Traditional Tales

This week we have continued our topic of traditional tales. The story we have focused on is Goldilocks and the three bears. We have enjoyed spending every morning together reading different versions of the story as a class. The children have enjoyed listening to the story and by the end of the week they all became very involved and were reading the lines of each character.

The EYFS children (Mark, Julien, Sergi, Ona, Luke, Kai, Cloe, Ivet, Carla, Katie, Andrès and Nico) have been looking at opposite vocabulary that they have learnt through Goldilocks and the three bears. They all did a wonderful job of understanding the distinction between hot and cold, big and small, hard and soft. During our topic time, Ona has really engaged well with the activities and given full input as we worked through the story interactively, she has really enjoyed role play, and keenly volunteered to play the characters. Katie has really taken huge steps in her English speaking, and confidently uses the new story vocabulary well. She engaged particularly well with an activity ordering objects from the story into size order and she kindly helped others once she had finished. Gabriellle was very impressed with Nico as he concentrated so well on the separation between soft and hard objects. He got into character well as we tested 3 different beds, like Goldilocks and showed good understanding as the children  spoke about the different soft and hard materials in our surroundings. Luke's been on top form this week; sharing well his thoughts on the story and confidently answering comprehensive questions as we read the book as a class. He seems really engaged with our traditional tales topic. Ivet loved learning a song (which we will be performing in the end of topic presentation) all about the 3 bears in the story. She watched intently and could soon follow the actions. Gabrielle is happy to see that Cloe is becoming more and more vocal. She has impressed Gabrielle this week with her level of understanding of the story. Gabrielle is really proud of Andrès as he did a particularly good piece of work; separating hot and cold objects and he remembered the English vocabulary well.

In our maths sessions, we have been looking at weight; learning to recognise heavy and light objects and understand their difference. Carla did a fantastic job of identifying heavy and light objects and communicated well her predictions of which objects would weigh more than the other in our observation walk through the school garden.

The children have also continued to revise the basic 2D shapes. Marc showed real understanding s we revised the 2D shapes we have learnt. He made a lovely  booklet, matching the shapes to their form in every day objects

In phonics this week, we have been learning the ‘i’ sound. Kai responded well to the focus sound and he enjoyed learning the 'incy wincy spider song'.  Gabriellle was impressed by how well he pronounced the words beginning with 'i'.

Gabrielle has been really happy with Sergi this week as he did a fantastic self portrait to include in a goodbye card for our teacher, Oasis. The picture was skilfully drawn, using  the practice of shape drawing that he has been doing, to form himself!

Unfortunately, Julien hasn't been at school this week as he is currently in Germany with his family. We look forward to seeing him back in a couple of weeks.

This week we have said goodbye to our friend Mark. We are very sad to see him leave but hope he’s had a lovely month with us in the school.

The KS1 children (Jordi, Marcel, Arlet, Carla, Noa, Joana and Thais) have also been learning about Goldilocks and the three bears. Carla did a fantastic job of sounding out her words when writing sentences about a specific part of the story. Although she initially found this difficult, she gained real confidence when writing her second sentence. Joana was very focused on putting the pictures from the story in the correct order. She loved laying all of the pictures on the floor and she then became the organiser; helping her friends put them all in the right order. Noa enjoyed learning new story vocabulary. She then independently wrote the new words, using the handwriting sheets to guide her.

In maths, the children have been learning how to order objects from heaviest to lightest, using the balance scales. Arlet has enjoyed the challenge of writing down her predictions first and then checking if she was correct, using the scales. Thais enjoyed using the balance scales to weigh the objects. She was really motivated and responded well to this practical way of learning.

Marcel was not in school for most of the week but I was impressed with how well he dealt with the change of having a new teacher and a new routine. I was also impressed with Jordi’s behaviour this week. He was extremely helpful to Dion, our new teacher and he was keen to work hard and listen to her instructions.

The KS2 children (Judit, Sara. B, Sara, Sofia, Blanca, Pau, Arnau, Nil, Tatiana and Sira) have also been working on the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. Blanca did a fantastic recount of the story and included lots of varied adjectives to explain different events of the story. I was very impressed that she independently got a thesaurus to find different adjectives as she wanted to make her story as interesting as she could. Sira also did a fantastic job of re-writing the story. It is amazing to see how much more independent she is with her writing this week. She has been sounding out and writing down her ideas with real confidence. When writing our own versions of the Goldilocks story, I was very impressed by Sofia’s imagination. She created a version of ‘the shining’, whereby the events of her story were very different but matched the plot of Goldilocks brilliantly. You did a great job, Sofia!

In maths, the children have been learning about different units of weight. Nil and Arnau really impressed me with how confidently they were able to add grams and kilogram weights together when completing a supermarket problem solving activity. They were very confident and independent. Pau also impressed me by how confidently he was able to convert grams to kilograms. He was very concentrated and keen to complete his work independently. Sara has been I’ll ill for much of the week but when she returned she showed a great understanding of being able to read scales. She was able to confidently identify the different kilogram weights and with a little practise she was able to correctly label halves and quarters of a kilogram too.   Judit has been working really hard on weight related SATs papers. I am really pleased to see that she is making a real improvement this week and she is becoming more confident to try and is less worried about making mistakes. We will keep doing lots more practice tests each week, leading up to the SAT’s tests in June.

At the end of the week, the whole class split into groups to create a role play of either Goldilocks and The Three Bears or The Three Little Pigs. Sara B and Tatiana did a marvellous job of narrating the performances of The Three Little Pigs. They spoke with such enthusiasm and included all of the events from the stories, which we have read. You did a great job, girls!

Hope you all have a great, long weekend. We will look forward to seeing you next Tuesday.