collecting some water. During animal month we had learnt about frogs and the frog life cycle so we knew that tadpoles grow into frogs. We really wanted to see it happen!

We cut the lid off an old plastic drink bottle and put the tadpoles in it for the night.

We were all really excited to raise the tadpoles but we didn't know exactly what to do. So, we asked our friends on Facebook what they thought we should do. We also researched using some books we had in the classroom.

One of the questions we asked our Facebook friends.

What they eat
We discovered that tadpoles can eat cooked spinach and uncooked capsicum. This was perfect because we often have spinach and capsicum for lunch. Athumani and Adam were very responsible and collected the food a couple of times a week.

A new home for the tadpoles
We also made a bigger home for our tadpoles by cutting a 12 litre water bottle in half. We collected some algae and leaves from a pond to put it. We also collected rainwater when it rained because we didn't want our tadpoles to have water with chemicals in it.

Sabra and Mariam check on the tadpoles in their new home.

First the tadpoles grew back legs, then front legs and then their tail started to shorten. It happened just the way we had read!

This life cycle poster shows how a tadpole grows to a frog. We stuck it up right next to the tank.

When the tadpoles became froglets we decided we needed to put some rocks in the tank for them to rest on. Tadpoles breath in the water using gills. Froglets and frogs breath air using lungs. That's why it was really important to put in some rocks for them to sit on.

When the tadpoles had grown into frogs we decided to let them go back into the wild. We hope they are doing well. We are going to collect some more tadpoles and start again!

Questions:
1. Who collected the food for the tadpoles?
2. Today you have learnt about the life cycle of a frog. Research the life cycle of another animal and present what you find to your class.
3. What would have happened if there had been no rock for the froglets and frogs to rest on?
4. Have you ever raised an animal from a baby to an adult. Write about your experience.