Reindeer crafts

This week we have welcomed another new friend into our class. Aran has been so confident when learning the new routines and has been independently using English when answering my questions.  She has settled into the class fantastically and has particularly enjoyed singing and dancing to our Christmas songs, as we have practised for our Christmas performance. The girls in the class are very happy to welcome another girl into our class and it has been lovely to watch them playing and helping Aran to settle.

This week we have started our topic of ‘Christmas’. For the upcoming weeks leading up to Christmas we are going to focus on one element of Christmas each week, linked to the songs we are learning for our Christmas performance. This week we have been learning about reindeer and we have had lots of fun creating different reindeer crafts. The children have had a great time creating their own reindeer hats; sticking googly eyes, pom poms and pipe cleaners on to create a cute reindeer face on their hats. The children also created individual antlers for their reindeer by painting their hands with brown paint and creating handprints to stick on to their hats. The reindeer look fantastic! The children have also worked really hard to create a reindeer, using a wooden spoon. They started by painting their spoon brown. They then added googly eyes and a pom pom nose. Finally we worked with. The children drew mouth, antler and ear shapes on to felt and then had to work hard to carefully use the sewing scissors to cut out their face parts. We had to work very hard and be perseverant as cutting through felt was very tricky. It was also very fiddly to stick the parts on to the spoon and all of the children had the opportunity to learn how to use the glue gun. We had to be super careful as the glue gun could get hot. The children did a fantastic job creating reindeer and they became confident to identify different reindeer. The children even began to recognise the word reindeer and they were very focused when completing the handwriting sheets; practising writing the word reindeer correctly. Finally, the children constructed their own reindeer puzzles. The children  decided how many pieces they wanted to cut their reindeer picture into. Noa did a fantastic job of cutting the puzzle into many pieces. She was then very concentrated when looking at the reindeer picture and reconstructing the puzzle; sticking all of the pieces in the correct place to create her own reindeer picture.

In maths this week we have been learning about the concept of subtraction,  using Christmas themed worksheets.  The children have had the opportunity to learn the skill of taking away mince pies, presents, crackers and Robins. The children learnt to recognise the take away symbol and they became very confident to count the objects , using one to one correspondence. We worked a lot on number formation and focused on making sure that we write our numbers the right way around. The children then had to carefully cross out the correct number of objects to help them work out the answer to the subtraction sum. Marcel and Amrita were extremely confident and independent when crossing out the objects and writing the number that is left over. Jordi really impressed me with the ability he had to take away, without needing to cross out any objects.  He was able to work out the answers by looking at the objects and then mentally subtracting the amount shown in the sum.

In phonics this week, we have continued to focus on the letter ‘d’. We have continued to learn about the letter, using the animals we have in the farm. We created donkey pictures , using collage materials, painted dog pictures and used sponges to create duck pictures. We also had lots of opportunities to practise forming the letter ‘d’ on our animal handwriting practise sheets. I am really impressed with how much the children’s letter letter formation is improving. Finally,  at the end of the week we created a dinosaur picture by turning the letter ‘d’ into a dinosaur. The children had a great time using green materials,  googly eyes and pom poms to create very cute dinosaurs.

In reading comprehension this week Judit and Sara have been working on fictional stories. Sara has really impressed me with the progress she is making in developing her inferential understanding of what she is reading. She was especially confident to answer questions and explain her understanding of what was happening within a story about a bus crash. She showed her understanding of how the people would feel in this situation and she understood what was meant by the different phrases used to explain the fear the people felt. Judit really enjoyed reading the fictional stories and we enjoyed discussing the meaning of the Christmas tale. Judit found it difficult to undertake because of the language used in the past but it was fantastic to see the motivation Judit developed to read more of the stories she was focusing on. Next week,  we are going to search for the full stories as Judit is keen to read more of the traditional English fictional stories.

In maths this week we have focused on number, place value and number ordering. Initially, both on the girls found it difficult to order the hundred,  thousand and million numbers and to understand the value of each number. However, after focusing on place value and identifying the value of each digit within the number, the children began to understand the importance of ensuring that they wrote the numbers correctly and included the correct number of zeros within the number. Sara became very confident at identifying the value of each number and she became very confident to write the number as digits correctly when reading the five and six digit numbers as words. Judit worked very hard on adding and subtracting whole and minus numbers and she is now confident to order the numbers correctly and identify the value of each number when filling in the missing numbers on a number line.

In science this week,  we have been working on volume,  vibration  and pitch.  We have been focusing on the vocabulary of tempo,  pitch and volume and the girls had a great time exploring the BBC interactive activities to help them further understand the concepts of volume and pitch. The girls particularly enjoyed organising flutes and guitars into the correct place in the table,  depending on the pitch and volume of the sound which the instrument was creating. The girls had lots of fun testing the instrument and they became very confident to identify the different levels of pitch and volume which are present within the different sounds they hear.

Learning about Vets

This week we have continued our topic of ‘people who help us’. We have learnt lots more vocabulary about the different people who help us by taking part in lots of fun and practical activities. The children have enjoyed using plasticine to create the different things which each professional needs to use when doing their jobs. We have cut out our own puzzle pieces and then worked together to match each person who helps us to the equipment and tools they use. We have continued to focus on the veterinary profession and have had lots of fun learning how a vet works and the vocabulary we need to use if taking an animal to the vets, we had lots of fun creating different animals with moving body parts and we are now becoming confident to name the different parts of the animals’ bodies. We also learnt about x rays by cutting out and creating our own dog skeleton x ray pictures.  The children were very interested to learn how a vet takes a photograph to check if an animal has a broken bone.

To help us further understand the job of a vet, we were extremely lucky to have the opportunity to visit a vets in Mataró and the vet told us lots of very interesting information. We learnt how to check our pet into the vet and then had the chance to go into the consulate on room and ,earn about the different instruments which a vet uses to make animals better. The children were very excited to meet a dog called Bonnie and loved having the opportunity to check her heart rate, using  the stethoscope. We then went into the surgery room and watched the veterinary surgeon shave a cats fur in preparation for her surgery. He told us lots of facts and it was very interesting to learn that most cats that have more than two colours are female cats. Finally,  the children became real veterinary assistants as they helped the surgeon to cut a digs nails and then bandage up her foot. It was a real hands on experience and the children learnt so much from the visit.

In maths this week we have continued to learn about shapes. We started the week by creating repeating shape patterns. At first it was a little tricky and we just focused on repeating two different shapes, using the shape stickers. Marcel, Amrita and Joana were very confident to create shape patterns and they even experimented with creating shape and colour patterns. The children enjoyed using the stickers and it was a great opportunity to revise the names of shapes and colours.  At the beginning of the week Noa found the concept of patterns but she was so proud of herself when she was able to create a repeating shape and colour pattern. She then wanted to keep creating more and more patterns to display in the maths area. To help us learn the shape names we also played a group game of memory matching. The children had to turn over two cards and name the shapes they had found. When someone turned over two cards with the same shape, they could keep the cards. Every time a child got a matching pair their friends were so happy and they all cheered loudly. The children enjoyed the game a lot and wanted to play many times. It was great to see how much they enjoyed the game and the confidence they gained when naming the shapes. We ended the week by organising and sticking the shape cards on to the corresponding colour and shape mats. The classroom now looks very bright and the children love having an interactive display of shapes on the wall.

In phonics this week, we have been learning the ‘d’ sound. The children have enjoyed learning the drum action for this sound and we have made lots of noise drumming our hands on the table. We created a big letter d to display on the wall and stuck pictures of different people who help us, which begin with the letter d – dentist,  doctor and dancers. The children coloured in and stuck on pictures of the different professionals and then a Jordi,  Marcel and Sergi worked hard to write the names of the different people who help us. We have also been learning about different animals that start with the letter d- dog and donkey. The children have enjoyed painting lots of different dog pictures and thought carefully about the different colours they needed to use, dependent on the breed of the dog. The children also had fun using different colours to create donkey collages and we discussed the different colours which a donkey can be. We have had lots of opportunities to read d words. Jordi is making huge improvements in his ability to blend the sounds and read and he could read all of the three letter d words, with confidence. Amrita was also very confident to read and she really impressed me when correctly reading the word dolphin, completely independently. During this week we have also had lots of opportunities to practise the formation of the letter d. I have been really impressed with how concentrated Sergi, Kai and Luke have been and they are all making big progress with their pencil control and letter formation.

In reading comprehension this week, Sara and Judit have been exploring the concept of poetry. They have been reading a range of poems and the questions have required them to recognise the specific styles of the different poems- rhyme patterns,  number of syllables and specific subjects which are generally covered within each poem type. Both girls have made very good progress within their understanding of poems and Judit has become particularly motivated by this form of writing. She was keen to research and explain to me about all of the different types of poems which are available and she was proud to explain to me about how she had found additional poem types, which weren’t mentioned within her comprehension book.

I have also been very impressed with Sara as she has been extremely motivated to complete all of the poem section within her comprehension book and she determinedly completed all seven poem comprehension activities this week. Sara has really improved her concentration and this week I have noticed a big improvement in the inferential understanding she has of the poems she is reading.

In maths this week the girls have been  working on the topic of measures. Judit has been revising square and prime numbers,  area, perimeter and time. Judit was extremely confident to read different times and was able to solve many mathematical time problems with ease. She confidently used different timetables and could work out the arrival times at each place. She recognised which were the longest and shortest journeys and could confidently add different amounts of time together very independently. When revising the concepts of area and perimeter Judit confidently worked out the area and perimeter of different shapes, using the methods she learnt last week. However, when revising square and prime numbers, Judit needed help to remember the methods to use to calculate the answers. She was very motivated to remind herself of how to use these numbers and she then made real improvements in her second mental arithmetic test and was able to answer all of the square and prime number questions correctly.

Sara has been working on the concept of time. She has worked very hard to complete all of the activities in her mental arithmetic and maths book. At the beginning of the year, Sara found the concept of time extremely difficult but this week I have been so impressed with the confidence and perseverance she has had when completing the time activities. She has been working particularly hard to draw different times on the clocks and she is now very aware of the importance of drawing each of the hands accurately to allow her to display the selected time correctly. Sara had also been working on digital times and she now understands how to read and write digital times, using the 24 hour clock display. Sara has also been working on the concept of measures. She is becoming very independent with her work and she was very to explain to me how she had used the key facts at the back of her maths book when working out how to convert grams, kilograms,  millimetres centimetres, metres, millilitres and litres. She found the concept of conversion very difficult and we worked on this together but I was very proud of her perseverance and desire to work independently. Finally, Sara worked on the concept of money.  She was very confident to recognise and add coins and she worked out the answers to written money problems with ease. Sara was able to work out the change people would need and the coins she could use to provide this change.