Laminated word cards

This week has been a progressive one generally and with focus in two main areas, science and research.

We have been focusing on using our textbooks, previous work and the internet to collect information, which we then put into practice by talking about the subjects or making posters on them. We have been mainly focusing on science subjects, at this level science is the most diverse for research and the group shows a keen interest in the subject. On top of carrying out their own research, they would even be given the option to choose their own subject, which has been great for setting goals to work towards. Research takes discipline and patience and Judit and Sara have shown that they have both by excelling in doing so.

The end results of research included presentations and posters on the Earth, climate ecosystems and biology amongst others. Jordi would also show interest in their research and would join in by drawing and colouring as well as going through books with me and asking a lot of questions. He would also view pictures in the books (particularly prehistoric subjects) and then copy down the words in the descriptions or titles. Sergi would also usually spend his time with us listening and drawing himself. He has shown improvement in his ability to use seperate colours and their placement to show what he is seeing, for exemple his use of greens, blues and blacks to draw the Earth in space.

As well as science, we have also progressed through maths and grammar. Sara worked through large additions and subtractions of multiplications of ten and one hundred. This helps to develop her quick thinking in mathematics, which means rather than needing to write down the sum she can use her mind to work out first the larger number, then the smaller ones and bring them together for the answers. She made few mistakes. Sara has also been working through the present and past, simple and continuous tenses, ie. I do/I am doing/I did/I was doing. She would read pieces on subjects and then write qüestions about it or re write the paragraph in the correct tense. She then moved on to the present perfect and past simple using the same method, showing her use of I have done and I did sentences are very Advanced.

Judit worked through the perímetres of shapes, which proved to be difficult before she grasped it and did well, then worked on time in maths. She did this by breaking down hours, years, months et cinto their smaller units. Judit also worked on pronouns and possessives, working through paragraphs and putting the correct form of do or make , or me, mine myself etc. She also worked on reported speech, ie. Speaking about what other people have said, Judit showed skill in both written and spoken work.

Jordi has also completed some more pages of his word cards, making laminated word cards in both upper and lower case. These are so he can choose them at random, recognise what they say and write them down, as well as determinin the pairs of lower and upper writing.

To finish it all off we are having a special talk from Marc Boada the Paleontologist, which the children have been looking forward to all week, leading to us discussing the subject heavily this morning!