Life Skills
Owned and published by Optimi, a division of Optimi Central Services (Pty) Ltd.
7 Impala Avenue, Doringkloof, Centurion, 0157 info@optimi.co.za www.optimi.co.za
© Optimi
Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of research, criticism or review as permitted in terms of the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission from the publisher.
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
There are instances where we have been unable to trace or contact the copyright holder. If notified, the publisher will be pleased to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity.
Reg. No.: 2011/011959/07
Life Skills
Facilitator’s guide
Grade 2
Introduction for the facilitator
Impaq’s approach to Life Skills in Grade 2
Life Skills play an important role in learners’ development. They learn how to interact socially, and they discover what they like and do not like. This helps to shape their personality. Physically and emotionally they are growing and exploring the world around them. The activities in the book have been developed to help them in these areas.
Teaching Life Skills in Grade 2 requires learning opportunities, interaction, creativity and applying acquired knowledge. All of which help learners to better understand people and their surroundings.
The subject is divided into four focus areas:
• Beginning knowledge
• Personal and social well-being
• Creative arts
• Physical education
Beginning knowledge
The content and concepts of beginning knowledge comprise social sciences, natural sciences and technology. In this focus area, learners learn more about their environment, their individuality and diversity. They investigate different aspects of the world around them and discover wonderful things. They learn how relationships work, how to be interactive and communicate effectively.
Personal and social well-being
This focus area is very important for young learners. Here, they learn how to take care of their body and keep it healthy. It also includes healthy relationships with others and good values. Learners learn how to make responsible decisions by taking themselves, others and nature into consideration. More sensitive topics such as abuse and violence, are also touched on. Tolerance for other cultures, religious diversity and personal differences are discussed.
Creative arts
SAMPLE
In this focus area, four different types of art are covered: dance, drama, music and visual arts. The aim is for learners to discover the world around them by using their imagination.
In these sessions, learners must be given the freedom to express their creativity. Provide materials to create something, without giving them an example. Allow them to experiment – the process can be more valuable than the result. If, for example, they mix different coloured paints to create new colours, but end up with a muddy brown, accept this as part of the process. The important thing is that they learned which colours to mix to create a new colour, not the fact that they ended up with brown paint. Art is all about experimenting.
Let the learners use all their senses to explore and develop their creativity. Keep criticism to the minimum and always give constructive criticism.
Physical education
In the Foundation Phase, the development of learners’ fine and gross motor skills and their skills of observation is very important. This is done through play, movement, games and sport. Learners must maintain a good posture, which helps with rhythm, balance and laterality. The holistic development of the learner is very important.
Materials and resources
Grade 2 learners should write with a grey pencil so it is easy to erase mistakes. They can draw and colour pictures with any medium.
The lists below are not exhaustive, but cover what is required for most activities.
Material for creative arts
• A4 paper (white and different colours)
• A4 cardboard (white)
• A3 cardboard (white)
• Coloured pencils/retractable crayons
• Wood glue, glue (such as Pritt) and Bostik Clear glue
• Playdough
• Paint (such as fabric paint)
• Watercolours
• Paintbrushes
• Old magazines
• Newspapers
• Chalk
• Cardboard boxes (such as cereal boxes)
• Oil pastels
• Plastic cups/polystyrene cups
Material for physical education
• Tennis balls
• Big balls (such as netball balls, big plastic balls)
• Soccer ball
• Hula hoops
• Skipping ropes
• Long ropes
• Cones
• Balancing beam
• Food colouring (different colours)
• Straws
• Cotton wool
• Old toothbrushes
• Wax crayons
• Split pins
• String or wool
• Koki pens
• Thick black marker
• Paper plates
• Empty toilet rolls
• Toothpicks
• Crêpe paper
• Prestik
• Empty bottles, cans, caps, polystyrene containers, etc.
• Bean bags
• Large containers
• Racket and ball (or tennis ball)
• Cricket bat
• Balloons
• Jungle gym
• Tyres
• Long elastic
• Whistle
How to use the material and resources
The Grade 2 package includes:
1. The facilitator’s guide
2. Workbook 1: Terms 1 and 2, weeks 1–20
3. Workbook 2: Terms 3 and 4, weeks 21–40
4. Learner aid (cut-out sheets)
5. Facilitator aid (posters)
6. Assessment (portfolio book)
7. Assessment guidelines and memorandum
Facilitators are encouraged to do assessment throughout the year, not only in the indicated formal assessment sessions at the end of each term. Continued assessment will ensure that learners obtain a fair mark for their skills.
Facilitator’s guide
This guide contains 20 units. Each unit is spread over two weeks and covers 10 days. Each day is divided into two or three sessions, which covers the different focus areas. Refer to the suggested timetable for the time allocation of the sessions.
Each session is concluded with two information boxes – ‘Conceptualisation’ and ‘Resources’. The conceptualisation box summarises the concepts that are embedded, while the resources box provides a list of items provided and/or required for the session.
і Indicates a provided resource. This includes the two workbooks, the learner aid and the posters (facilitator aid).
Æ Indicates a resource the facilitator must provide.
Two symbols are used in each session:
The owl indicates what the facilitator must do.
The pencil indicates what the learner must do.
Workbook 1: Terms 1 and 2
This workbook contains 54 activities covering:
• Term 1: What we need to live, myself and others, everyone is special, healthy living, religious days and other special days
• Term 2: Seasons, farm animals, wild animals, aquatic animals, animal homes, religious days and other special days
Workbook 2: Terms 3 and 4
This workbook contains 56 activities covering:
• Term 3: Soil, transport, road safety, people who help us, religious days and other special days
• Term 4: Our country, ways we communicate, life at night, religious days and other special days
SAMPLE
The facilitator aid refers to posters to be used during the lessons:
• Poster 1: What do we need to live?
• Poster 2: Seasons
• Poster 3: Farm animals
• Poster 4: Wild animals
• Poster 5: Aquatic animals
• Poster 6: Burrowing animals
• Poster 7: Modes of transport
• Poster 8: Road safety
• Poster 9: South Africa, our country
• Poster 10: Nocturnal animals
The learner aid
The learner aid contains cut-out sheets required to complete the activities in the workbook or some of the creative arts activities. The pages are in the order it will be used.
Per week: 23 hours
Suggested timetable for Grade 2
Home Language (HL): 7/8 hours
First Additional Language (FAL): 2/3 hours
Mathematics: 7 hours
Life Skills (LS): 6 hours
07:50 – 08:05 Home Language: Listening and speaking 15
–
–
10:20 – 10:50
10:50 – 11:20
Skills: Personal and Social Well-being and Beginning knowledge 30 min
Home Language: Group guided reading 30 min
SAMPLE
Skills: Personal and Social Well-being and Beginning knowledge 30 min Life Skills: Personal and Social Well-being and Beginning knowledge 30 min Life Skills: Personal and Social Well-being and Beginning knowledge 30 min Life Skills: Personal and Social Well-being and Beginning knowledge 30 min
Home Language: Group guided reading 30 min Home Language: Shared reading 30 min Home Language: Group guided reading 30 min Home Language: Writing 30 min
11:20 – 11:45 Home Language: Handwriting 25 min Home Language: Group guided reading 25 min Home Language: Shared reading 25 min Home Language: Group guided reading 25 min Home Language: Handwriting 25 min 11:45 – 12:00 FAL: Listening and speaking 15 min FAL: Listening and speaking 15 min FAL: Listening and speaking 15 min FAL: Listening and speaking 15 min FAL: Listening and speaking 15 min
12:00 – 12:15 B R E A K
12:15 – 13:15
Skills: Physical education 60 min
Reading, writing and phonics 20 min
FAL: Reading, writing and phonics 20 min FAL: Reading, writing and phonics 20 min
Learning unit 1
Day 1 Week 1
Session 1: Topic discussion – What we need to live
Introduce each topic with an informal discussion. Guide the discussion with questions and encourage the learners to talk about their own experiences. It is important to build on their existing knowledge so they can get a more complete view of each topic. The topic table will also be used in this session. Learners participate by collecting items for the topic table.
Have an informal discussion with the learners about what we need to live. Start by reading the rhyme to them. You can also teach it to them and do accompanying movements, such as flexing your biceps at ‘keep us strong’ (line 5).
Things we need every day
Lizette van Niekerk
To live and breathe, run and play, we need these four things every day:
Some healthy food on our plate, a lot of water to hydrate.
The sun helps to keep us strong, and gives us energy all day long.
SAMPLE
We lastly need to breathe clean air, living without these things is rare!
Remember these four things each day, to keep us all healthy, yay!
Ask the learners these questions. You can also include your own questions. This session deals mostly with healthy food.
• What did the rhyme say we need every day to live? (Healthy food, water, sunlight and clean air)
• Food is one of the things we need. But not just any food – healthy food. What is healthy food?
• What is unhealthy food?
• Do you need sweets to live?
• Why are too many sweets bad for you?
• What healthy food do you enjoy?
Study the topic table with the learners.
Topic table (The topic table is used throughout the unit.)
• ‘What do we need to live?’ poster
◦ First, ask the learners what they think we need to live. Then, study the poster together. Make sure they understand why we need those four things (healthy food, water, clean air and sunlight).
◦ Display the poster at the front of the classroom/room. It must remain there for the whole week, until it is time for the next topic. You can then move that poster and display the new topic’s poster at the front of the classroom.
• Place two sheets of A2 or A3 paper with the respective headings ‘Healthy food’ and ‘Unhealthy food’, on the topic table. The learners can cut out pictures of healthy and unhealthy food in magazines and paste it on the correct paper.
Session 2: Physical exercise
Before each day’s physical education session, the learners must first play creative games to practise their skills. Make sure the learners’ muscles are warmed up before they do any activity.
Creative games and skills: Inhale and exhale deeply with your arms above your head and then next to your sides. Lie on your back, take a deep breath in and hold it, then exhale slowly through your mouth.
The learners play poisonball.
Rules
1. Mark off a large square ‘court’ on the grass in which all the learners are allowed to move around.
2. One learner stands outside the square with a soft ball. This learner must throw the ball and try to hit the players (the other learners) with the ball.
SAMPLE
3. If someone is hit by the ball, they are out. They must then leave the court and join the learner to try and hit the remaining players with a ball.
4. The game continues until there is only one player left.
If there are many learners, the game can be adapted so that two learners are allowed to throw balls at players. As soon as a learner hits a player with the ball, the learner must sit out and the player who was hit must replace the learner.
If there are only one or two learners, family members can act as stand-ins. The game can also be adapted so there is just one player who tries to stay on court as long as possible before being hit by the ball, thrown by the facilitator.
Day 2
Session 1: Topic discussion – What we need to live
We need food from every group in the food pyramid to get enough vitamins and energy. Briefly discuss the five food groups. Can the learners remember what these groups are from last year?
• Grains and grain products such as bread, rice, pasta, breakfast cereals, etc.
• Fruits and vegetables such as pears, bananas, apples, oranges, lettuce, cucumber, cauliflower, celery, etc.
• Dairy products such as butter, cheese, cream, milk, yogurt, etc.
• Meat, fish, nuts and pulses such as chicken, sausages, tuna, snoek, eggs, peanuts, etc.
• Fats and oils such as olive oil, chocolate, butter, sweets, etc.
Complete activity 1 in workbook 1. The learners write down six types of healthy food.
Session 2: Creative arts
The learners must use the picture of the fruit basket in the learner aid.
• Learners use any medium to draw fruit in the fruit basket. They must draw at least five different types of fruit.
• You can ask the learners to invent a type of fruit and draw it.
SAMPLE
Day 3
Session 1: Topic discussion – What we need to live
So far, we have discussed one thing we need to live. Can the learners remember what this is? (Healthy food) Ask the learners to recall the rhyme ‘Things we need every day’. Can they remember the other things we need to live? The next vital thing we need to live, is water. Guide
the learners to this answer – for instance, ask them what they need after a long jog or after they have played outside for a long time (a glass of ice-cold water).
The human body consists of approximately 60% water. It is important that you drink enough water everyday to keep your body hydrated. You can also drink other liquids, but water is the healthiest. Can the learners name any other liquids we can drink? For instance, cold drink, coffee, tea, milk, and the liquid that meat, eggs, fruit, vegetables, etc. contain (Encourage the learners to drink water instead of cold drink.)
Do the learners know what will happen if your body does not get enough water? If they do not know the answer, guide them with leading questions, such as: Have you ever played outside for a long time without drinking anything? How did you feel?
If your body does not have enough water, it will start to dehydrate:
1. You get thirsty and start to feel dizzy.
2. You may get a headache, which can make you moody. You cannot concentrate.
3. You will continue to lose water through sweat, urine and faeces.
4. Eventually, you urinate less, because your kidneys must try to retain water.
5. The water shortage leads to thickening of the blood. If, for example, you exercise or get up too quickly, you may faint.
6. Your body struggles to regulate its temperature, which causes your body temperature to drop (and to develop a fever).
7. If you are dehydrated for too long, your organs may start to shut down and you could die.
How much water should you drink every day? (These are simply guidelines, the amount of water you need every day is different for each person.)
• If you are between 5 and 8 years old, you must drink five glasses of water per day
• If you are between 9 and 12 years old, you must drink seven glasses of water per day.
• If you are 13 years old or older, you must drink eight to ten glasses of water per day.
Session 2: Physical exercise
SAMPLE
Creative games and skills: The learners lie down on the floor or sit on a chair, and rotate their ankles to ‘write’ their name in the air. Then they rotate their wrists.
The learners practise relay races.
Rules
1. Divide the learners into teams of four.
2. Give each team a beanbag.
3. Team members must stand 50 metres apart.
4. When you blow the whistle, the first learner in each team takes off with the beanbag. They run at full speed. As they approach the second leaner, they hold out the beanbag and then pass it to the second learner. The second learner passes the beanbag to the third learner and the third learner passes it to the fourth learner in the same way. The fourth learner must cross the finish line.
5. The team whose fourth runner crosses the finish line first, is the winner. If the learner does not have the beanbag, the next team to cross the finish line with their beanbag, wins.
Day 4
Session 1: Topic discussion – What we need to live
Water is found in different places. Can the learners think of examples? (dams, lakes, the ocean.) The earth consists of about 70% water, but most of this is seawater. Have the learners ever tasted seawater? It is salty and we cannot drink it. Fresh water is found on the earth, but only about 2,5 % of the water is fresh. Some of this, is frozen water in the North Pole and South Pole. We only have access to about 1% of the fresh water, which is captured in dams and rivers. Water is a very scarce resource that we must use sparingly. Make sure the learners know that we should not waste water.
Ask the learners to think of where we use water every day – we drink water, bath/shower, wash our hands, flush the toilet, swim, water the garden, pets and farm animals drink water, we cook food, etc.
Complete activity 2 in workbook 1. The learners read the information and complete the sentences by writing the correct word on the line.
1. People and animals drink water.
2. I use water to wash myself.
3. I water the plants in the garden.
4. We must not waste water.
SAMPLE
Session 2: Creative arts
Ask the learners why we wash our hands. (To kill germs.) What do the germs on our hands look like if we do not wash our hands? The learners use diluted paint and a straw to create ‘germs’ on a sheet of paper.
• Use water to dilute paint, or mix water and food colouring. (Use different colours.)
• Give each learner a sheet of A4 paper.
• The learners suck up a small amount of paint with the straw. They must only suck up a little bit of paint and take care not to get any paint in their mouths.
• They place the straw on the paper and then blow. The paint should run in different directions. These are the ‘germs’.
• The learners use different colours to cover the paper with ‘germs’. They can also experiment with mixing two colours. (They suck up a little diluted paint with the straw, place it on the paper and blow, and then repeat it with another colour.)
• Once the paint has dried, the learners can paste (or draw) googly eyes and a little mouth. Can they create different types of germs?
Day 5
SAMPLE
Session 1: Topic discussion – What we need to live
We use water every day. One of the things we need water every day for, is to wash our hands. Teach the learners the ‘Hand washing song’. Emphasise the importance of always washing your hands after using the toilet or playing outside.
Hand washing song
Wash your hands every day, to keep the germs away. Scrub with soap and water, and be on your way.
Wash your hands every day, to keep the germs away. Scrub with soap and water, and be on your way.
Complete activity 3 in workbook 1. The learners write the correct word under each picture.
Memorandum (in order of the pictures)
• dam
• windmill
• well • river
• fountain
• borehole
Session 2: Improvise and interpret
The learners pair up with a partner. They create a short play about a child who refuses to wash their hands. Each learner must have at least two turns to speak. They can practise first and use props to bring the play to life. They perform their play for the class. If the learners struggle to find ideas for a play, you can help them.
Day 6
Week 2
Session 1: Topic discussion – What we need to live
SAMPLE
So far, we have discussed two things we need to live – can the learners remember what they are? (Food and water) The next element we need to live, is clean air. Can the learners guess how many litres of air we inhale in one minute? The average person inhales 7 litres of air every minute. That is more than 11 000 litres of air per day! Your body uses the oxygen in the air you breathe in, and you breathe out carbon dioxide. However, the air we breathe is not clean. It is polluted by many things. (If something is polluted, it is dirty.) Can the learners think of examples? (vehicle exhaust fumes, veld fires, factories, power stations, cigarettes, deforestation, spray cans, burning wood, coal, etc.)
Ask the learners to suggest ways to reduce air pollution. Later in the week, they will do an activity about this. They can make any suggestion, even if it is unrealistic. Thinking of creative solutions will help improve their reasoning ability.
Topic table: ‘What do we need to live?’ poster
Session 2: Physical exercise
Creative games and skills: Sing traditional songs and keep the beat by stamping your feet and clapping your hands.
The learners play classic children’s games.
Rules
1. Use fabric shopping bags to run a sack race. Learners race one another by standing in a bag and jumping forwards.
2. Place a potato on a spoon, and race one another or complete an obstacle course, first holding the spoon with your dominant hand and then your non-dominant hand.
3. Run three-legged races: Two learners stand side by side, and using a long strip of fabric or something similar, tie their touching ankles (one’s left leg and the other’s right leg) together. The pairs of learners then race one another. Each pair must work together in order to run –using first their ‘free’ legs and then their combined ‘third’ leg to run. The pair that crosses the finish line first, wins.
4. The learners play tug of war.
Day 7
SAMPLE
Session 1: Topic – What we need to live
Complete activity 4 in workbook 1. The learners complete the sentences by writing the correct word on the line.
Memorandum
We must try to keep the air clean so we can breathe fresh air every day. Our lungs use the oxygen in the air, so we can live.