Chickens and Chicks

The EYFS children (Sergi, Ona, Luke, Kai, Nico, Katie, Cloe, Ivet, Carla and Julien) have also been working really hard to prepare for the presentation. As part of their performance practise, the children consolidated their understanding of the different things which plants need to grow. Nico had a fantastic knowledge of what a plant needs to grow as he confidently selected the correct pictures and explained each of the things a plant needs, during our presentation practise.

In maths, the children have been focusing on the concept of doubles, using their fingers to show they understand the concept. Gabrielle was really happy with how well Kai participated in the maths activities. Although he initially found the concept of doubles difficult, he was keen to count up and show the correct number with his fingers. When given a number from 0-5, Kai was able to hold up the correct number of fingers, by counting up on his fingers, one by one.

As part of our plant topic, the children have been learning about the importance of air for plants. They have been creating different things, which help them to understand the power of air and more specifically wind. Julien responded really well to creating his blowing machine. He loves learning through practical methods and it was great to see how motivated he was when experimenting with wind power. He loved watching as the wind blew the tissue paper on the little machine he had made. Within the topic, the children have also made little bees, out of egg cartons. They have been learning about the important job of the bee, in pollinating flowers. When buzzing their little bees around the farm, Sergi was able to very confidently identify the different flowers in the farm. He was independently buzzing his bee over to the flowers and then landing on the flower, as he pretended to pollinate the plant. As this is the final week of our plant topic, the children have been doing lots of work on consolidating the vocabulary they have learnt. Gabrielle has been really impressed with how well Ona is able to speak in English, using the vocabulary she has learnt. She is now using fully and correctly structured sentences when explaining her ideas and opinions. Well done Ona, keep it up!

When practising our summer holiday song, I was really proud of how well Ivet and Cloe were able to move to the song. It was great to see how happy and smiley they were. They clearly know this song well now and love to dance along. They have both also worked really hard to sing along to the words and when singing it without the music, both of the girls are able to contribute to singing the song.

Unfortunately, Katie and Carla have not been well this week so they haven’t been able to join us in the class. We hope they feel better and are well enough to join us next week. Luke has still yet to return to the class, as he is still visiting his family in Lithuania. It looks like he is having a lovely time with his family.

The KS1 children (Marcel, Joana, Thais, Jordi, Arlet, Carla and Noa) have been working on doubles in maths. They started the week by doubling to 5, using their fingers so that they were able to grasp the concept of doubles. All of the children were able to show the doubles to 5 with ease, using this method. The children then moved on to doubles, up to 10, using ladybird spots. The children quickly understood that they need to count the ladybird’s spots to work out the double of each number and they were all able to quickly find the ‘doubles’ answers. The children then had the challenge of writing their own doubles’ sums, by matching the ladybird spots and then thinking about which double they had created, e.g. double 3=6. Arlet understood this concept well and was able to independently write the doubles’ sums. Marcel, Jordi, Thais and Noa needed a little bit more help, but after Jo had explained the concept, they began to recognise the pattern of doubles and were also able to then write the doubles’ sums independently. They worked really hard and were very perseverant to understand this concept. Carla and Joana were able to quickly understand the concept of doubles, but they found it difficult to correctly identify the number they needed for their answer. However, with the help of a number line, they were able to count along and correctly identify the number they needed and write their doubles’ sums.

The children have also been preparing for our end of year plant presentation. They have all worked extremely hard to learn their lines and it has given them the opportunity to consolidate their understanding of what plants need to grow, the parts of the plant and the jobs each part of the plant has. They all did a fantastic job of remembering what they needed to say! They spoke really confidently and were able to correctly use the relevant plant vocabulary. They were all very excited to show their parents everything they have learnt about plants!

The KS2 children (Judit, Blanca, Sara. B, Sofia, Arnau, Tatiana, Nil, Pau and Sara) have been working on column addition in maths this week. Sara B has really impressed me with how confidently she was able to add three digits, four digits and decimal numbers, using the column addition method. She fully understood how to use this method and was able to carry numbers across the thousand, hundred, tens and units’ columns with ease. Sofia has also really impressed me this week as she has been very focused and determined to get on to her maths challenge tasks each day. She didn’t initially find column addition very easy but after an initial explanation she was keen to work independently. She was able to confidently add two and three digit numbers, using the column method, but she found addition of decimal points more difficult. I was really proud of how perseverant she was to complete her work and how carefully she listened to my advice, when making her corrections. Nil also did a fantastic job of adding, using the column method. He worked extremely independently and with great determination. I am so impressed with how focused Nil was when completing his work and how determined he was to also complete his challenge jobs. He did an excellent job: working very independently and with real accuracy. Sara was also super determined when completing her addition sums, using the column method. The previous week, she realised that she understood the method and it was wonderful to see her feeling so confident to approach the questions this week. She worked with such determination and didn’t give up until she’d finished every question. I am really proud of you, Sara. What a fantastic attitude!

When practising for the presentation, I was really proud of how hard Arnau worked to practise reading his information about the daffodil. We practised reading the information out in front of the camera to help with his confidence, when speaking in front of other people. I think it really helped him as he was reading the information out much more confidently during our practises. I am really proud of how mature he has become during our presentations. He did a fantastic job of researching, writing down and then reading out his information! I am also very proud of how much confidence Pau has gained when reading aloud, during our presentation practises. He is reading with more fluency and confidence and it’s is great to see how involved he now is when preparing the presentations. Tatiana, as always, was very motivated by our presentation. She was super keen to prepare the prizes for the question section and it was great to see how confidently she was able to identify our focus plants, when searching both inside and outside of the school, looking for the plants so that we could create the prizes. Well done Tatiana, you have been very engaged and learnt a lot in this presentation project.

Judit and Blanca have spent the week working extremely hard to complete the last of their SAT’s exams. They have both approached the tests with real maturity and have been really determined to do well. Although they were both nervous, they did their best and I am really proud of them both!

On the final Friday of the school year, the children presented the final, end of year, presentation to the parents. The children worked extremely hard on the presentation and we did lots of class practises so that the children felt confident and proud of what they presented to their families. I hope everyone enjoyed it and could see just how much the children have learnt within our topic, in music, French and Catalan lessons this term.

Thank you all for coming to watch our presentation. I look forward to seeing everyone for our last three days next week.

Above and below ground

This week has been a short week but we have still managed to have lots of fun and learn a lot.

The EYFS children (Luke, Kai, Julien, Katie, Sergi, Ivet, Cloe, Carla, Nico and Ona) have spent some time this week recapping the language learnt last week when they started to learn about money in a shop context! They've had a wonderful time taking on the shop keeper role and they all did well to ask politely for what they would like. Kai has really absorbed the language needed to ask politely for things in a shop, he loved the money exchange and having the option for all sorts of exciting toys in his class mates' shops.

In the third week of our plant topic, the children have been investigating plants that grow above and below ground. They have also been working hard to solidify their understanding of what factors are needed for it to grow well! Sergi did such a fantastic job of separating vegetables that grow above and under ground. Julien and Sergi worked as a great team to decide whether different fruits or vegetables should be in their sky or soil pictures that they drew so nicely. Katie has got fully involved in learning another song; this time about the  parts of plants and their function! Gabrielle is really amazed by how quickly she learns and understands the lyrics. Her enthusiasm is wonderful to see! Ivet and Cloe have worked as a lovely little team. Gabrielle read the story of the hungry caterpillar; looking at mini beasts and how they can be naughty around the plants we grow! They did a great job of sequencing the events of the story, which involved ordering the numbers of fruit and vegetables that he ate and remembering what they were called! Ona was super motivated during their plant hunt; labelling plants, the parts of them and the tools in our surroundings. She tried her best to read the words and to be the quickest person to find the selected objects in the garden.

Last of all, as we're in our last stretch of the term, we have begun revisiting all of the single sound phonics they have learnt this year through interactive fun!  Nico has continued to expand his impressive grasp on phonics and drew clear images of different things beginning with 's' in our surroundings. He then challenged himself further to try to write them, too! Carla is noticeably improving her ability to hear similar phonics sounds. She has been more focused than ever this week and she has worked really hard to try and make links between the ‘n’ and 's' sounds which she has been learning.

Unfortunately, Luke is still in Lithuania and has not returned to school yet. We all hope he returns soon so that we can see him before the end of the school year.

The KS1 children  (Carla, Noa, Arlet, Marcel, Jordi, Joana and Thais) have been working on money in maths. They have been identifying which coins were more value and which ones were less. Jordi , Marcel, and Arlet were  able to very quickly identify the values of each coin and they confidently added coins together to create different amounts. Noa, Carla and Thais are starting to recognise and confidently order the coins from the smallest to biggest value but they found it a little more difficult to  add the coins to make different amounts of money.

The children have been practising for the performance on Friday by explaining the jobs of each part of the plant. They whole group did very well to remember the parts of the plant and the jobs which each part has! The children were able to speak about plants, using some very nice and varied vocabulary. They also each wrote a sentence to explain the job of each part of the plant. Joana, Thais and Noa have really started to improve on their spellings. They tried really hard to sound out the letters!

The children have also been learning how to differentiate between fruits  and vegetables by playing a game- 'what am I'. As a group, they read a description of a fruit or vegetable and then they had to work out which one it was! It was great to see Arlet working independently and reading the descriptions herself. Jo was also really impressed with Carla as she was extremely confident to identify each fruit and vegetable and correctly say their names.

The KS2 children (Judit, Blanca, Sara B, Sofia, Sara, Tatiana, Nil, Pau and Arnau) have also continued to learn about money, within a problem solving context. They have been working fantastically in groups to plan a pretend camping trip for a family of four. The children had to follow very strict instructions and they had to make sure that their trip stayed within the allocated budget. Blanca  and Sara B really impressed me with the way in which they organised themselves. They were very strict about what or was not a necessity on the trip. It was great to see how seriously they took the task and how keen they were to ensure that the family did not spend any unnecessary money! Judit and Sofia also responded really well to the task. It was great to see how concerned they were about spending too much money and both of the girls gained a real understanding of how much things cost and how expensive it is to buy things and set  the family up so that they could enjoy their holiday. I was really happy to see how much it opened the girls’ eyes as it allowed them to see just how expensive it is in the real world.

The children have also continued to prepare their plant projects for the presentation. When finishing their project on English plants, I have been really impressed with Nil. He has worked so hard to support his team mates and has been keen to complete different parts of the project to help his friends get it finished. It has been great to see him so confident and motivated to complete it and I am really proud of the attitude he has towards his work. Pau has also gained more confidence in his own abilities when completing different parts of the project. He stills find it difficult to voice his opinions when working in a group but he is definitely more confidence to create different parts of the project and present them to his friends.

In art this week, the children have been creating furniture for our mouse house, using clay and box modelling materials. I was really proud of Sara and the way in which she is now working more happily with her classmates. It was great to see her helping others. She also produced a fantastic sofa out of Clay, which will look lovely in the mouse mansion.

In music, we have continued to learn about pitch. We had a great lesson using both the instruments and our voices to create different pitches. I was really proud of how well Tatiana and Arnau worked together during the music activity. I am so happy to see how much better they now are at sharing and taking turned. As a result, they both seem so much happier and engaged when working together. Well  done-please keep it up!

This week has been a very sad week for Kai and his family. We are all thinking of them and are happy to do anything to help them during this very difficult time.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. I look forward to seeing you all on Monday for our final full week of the school year.

Money square

This week has been an unusual week in the school, due to most of the children and teachers being struck down with a horrible sickness virus. I hope that everyone is now feeling better and feeling energised ready for the last few weeks of school.

The EYFS children (Kai, Nico, Sergi, Cloe, Ona, Ivet, Luke, Julien, Katie and Carla) have begun looking at money. Through immersive learning they have practised playing the role of shop keeper, organised and looked closely at both Spanish and English currency, created price tags by rubbing coins and practising their number recognition and formation when writing on the price tags. Kai really enjoyed separating the money and noticing the patterns of the images on each of the coins, such as the Queens head on the English coins! Sergi loved making price tags for the flowers in our 'garden centre'. He used different colours and enjoyed rubbing coins to trace their patterns. He is really improving his recognition of different numbers, as he proved when telling his customers the cost of things in the shop!  Cloe worked really hard to understand the difference between 'cheap' and 'expensive' things, as we collectively divided items such as an apple, a pencil, a camera and a phone into groups of their worth. Once she understood that the size doesn't equal to bigger worth she grasped the concept well! Ona responded fantastically to our shop role play. She clearly used the phrase, “please can I have..." correctly understanding how to structure and change the sentence, dependent on what she wanted to buy. Gabrielle was really proud of her, as this phrase is very useful and can be transferred to everyday, classroom situations, such as asking for water!

The children have also continued to learn about the growth of plants; focusing on which fruits and vegetables grow under and which grow above the ground. Ivet was very focused when painting a large piece of paper. She was keen to be involved in painting both the ground and the sky I’m te display. She then worked hard to think about whether she needed to stick the vegetables above or below the ground. Ivet thought really carefully but still  finds this concept a little tricky. We will keep discussing this and providing activities to help her understand this.

In phonics time, Nico was fantastic! We focused on the 'n' sound this week and Nico worked at such a high level, as he was able to think of other words that begin with this letter sound. He drew clear pictures of his ideas and helped his class friends to think of different words, such as: 'nature', 'nest' 'Natalie' and 'night'. 

Unfortunately, Carla, Katie and Julien weren’t in school very much at all this week, as they were feeling poorly. I hope they all feel better and are well enough to join us next week. We also hope to see Luke back next week, after his long holiday in Lithuania. We all miss you, Luke!

The KS1 children (Jordi, Arlet, Carla, Marcel, Joana, Thais and Noa) have been working on counting on 5’s. After working very hard the previous week on 2’s and 10’s, they already had a good understanding of how to count, using a sequence. Arlet, initially found the concept of counting in 5’s difficult but with the help of her give fingers and the pictures of hands, which Jo provided, she was able to count up and correctly cut out and stick the multiples of five in the correct order. Arlet then became more confident and was able to write out the sequence of numbers, with only a little support.

In our topic, the children have also continued to learn about the growth of plants. They enjoyed spending time in the garden; identifying and drawing the plants to show whether they grow above or below the ground. I was very impressed with how well Jordi recorded the vegetables and the understanding he has of where different fruits and vegetables grow. He drew them accurately, with a small part of the leaves sticking above the ground. He then independently wrote the name of each fruit  or vegetable, using his phonics sounds to help him. I am really impressed with how much his writing is improving. Well done Jordi! When creating a display for the classroom, Joana and Thais were very focused when colouring the fruits and vegetables. It  was great to see how keen Thais was to colour each vegetable the correct colour. I  was also very impressed with how much plant related vocabulary Thais has learnt. She was the first person to say the name of each fruit and vegetable vegetables and she was correct every time. It is great to see Thais speaking so confidently in English. When focusing on the different scents which flowers and plants have, it was great to see the enthusiasm Noa had to find plants. She carefully smelt each plant and thought carefully about where to stick each of the flowers, depending on how strong their scent was. I was so proud of Noa in this lesson as she was super confident to speak lots of English, as she was keen to share her ideas about the different plants.  

Unfortunately, Carla and Marcel weren’t in school very much this week as they felt too poorly. I hope they are feeling much better and are able to join us again next week.

The KS2 children (Arnau, Nil, Tatiana, Pau, Judit, Blanca, Sofia, Sara B and Sara) have been working on money, with a focus on solving money problems. Sara B and Judit worked really hard to add different amounts of money together, using a money square. It was a great opportunity for the girls to practise the column addition method and to see the confidence they had to add decimal numbers. This is definitely a skill we need to keep working on but I was really proud of the girls’ independence and concentration when completing the activity. Arnau did a great job of adding together different amounts of money as a way from him to buy different items, shown ln the list. He was very confident to use the column addition method and it was lovely to see him so confident to work out the answers and then turn to his friends to try to help them. Nil was also excellent at solving money problems. It was great to see that he had the confidence to both add together different prices and also to complete subtraction sums as a way to work out how much change he would need. Although Tatiana was only with us towards the  end of the week, I was very impressed with how well she was able to identify British coins. She then effortlessly added the different amounts together and worked out the total price. I was very impressed with your confidence, Tatiana. Pau was ill at the beginning of the week and because of this he found it more difficult to access our maths topic this week. He found the money problem solving difficult, especially when solving problems, using double operations. However, as always, I am proud of the determination Pau shows to complete and correct his work, even when finding it difficult.  Well done Pau!

For our plant topic, the children have continued to prepare their projects about Spanish plants, in preparation for our end of year presentation. I have been really impressed with Sofia and Sara’s teamwork skills when preparing the project. They initially found working together very difficult and they found it hard to compromise about their ideas. However, towards the end of the week, it was a real pleasure to watch them working together. They are now recognising the importance of listening to each other’s ideas. Due to their great teamwork, they have now produced a fantastic project, which they both feel proud of.

Blanca was only able to join us at the end of the week, due to her being ill. However, when returning, she was super keen to help us prepare for the protest we had on Thursday. She worked hard to decorate our banner and was keen to do the best job she could. I was also very proud of how well Blanca read at the protest. She was very confident and sure of what she was saying and was determined to let everyone know just how much she loves her school.

Thank you to everyone that supported us during the protest this week. It was a great atmosphere and a brilliant way to show the people of Mataró what a fantastic school we are!