Creative Skills Factory Newsletter April 2024

The first school term went by quickly, like a whirlwind. We sprinted into our work, and all of our programs are up and running again.

Our Early Learning Program at Die Bron Primary School in Stanford and Masakhane Primary School in Gansbaai have been busy. The First Term is all about getting to know the children we are working with. We have been screening children and implementing play-based activities with our Grade R learners. Currently, we have 56 children attending the program in small groups every week.

Our focus this term was parent education. We participated in parent workshops at Masakhane Primary School, Die Bron Primary School, and Funimfundo Pre-school, reaching approximately 150 parents. The workshops we presented were on how to enhance children's Fine and Gross Motor skills at home.

Thank you to our collaborating schools, Die Bron Primary School, Masakhane Primary School, and Funimfundo Pre-Primary School.

We are back on track for our Arts & Cultural Appreciation Program with our music mentor, Manuel Jardine, teaching children how to play guitars and the recorder. Jack Lerole Junior has been mentoring children in playing their penny whistles. The children have been deepening their knowledge of reading music and playing music on their instruments.

Our two Visual Art Mentors did beautiful projects in the arts with the children during the First Term.

Artist Antje Shone's classes in Masakhane at the Grootbos HUB buzz with excited children, and the number of children attending is growing by the week.

We would like to ask for assistance here - if anyone has a folding table they don't use, would you consider donating it for use in Antje's growing workshops?

THANK YOU Grootbos Foundation for your continued support of Creative Skills Factory.

Artist Tracy Algar worked with us at Die Bron Primary School through the Term, facilitating beautiful art projects with the Grade 1 and Grade 2 learners.

The Drama classes with Raine Waring are running at the Stanford Community Hall with the committed group of children working earnestly on their drama techniques.

The Learning Tree is always a busy and active place.

Our team has grown; we now have two young assistants who have joined our team.

At our center, we offer regular reading clubs and literacy groups, art and craft, movement, music for the community children and for our team, art teaching training provided by Tracy Algar.

This month, we were blessed with a visit from Rachel Adams, an experienced teacher from England. While she was in South Africa, she ran a training workshop on reading for our team. The team learned how to effectively present books and stories to best serve the children who attend the Learning Tree.

Rachel also brought some wonderful resources for the community children.

BIG THANK YOU to Rachel.

The term ended with a colourful puppet show in the school holidays performed by Beauty Dumileyo, a professional puppeteer, who brought the Easter story to life for us.

Thank you to everyone. We had a great start to the year!