Self portraits

This week we have welcomed two new friends. Axel is three years old and this week was his first week ever attending a school. He has enjoyed getting to know the other children in the class and has been confident to explore the class activities. Axel has been very confident when expressing himself and has been very able to let us know what he wants and express to us the things he likes and does not like. Nil, who is 8 years old, has also joined our class this week. He has settled fantastically into the class routines and is already developing very good relationships with some of the children in the class.

This week, we have continued to learn about the human body. The EYFS children (Sergi, Julien, Katie, Kai, Luke, Ona and Axel) have continued to learn the names of the body parts. The children have enjoyed exploring the concept of x-rays and have enjoyed creating their own using paints and wax crayons. Sergi was especially concentrated when finger painting each bone in the hand and he created an excellent x-ray for our display. The children have enjoyed colouring in different body part pictures and we have been focusing a lot on colouring  them,  using the correct colours. Kai and Ona have impressed me this week, as they are developing much more concentration and perseverance when colouring and they both worked really hard to colour the body parts,  using skin colours.  The children have enjoyed playing in the construction area, trying to build a hospital.  It was great to watch Axel interacting with his new friends, trying to help them build the hospital. We have also continued to learn our human body songs. The children love singing along and it is lovely to see how involved and enthusiastic Katie is when singing the songs. Julien has enjoyed working with Gabrielle this week and I am so impressed with how much confidence he now has to try and speak English. He is so proud of himself when he is able to say something to us in English. Unfortunately this week,  Luke has been too poorly to join us. We all look forward to seeing him again next week.

The KS1 children (Jordi, Marcel, Noa, Thais, Joana, Arlet and Carla) have been working on the magazine. They enjoyed writing about their trip to the beach. Jordi worked especially hard to try and sound out his words and write a sentence about his memory of the beach trip. Thais and Joana were extremely concentrated when drawing a picture of the beach and they both worked hard to colour it carefully, using the correct colours. In maths, the children have continued to work on addition. We have then introduced the concept and have been encouraging the children to notice the relationship between addition and subtraction, whilst also focusing on recognising snd differentiating between the addition and subtraction symbols.  Jo was very impressed with how hard Marcel and Arlet worked when tackling 2 digit subtraction.  They both found it tricky but they were very perseverant and keen to understand how to solve the subtraction problems. In our art session this week, we have been focusing on the skill of self-portraits. The children were very excited to have a photograph of their face. They then worked hard to carefully copy the features of their face and create their own self-portrait. I was very impressed by how focused Noa and Carla were when drawing themselves. They both looked at their photos carefully and were keen to follow my advice when pointing out to them a way in which they could improve their artwork. The self-portraits are fantastic and they look great, displayed on our art window.

The KS2 children (Arnau, Nil, Judit, Sara B, Sara, Tatiana, Blanca and Sofia) have been working really hard this week to write all of the information for the school magazine. Judit wrote fantastic information on her tablet about all of the new children that have joined our class this month and Blanca carefully handwrote information, explaining about our treat day trip to the beach. As part of our human body topic,  we have been reading comprehension texts about different parts of the body. The children were particularly focused when learning lots of interesting information about the eye and how it functions.  Sara B was extremely motivated by the text and worked hard to answer the questions; writing very informative answers to each question. Tatiana was also very motivated by the text and she was very enthusiastic to read aloud the little dialogue/ story she had written, when explaining how pupil changes, dependent on the amount of light. Tatiana had included all of the relevant information and was very proud to admit how imaginative she is. In punctuation and grammar this week, we have been learning about speech marks. Sofia really impressed me with the motivation she had to correct all of the mistakes in the text and add in the relevant punctuation. She worked fantastically with Sara B and tried so hard to correctly place the speech marks within the text. She found this very difficult but she didn’t give up! In science, we have  been learning about different ways in which we can live healthy lives. Sara read the information in the text book very well and then was able to confidently explain the different foods we can eat, which helps our bodies to  stay healthy.  She was very enthusiastic and keen to explain her ideas to the rest of the group. Arnau and Nil have been working really hard with Gabrielle to learn about the different organs in the body. They have been very motivated to work together to produce an information booklet about the different organs and the functions they have in our bodies. Gabrielle has been really happy with how well they work together and support each other to complete their work.

This week for our treat day, it was so lovely that all of the children in the class had enough happy faces to be able to go to the beach for our gym lesson. The children had a great time playing on the park, before going to the beach to play gym games, which were focused on building teamwork skills. The children had a great time running, jogging, jumping and hopping all the way to the sea and then back to their teammates. It was very difficult to hop in the sand! The children then had to work as a whole class team, passing the ball over their shoulders and through their legs to the person behind them. It was so nice to watch as the older children really supported the younger children to pass the ball down the line. The children had a great time and were completely exhausted when returning to school for lunch. Thanks a lot to Katie and Sara Mum for coming to the beach with us. You were such a great help!