Water purification center

The first week back at school after Christmas has meant lots of new changes! The biggest change of all being that the Year 1/2s (and sometimes the reception children) have been making the most out of our upstairs classrooms, learning Phonics, Maths and English in a more focused way. 

The Year 1/2s have been consolidating their learning of digraphs by learning an action to go with each, practising writing tricky words and also using capital letters for names and to begin sentences. They have been learning the difference between a sound, word and sentence. They have also been using all of these skills to write about their Christmas holidays using adjectives to describe. In Maths, they have been consolidating their knowledge of addition and subtraction using a variety of different methods. They will use these skills to solve problems next week. 

In EYFS, the children have been practising writing and recognising numbers up to 10. They have been finding numbers hidden in rice, counting using blocks and counters, painting familiar numbers and writing numbers in playdough. They have been learning some simple sounds and using them to identify initial sounds in words.

The older children began the week learning about Instructions in Literacy, focusing on features like precise language, imperative verbs and sequencing commands. 

In Maths we revised Decimals, including how to round numbers to the nearest thousandth, hundredth and tenth. 

We practiced how to perform Gymnastics routines through a range of different balances in PE. 

During the week, our school visited the Water Purification Centre in Granollers and learnt all about how the water from our toilets and sinks is purified and cleaned through various filters, ready to go to the river. It was very informative and educational. 

Finally, in Art, we studied the life and work of Catalonian Artist Salvador Dali, who specialised in Surrealist Art. Surrealism is the portrayal of images through dream-like perspectives. We attempted to replicate some of Dali's most famous pieces, and produced our own Surrealist art pictures.

Christmas Performance

This week, the young children have been completing lots of Christmas activities! Our Maths has been consolidationg our prior knowledge through Christmas themed activities and in Phonics, we have been reading and writing Christmas sentences.
The older children began the week by looking at how Christmas is celebrated around the world. We also made lots of Christmas decorations for our play.
We all baked cookies and made special Christmas boxes to take them home in and we decorated our salt dough with Cynthia and Katie's grandma (a huge thank you to both)
On Tuesday was our Christmas Performance and it went brilliantly! Check out the show on You Tube. 
On Friday, we played party games and had a special Christmas Lunch with our families.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and we will see you in the New Year!

All about Christmas

This week, it's been all about Christmas! We have been writing letters to santa, making Christmas cards and decorating our classroom full of Christmas crafts! We were lucky to have two parents volunteer on Friday to help us to make salt dough Christmas ornaments; thank you Cynthia and Maria! We can't wait to decorate them next week! This week we have also been working hard on our Christmas performance ready for next Tuesday. We can't wait to show you our Christmas play!

The older children had lots of fun learning about coordinates in Maths this week. When we gained a deeper understanding of how x and y axis' works, we played games of Battleship, which everyone really loved! Later in the week we looked at how we can use coordinates to translate whole shapes to different areas of a grid using positional instructions. 

In Literacy we read a short book called Baby Jesus' Christmas Party, which tells the nativity story from the Innkeepers perspective. We then wrote diary entries as the Innkeeper, retelling our account of the night Jesus was born. 

We looked at different ways to make Christmas Pop up cards in Design and Technology, and will continue to do these until next week. 

On Friday, the school went into Llinars market to perform songs from our Christmas play to the public. We raised lots of money for our end of year trip, and everyone had a great time.

Work experiences

This week, we have been working hard on our handwriting and using lines to help us to form letters correctly with ascenders and descenders. We will take some of these handwriting sheets home with us so we can practise over the Christmas holidays.
In Phonics, we have been consolidating our knowledge of digraphs. We are finding them rather tricky to remember so we need to practise them every day! The sounds we have learnt are: oa (goat), ee (leek), oo (moon), ai (rain), ch (chicken), sh (shoe), ng (ring)
We have been making Christmas decorations to get us in the festive spirit. This included snowflakes to help us with our fine motor skills and paper chains which we made in pairs where we had to work as a successful team.
We have also been practising for our Christmas play and can't wait to share our acting and singing with you!
In Key Stage 2/3 we welcomed the younger children to join in with our Christmas production rehearsal, and they have been fantastic. As always, may I ask that you encourage the children to listen to the songs for the production at home as regularly as possible. 
We also had fun designing and creating a Christmas banner to hang in the streets of Llinars. It was amazing how fast we were able to create the pictures by the end of the week. Well done to all involved! 
The older children had an invaluable experience as they spent time volunteering to work at local businesses around the town. They became waitresses, mechanics and veterinarians in a fun-filled few days.