Creactivity

El taller de creactivity consiste en la unión de ciencia y creatividad. Es un taller que realiza el cosmocaixa donde los niños crean a través de numerosos utensilios, materiales, máquinas, ordenadores, herramientas, etc. Los niños son libres de escoger el rincón que mejor se adapte a su forma de ser o sus inquietudes, también puede ir cambiando y experimentando con los diferentes apartados, mecánica, electrónica, informática, aeronáutica, etc. Lo pasaron en grande durante el tiempo que duró el taller y construyeron circuitos e inventos de todo tipo.

Al final intercambiamos opiniones entre todos sobre el proceso. 

Co-ordinates and translation

Much of this week, Judit and Sara have been focusing on their use of co-ordinates. Last week they had begun to look at this topic and learn the vocabulary that is linked to co-ordinates. They learned how to plot co-ordinates and find them. The learning this week, reinforced this and added new skills such as translating shapes, which means moving a shape along squares, using directions (left, right, down and up) after they used translation they knew that they needed new coordinates to mark out the new shape position on the quadrant. They also looked at reflection of shapes, which meant that they created two quadrants. This was also an introduction to using negative numbers and finding their link and purpose to other integers. With using reflection of shape they revised symmetry and were able to look at pattern.

Later in the week, Judit and Sara began the topic of data handling. They looked at several different versions of a chart and graph. They learned that information can be collated into a table and this can be converted into various forms of graph or chart such as a pictogram, bar chart, and line graph. They learned that a pictogram is called this because a symbol can stand for the number in data and a key is important. They learned how to answer questions to find out information from a graph or chart. They used data to create a new graph.

In their grammar this week the girls used the comma to separate parts of a sentence. Judit used the comma to separate adverbials in her sentences. Adverbials are parts of a sentence that describe time and place for an event to happen. For example, This morning. With the comma you can tell that what follows it is the main event such as I ate my breakfast. Putting these two sentence parts together, you would need a comma to show that they fit together but are separate pieces of information.  This morning, I ate my breakfast.

Sara used the commas in the middle of a sentence to signify adding extra description and information. For example.  Judit, who is ten, is my sister.

In their science this week, Judit and Sara learned about plant cells and how they are used to help the plant to produce its own food from sunlight the process is called photosynthesis. The girls understood how the light chemically helps the plant to survive.

Jordi had practised using the sound ‘ss’ to complete some words. He identified and read the words with this ending correctly and he revised the sound ‘g’ to help him to read words such as glass and gate. We began work together in counting in pairs and Judit helped with setting Jordi some questions.

Club de lectura: Gianni Rodari

Gianni Rodari ha inspirado a los niños con sus libros y con su obra la Gramática de la Fantasía. Utilizamos este libro para trabajar la composición de cuentos a través de algunas de sus técnicas. Sara y Judit se han inventado unas cuantas historias y han escogido las más divertidas para compartirlas con sus amigos del club de lectura que previamente habían realizado un trabajo similar. Los niños leen sus creaciones y también leen sus cuentos favoritos de Gianni Rodari, incluso Telma nos lee alguno en versión original. Pasamos una mañana entrañable escuchando cuentos y compartiendo el gusto por la escritura y la lectura.

Proyectos Junio

Nos reunimos de nuevo para una sesión de proyectos, la última de este curso escolar 2015-2016. 

Teo nos habla de la arquitectura del paleolítico y neolítico. Nos muestra unas maquetas que ha construido siguiendo las técnicas primitivas. Judit nos habla del escritor Gianni Rodari, su biografía, su obra y nos presenta algunos de sus libros, Sara sigue con su proyecto de civilizaciones y nos explica la vida de los antiguos Romanos, Jordi y Sergi nos presentan un proyecto sobre las gallinas y unos experimentos con imanes, uno de sus juegos preferidos. Estel y Erick nos hablan del pintor Velázquez, han profundizado en su obra, su vida y la época en la que vivió.  Mila nos habla de la vida de los Neardentales y Alen ha diseñado un experimento para mostrarnos la fuerza centrífuga. Josué investiga sobre el hombre y la luna, las primeras misiones. Esdras sobre el Polo Norte, Sara sobre la vida de los Camaleones. Por último Marta nos muestra como ir en monociclo, algo que impresiona a todos los niños e intentan aprender.

Respiratory system

This week, Judit and Sara have been focusing on their science and their maths skills. They were revising their knowledge of one of the important systems of the human body, the respiratory system. They learned what this system does to help the body to survive by allowing the body to inhale oxygen which gets used by the body to oxygenate the blood and the organs especially the heart and the brain. They recognised that the body uses respiration to expel carbon dioxide which is a harmful gas for the body. The girls drew and labelled the diagram of the system and learned what each part of the diagram played to aid the inhalation and exhalation of gases to the body. Key words were diaphragm, alveoli and trachea.

         They recognised that if there were any form of obstruction to the system it would cause difficulty to breath and ultimately poor health such as the conditions bronchitis, asthma and pneumonia. In severe cases obstruction to the system could be fatal. They went on to learn that some jobs use the lungs and diaphragm to their fullest capacity such as professional singers, some musicians and Olympic swimmers.

         Later in the week they focused on looking at the three main earth layers, the geosphere, hydrosphere and the atmosphere. They focused on looking closely at the Earth’s atmosphere and identified the different layers of the atmosphere especially the very fragile ozone layer which is there within the troposphere and has the task of protecting the Earth from the very harmful rays of the Sun. They worked out that without this ozone layer, life on Earth would not survive. As well as, being aware that humans pay a big part to what is happening with the ozone layer.   

   In their maths the girls focus has been to revise their maths skills by reading and completing word problem questions to solve problem about a range of maths topics such as capacity, distance, time and the four operations (adding, subtraction, division and multiplication). Later on in the week, they were introduced to coordinates.  In their maths skills Jordi and Sergi were beginning to look at completing a chart by sorting coloured magnets into the correct field. Jordi had to count how many magnets were in each colour groups.

       The boys worked as a team to construct two puzzles, by checking shape, colour and pattern of the interlinking pieces. Jordi practised some of his sight words and read the story ‘Tim’s Din’.

Taller de reacciones químicas

La magia y la ciencia a veces se confunden. A través del taller de reacciones químicas que organiza el Cosmocaixa Barcelona los niños han disfrutado observando muchos experimentos. Han aprendido a hacer pasta dentífrica con agua oxigenada, jabón y ácido clorhídrico. También han descubierto la luz intensa que desprende el magnesio cuando se somete a combustión. Se han asustado con la explosión del hidrógeno cuando se prende fuego. Han aprendido que hay mezclas homogéneas y mezclas heterogéneas. Pero sobretodo con lo que más han disfrutado es con la transformación del cobre en plata. Ha sido un taller muy interesante que ha introducido a los niños en el mundo de los átomos y las fórmulas químicas más elementales.

Museo Palmero

Visitamos el museo Palmero de mano del nieto del artista, Alfredo Palmero. El museo se sitúa en Barcelona. La casa es una antigua masía catalana llena de encanto datada del siglo XV. Dice la leyenda que el bandolero Joan de Serrallonga vivía en esta masía. La masía cuenta con un túnel secreto de largas dimensiones que podría llegar hasta la montaña del Tibidabo. Hoy en día se puede visitar parte del recorrido, aunque por motivos de seguridad no se puede llegar hasta el final. Los niños disfrutaron por los pasadizos secretos. Pero el encanto de la masía son las numerosas obras de artes, todas de la saga Palmero que cuelgan en sus paredes. El artista nos explicó de primera mano la historia de la familia, los cuadros, las diferencias básicas entre las pinturas, los estilos, las temáticas que representan las obras. Los niños pudieron entrevistarle y disfrutaron a su lado aprendiendo y viviendo el arte con el maestro que les enseñó también su estudio y sus últimas creaciones.

Ratio and proportion

This week, the girls Judit and Sara were practicing their understanding of ratio and proportion. Both have looked at fractions and came to realise that proportion is about using this knowledge of fractions to scale up or down an amount. Ratio is about showing a simplified way of how an amount was shared out.

At first the girls had to revise a recipe by increasing or decreasing the amount. They calculated that if the original recipe served eight people then a recipe for 4 people would ask for half of every ingredient in the list. They then went on to try to solve problems that used ratio and proportion. They came across the vocabulary ‘for every’ and the symbol that represented a ratio 1 : (to) 4. The girls recognised that for a lot of the ratio questions they had to use a visual reminder in the form of a chart to test out how the ratio worked.

Jordi has been practising reading his sight vocabulary. Using the rules of sounding out he picked out initial and final sounds and blended the sounds to create the word and he is becoming rapid with some words. There are some sounds that he does need to practice and try to remember such as ‘w’, ‘g’ and ‘d’ but he is blending sounds better and double checking a sound to see if it fits with the word. Sara practised her conjunctions in her sentences. She needs to be able to do this more independently and to identify with how different conjunctions serve different meanings in a sentence. In doing this task she will hopefully use the conjunctions more often. Judit had practised using alternate adverbs or synonyms. She did this task to help her recognise that there are a lot more possibilities to describe a verb.

Reptiles y anfibios

David un experto en anfibios y reptiles  nos muestra algunos de ellos. Empezamos con los anfibios, las  ranas, los sapos, las salamandra y los tritones 

Los reptiles ponen huevos de cáscara dura, sin embargo los anfibios ponen huevos de cáscara blanda y por ese motivo ponen los huevos dentro del agua. Los anfibios cuando salen de los huevos no se parecen a sus padres, sino que sufren un período de metamorfosis, se llaman renacuajos y se parecen más a un pez que a una rana o a un sapo. Aunque parezca que la rana es la hembra del sapo, no es así, son dos especies distintas, hay ranas machos y ranas hembras y sapos machos y sapos hembras.

También nos habla de los cocodrilos como son los únicos reptiles que cuidan a sus crías, cuando nacen los pequeños cocodrilos los esconden dentro de su boca y los llevan a su nido, una pequeña piscina que realiza con piedras y troncos para que sus crías aprendan a nadar. Por último nos enseña un par de serpientes pitones que nos ponen a todos los pelos de punta, aunque nos atrevemos a tocarlas y sacarnos algunas fotos.  Un día inolvidable donde los niños han disfrutado muchísimo.

Ensayo orquesta

Qué divertido es tocar en una orquesta y más si los músicos son tus amigos. Quedamos en Barcelona con diferentes familias de la asociación para ensayar y tocar juntos. Es un primer encuentro, así que las obras se leen a vista. Tenemos muchos pianos, un saxo, violines, violas, bombardino, flautas, guitarra eléctrica, arpa y percusionistas. Con tanto músico la diversión está asegurada. Algunos terminamos con un gran dolor de cabeza, pero los niños se lo pasaron en grande y ya están esperando el próximo ensayo. 

Snow Queen

The girls enjoy the film and characters from the Disney animation called Frozen. It seemed the right time for the girls to look at the film’s inspiration so they began work on the story called ‘The Snow Queen.’ They read the book chapter by chapter. They recognised that there are a lot of words that are formal in the text or are a little bit archaic. (old fashioned) The girls first highlighted these words such as ‘attend’ and used a dictionary tool to discover the word meanings. For example, they recognise that the word attend means to join a meeting but also to pay attention. The girls felt that this encouraged them to question new words and increase their vocabulary.

The girls looked at the description of the character and drew parallels to the main character of the film. There were similarities in description with the snow queen and the character Elsa. There were also story settings that were repeated.

Jordi did some skimming and scanning of a text called ‘the three Billy Goats gruff’. This was practise in recognising that there are some patterns involved in the text with repetition and he was training his eye to recognise the graphemes or letter / word shapes. Jordi had a practice in writing and reading the time for ‘o’ clock’ and ‘half past’ He also read some words in the book called ‘pop!’

This week, Sergi is learning how to count to ten and he is beginning to learn to write the numbers by tracing and copying their shape.

In their maths this week, Judit and Sara did some work on writing the time in digital and analogue for 12- hour time. One of the biggest challenges for them was understanding time to the next hour. They looked at the clock faces and carefully recorded what the time was. Then they had a go at time interval work which involved counting on and back in hours and minutes. Towards the end of the week the girls got tested in their knowledge by completing a jigsaw by matching the analogue to the digital time.  

Visita harinera

Visitamos una fábrica de producción de harina, Farines la Segarra. El propietario, Ramón, nos explica de primera mano como se produce la harina a partir del grano de trigo. Hay un proceso largo, un recorrido que hace el grano, se tamiza y se tritura diez veces, subiendo y bajando por los diferentes circuitos. Con lo cual al final queda una harina muy y muy fina. Los niños y los adultos nos quedamos bien sorprendidos del proceso mecánico que se sigue hasta llegar al empaquetado y la distribución de los sacos de harina. Una experiencia que no van a olvidar. Por último Ramón nos obsequió con kilos y kilos de harina con la que hicimos panes deliciosos.