Literacy & Numeracy Summer Workshops

Icebreaker/Initial assessment 

The session will begin with a collective activity to give children the opportunity to meet each other and work on a mini task together.

Children will then engage in a series of dynamic, hands-on activities that will promote engagement and allow our instructors to assess individual skills.  Our teachers will then use this knowledge to build up from each child’s strengths and gradually address areas of improvement throughout the workshop.

General Structure

Students will have structured sessions with clearly outlined objectives and activities for the day, including breaks.  The timetable will be clearly visible to students all day and each activity will include a visual cue.  Rules and boundaries will be set out and explained at the very beginning of the workshop and students will be reminded throughout the day.  The main rule is to respect oneself and others and all other rules and boundaries will stem from this basic principle.

Project-based Learning (PBL)

We firmly believe that all children are curious and have a natural tendency to learn, provided they are immersed in a nurturing, student-centred learning environment where they can freely express themselves.  In this context, our workshops will be based on the power of active learning through multidisciplinary, dynamic activities.  It is, essentially, learning by doing, and it is the most rewarding experience for students.  Children will have fun, innovate and use their best skills to attain a common goal, which allows them to take ownership of their own learning.  When unleashed, children’s creativity and imagination can lead to the most exciting final products!

Literacy PBL – Creative Group Writing

Under the guidance of our experienced instructors, students will work together in brainstorming and writing a story as a group, with each child contributing their own part of the story, according to their individual ability, and then assembling all parts together.  The process is carefully scaffolded by our teachers to ensure that children are given ample opportunities to work to the best of their potential.  This addresses all the main areas of literacy combined in a single activity and provides a set of skills that can be applied to multiple learning scenarios.  Stories are typically humorous in nature and include descriptive language as well as use of different figures of speech and sensory details.  

Students learn new vocabulary and improve their spelling, grammar, punctuation and other aspects of their reading and writing through play, without feeling that they are completing a task.  A range of activities associated with the storytelling and the writing includes music, role play and artwork.

Numeracy PBL – Creative expression: Role play, music, art 

The purpose of this project is to take maths content, which is abstract in nature, and render it tangible and thus more relevant to students by means of hands-on activities that involve real-life scenarios, like buying and selling or using time.  Students will improve their knowledge of numbers, geometrical figures, sequences, areas and volumes, as well as arithmetic skills. 

Activities will be differentiated according to each child’s current level and skills and children can learn from each other and from skills modelled by instructors.  Students will be able to opt for different types of creative expression (role play, music, art, building)  in order to jointly create scenarios such as shops, restaurants or football stadiums.  They will create their own props and participate in role play activities, together with songs and dances, to make the content more meaningful and help them understand both theoretical and practical aspects of maths.  Activities encompass all learning styles and provide plenty of opportunity for visual, auditory, kinaesthetic or tactile learners.