Boost for Grade R practitioners

HUNDREDS of Grade R practitioners are being trained and equipped with resources to promote playful and happy pupils in their classrooms.

The series of workshop, which involves 300 Grade R practitioners, is being run by the Lego Foundation and the Sesame Workshop, which is the non-profit educational organisation behind Takalani Sesame.

They have teamed up to promote a new multimedia experience titled “Play Well and Be Happy”.

The first session was held yesterday at the Teachers’ Centre in Stirling.

The programme is aimed at children and caregivers in the Eastern Cape and is the latest intervention by the workshop in the region.

The programme is designed to unlock the power of play to create transformative, hands-on, learning experiences.

Speaking at their first workshop, Takalani Sesame coordinator Daisy Reddy told the room full of practitioners that Play Well and Be Happy encouraged play-based learning to foster many skills including counting, spatial relationships, working memory, colour and shape recognition.

According to Sesame Workshop, the Eastern Cape is home to approximately 900 000 children up to five years old, of whom two-thirds are considered vulnerable due to their socioeconomic status.

These children have low access to educational materials leading to low literacy rates which negatively impacts on their education and wellbeing.

Last year Takalani Sesame and Lego started distributing study and play materials to schools around the province.

The materials featured the famous and loveable Takalani Sesame muppets and Lego Duplo bricks.

About 1 000 schools were visited in the province and more than 60 000 children are expected to benefit from the programme. — arethal@dispatch.co.za