Green Point Lighthouse
©Karen Dawes/Cape Explorers 2012
Greenpoint Lighthouse Activity sheet - August 2012
Page 1
Green Point Lighthouse Activities!
I do hope you had fun on Friday with the other Explorers when we visited Green
Point Lighthouse!
Now, it's time to have some more fun with what we learnt there!
Please read through it all: you know your children better than I do.
Choose the appropriate tasks, and most of all please have FUN!
None of this is compulsory, and I'd hate outings to become a drudge and a bore because of these.
The links I've included here will be up on the Cape Explorer blog for ease of use!
Photo Fun!
Look



at the photo again:
What was the weather like when this photograph was taken?
What is the name of the hill to the right of the Lighthouse?
What is the black arrow on top of the lighthouse for? What is it called?
Grade R + Junior Primary (Materials needed: koki pens, paper, scissors, glue)
I'm sure you are all very clever and know your shapes by now!
 Can you tell me what a three sided shape is called?
 What about a four sided shape whose sides are all the same length? Well done!
 Now, what about a four sided shape that has two sides that are longer, and two sides that
are shorter? Excellent! I knew you could do this activity!
 Now, take a green crayon or koki pen, and draw over any shapes you can see in the
photograph of the lighthouse on the first page.
(Moms, they should have found a triangle, rectangles, squares and, if they look carefully, a
circle near the wind vane) Great!
 Now, can you draw these shapes on a blank piece of paper? Well done!
And your final challenge:
 Cut out these shapes! Now, on another piece of blank paper can you use those shapes to
make a picture?
 Don't forget to ask mom to take a photo of it and send it to me!
Senior Primary (scissors, construction paper, glue, koki pens)
 Look at the lighthouse and identify all the shapes you can. Some of them will be quite
traditional, some will be a little different.
 Using these shapes your challenge is to design something of your very own! It may be a
building, vehicle, boat etc – let your imagination go wild!
 You may use as many of the shapes you can identify, in various sizes (small squares and
big squares etc), but you must keep the proportions the same.
 Look at the triangle shape. What do you notice?
o That's right, one long side is the base, and there are two other equal shorter
sides. What is this kind of a triangle called?
o What do you call a triangle that has three equal sides? Jolly good!
o So, you may use any variation in size of this type triangle, but none that have
equal sides!).
©Karen Dawes/Cape Explorers 2012
Greenpoint Lighthouse Activity sheet - August 2012
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Reading, Writing and Watching Rave!
Junior Primary
 Ask Mom to get one of these stories from the library by Ronda Armitage – they're
beautifully illustrated by her husband Dan:
o The Lighthouse Keeper's Cat,
o The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch
o The Lighthouse Keeper's Rescue.
My library has some of those books, and we've loved reading the stories!
Would you like to be a lighthouse keeper? Why? Or why not?
Do you think you could have any adventures as one? Do tell me.
Yes, those are lovely ideas.
http://www.rondaarmitage.co.uk/all-about-lighthouse-keeper
 You might also like to watch this video about lighthouses in Maine, off the East coast of
the USA: (moms, this is not exactly riveting for us – let me know if your kids enjoy it!):
o http://vimeo.com/6240434
o “Sada Thompson reads the story of Abbie, the eldest daughter of a family that
tends a lighthouse, and how she had to keep the lamps working during a storm
while her father was in the city getting supplies. LeVar (the presenter) visits a
family that runs their own sailboat tourism business and actually live on their small
craft.”
 Now I'm going to tell you a story about writing a story: Remember writing a story is like
eating a hamburger (hang on there's a thought, why don't you go and make a
hamburger?!). A great delicious hamburger has a one half of a roll, a great juicy filling –
the patty (do you like beef or chicken?), tomatoes, cucumber, relish, pickles and then the
other half of a roll. Writing a great story is just like making that hamburger. It would be
terrible to be served a hamburger with only a roll hey? How about just the meat patty?
Exactly!
o Make sure your story has an introduction, like the first roll your teeth sink into,
then the nice juicy meat or interesting parts in the middle -and remember
paragraphs! (Wouldn't it taste odd if everything on your hamburger was the same
colour as a tomato but wasn't actually one?) Then don’t forget the conclusion!
o Think about it … and then try and write your own story about a Lighthouse Keeper
- or draw one!
http://www.drawinghowtodraw.com/stepbystepdrawinglessons/2010/01/how-todraw-lighthouses-with-easy-drawing-step-by-step-instructions/
Senior Primary
 With a parent, log on to Cape Explorers (please make sure you are always supervised
when using the internet) and follow the links to read some the stories of what it was
like to be a child of a lighthouse keeper.
(Moms, the first few pages of this book are available to read on Google).
http://books.google.co.za/books?id=HzdMnx3fVnoC&lpg=PR3&ots=BgpcMP3PZU&dq=lighthouse%
20poems%20for%20kids&pg=PP1#v=twopage&q=lighthouse%20poems%20for%20kids&f=true
 Did you find it interesting? I found some of it interesting, but it didn't really grip me! I
love to read, and if a story is really interesting and written very well, then I can read for
hours – I kid you not! But boring stories send me to sleep!
©Karen Dawes/Cape Explorers 2012
Greenpoint Lighthouse Activity sheet - August 2012
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 Your challenge now, is to write a much better story! (please read the section above
about hamburgers if necessary!) I have some ideas for you, so think about them, and then
pick the title that most awakes your imagination!
o A day in the life of a Lighthouse keeper/Lighthouse Keeper's Child.
What kind of adventures might you have? What disasters could go wrong?
Remember lighthouse keepers also maintained weather records and the grounds of
the lighthouse if there were any.
o Shipwreck! Pretend you were a sailor on the Seafarer, or the HMS Athens.
-The Seafearer crashed on 1 July 1966, and at
that time the rotating Green Point Lighthouse
beam stopped and focused its beam on the
wreck. Helicopters lifted all the crew members to
safety!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hiltont/5423071119/
-
The HMS Athens was a huge mail steamship than ran regularly from
Southampton to Cape Town. She was anchored in Table Bay on May 17
1865, when gale winds tore her loose. She managed to round Mouille
Point, but then the mountainous seas poured water into the engine room
through the skylight and her boiler fires were extinguished. She crashed
on the rocks and all 29 deck hands were lost.
What would it be like approaching the harbour in a fierce storm? How would you
feel if you were in the storm and your ship hit rocks? If you were one of those
deckhands? What steps would you take to survive? Would you survive?
 I challenge you to build your very own lighthouse, using batteries, circuits, toilet roll
tubes, paper mache – and a switch! Choose a large piece of wood for the base, so you can
move it around easily. Your local electrician shop should be able to help you – or ask Dad!
Have fun!
Stretching Fun!
 Doing
o
o
o
o
your own research, see if you can find:
the oldest lighthouse
the youngest lighthouse
the dimmest lighthouse
the brightest lighthouse
 Using the site on Cape Explorers, make a list of the 10 lighthouses shown. List their
daytime mark and find their night time signature!
http://www.gotravel24.com/galleries/beach-holidays/south-africas-lighthouses/jan-van-riebeek-firstlit-fire-beacon-island-1600
 And for you moms? I challenge you to develop your own Maths worksheets!
©Karen Dawes/Cape Explorers 2012
Greenpoint Lighthouse Activity sheet - August 2012
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