We ran our first community parent workshop on Saturday 16th of April: we run at least 6 workshops a year, but we normally host them in our schools. Increasingly, we recognise the value of the taking our work out to the communities, and Saturday was a pilot. We had invited 40 parents to join us on Saturday, and although only 20 of them came, it was a relief as the hall had double booked, and we were confined to a tiny space in the safe house connected to the hall.
We had our favourite Xolisa come and tell Xhosa and English stories, Noma talked about the importance of praise, Daniswa spoke about joining a library and the benefits of it, and Bea took us all through the uses of a picture dictionary and the methods we use for paired reading. It was a true skills transference afternoon, complete with home baked muffins by Cherry Gammelin, our in-house media intern. Apologies for the quality of the pictures.... in the excitement we forgot to bring a camera, so these are off someone's phone.
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| Xolisa, entrancing the parents! |
We were able to give Xhosa/English Picture Dictionaries away due to the generosity of The IWC who has donated R20,000 for materials for parent workshops this year. In addition to the wonderful picture dictionaries, we gave out useful parent packs, with information on the sounds of the English alphabet, games to play with children, and a reader to practise paired reading. The afternoon was both informative (from both sides), and enjoyable. My favourite part of every parent workshop is to watch the parents and children participate during story time...... true magic happens, and I always come away with the sense that we must never under-estimate the power of stories to bind and unite us.
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