Evolution of Humans

This week we have had a very busy week. We have continued our topic of ´The human body´ and we were very lucky to learn more about the internal make-up of our body and the evolution of humans when visiting the Cosmo Caixa museum in Barcelona. We had a fantastic tour guide who explained everything to us in English and the older children, especially were able to learn lots of information and were keen to ask the tour guide lots of questions. The children were also happy to have some more time exploring the different experiments in the museum and they were especially interested by the different brains of the animals, which had been preserved in the museum.

Within our human body topic, the EYFS children (Julien, Katie, Sergi, Luke, Kai, Ona and Axel) have been focusing on the clothes people wear. They have really enjoyed colouring in different clothes and deciding which type of clothing we need to wear in different seasons. Ona did a great job of colouring in and sticking the winter clothes on to the winter poster and she was so proud when I displayed it in the classroom. The children have also had a great time exploring the role play hospital. Sergi was especially excited by the new medical equipment box we have and he was keen to get his friends to lie on the table to be operated on! We have continued to practise our human body songs but this week we have introduced some new songs about different clothes. Katie now knows the songs very well and she was laughing a lot at our new song, ´put on your shoes´. In maths, we have been learning about shapes. Luke has really enjoyed using the blocks, placing them correctly on the different big and small shape outlines we provided. He is becoming much more confident to identify and tell me the name of each shape. Kai enjoyed using the shapes to make pictures and he is getting much confident to say the names of the shapes he is playing with. Julien has enjoyed creating shape puzzles. He finds the names a little difficult but was able to position the pieces together easily to recreate the shapes. Unfortunately, Axel was feeling poorly this week. We hope he is feeling better and can join us again next week.

The KS1 children (Jordi, Arlet, Joana, Thais, Marcel, Carla and Noa) have enjoyed doing more work on the human body. They have also been focusing on recognising and naming different clothes. The children had a great time creating their own washing line within the classroom. Jordi was especially enthusiastic when colouring in and pegging the clothes on the washing line. Arlet enjoyed learning the new vocabulary and by the end of the week was very confident to identify all of the items of clothes on our washing line. In maths, the children linked the topic of shapes and the human body.  They really enjoyed creating clothes for a person, using different shapes for each item of clothing. Marcel was a little unsure at the beginning but by the end of the activity he was keen to suggest shapes for each item of clothing and was keen to label the shapes he had used. He really enjoyed it and had a great imagination. Joana and Thais also enjoyed learning about shapes. They both worked together and did a great job of cutting out the different shapes and then correctly sticking them underneath the corresponding shape word. Throughout the activity Joana became increasingly confident when naming the shapes and she was extremely happy to work with Thais and help her to learn the names too! Carla became particularly confident at naming the clothes when creating her own wardrobe and deciding which clothes she would like to put inside. Noa enjoyed learning the names of the different clothes she was wearing. Throughout the week she has become more confident to correctly identify the clothing names and she is now keen to begin describing her clothes, using colours. I have noticed a real increase in Noa´s confidence to speak in English, this week.

The KS2 children (Nil, Arnau, Tatiana, Judit, Sara B, Sara, Blanca and Sofia) have enjoyed continuing their work on the magazine. Judit has done a fantastic job and she has been extremely motivated to ensure that all of the children had a portrait picture painted on the computer. She did a great job of including the correct features of each person. Sara B was very organised and kept making lists of all the children to ensure that we had not missed anyone. As part of our human body topic, Nil and Arnau have also enjoyed learning about clothes and the different clothes we wear in each season. They both did a great job of selecting clothes and creating their own winter wardrobe. Gabrielle was really proud of how well they worked together and how supportive they were of each other. In maths, we have continued to learn about place value. Sara is really beginning to understand the concept of two, three and four digit numbers and she can now confidently put a set of numbers in the correct order. Sofia has really impressed me with the progress she has made this week. She is now able to correctly write five digit numbers as numerals when reading the numbers as words. She is becoming much more aware of the importance of ensuring that there are five numbers and that sometimes it is important to include a zero within the number to ensure that the value of the number is correct. In punctuation and grammar, we have continued to work on speech marks comma lists as all of the children are still finding this difficult. I was so impressed with Tatiana´s understanding of how to use speech marks, as she was able to correctly re-write the sentences, using speech marks, commas and full stops correctly. Blanca is extremely confident to use commas when creating a list and she always remembers to use capital letters and full stops in her sentences. She still finds speech marks a little difficult but is almost there. Well done Blanca, you are working very hard!

This Friday, to end the week, we had a fantastic day celebrating the carnival. The children looked absolutely fantastic in their costumes and they were so excited to show them off in our mini carnival school parade. We were very lucky to have Carla´s Mum helping us and she painted all of the children´s faces with fantastic designs. The little ones loved having pictures painted, which matched their costume and the older ones loved experimenting with make- up, especially the various coloured lipsticks! We also had a lovely morning creating carnival masks and the children were very creative with their designs. They loved posing with their masks for photos and were confidently parading around the classroom. We also had the chance to make carnival cupcakes. The children worked really nicely in groups to create their own tray of cupcakes. They took in turns and shared the ingredients really well. They all loved having the chance to bake, especially when kneading the chocolatey mixture with their hands. They couldn’t resist licking their hands afterwards! We spent the afternoon showing off our costumes to the people in Mataró and the children were all completely exhausted when returning to school. Thank you very much to Carla´s Mum and Katie and Sara´s Mum for helping. I hope you enjoyed the day!

Have a lovely, long weekend and I look forward to seeing you all again on Tuesday.

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! 

Human Body

This week, we have welcomed two new friends into the class. Sara (9 years old) and Katie (4 years old) have settled brilliantly within the class. They are both extremely happy and enjoying getting to know their new friends in the class. Sara has settled fantastically within the KS2 group and is doing a fantastic job of working with her friends to complete her work. Katie is now confident to play with the other EYFS children in the class and it is great to see how happy she is to complete the activities.

This week we have started our new ‘human body’ topic. The EYFS children (Sergi, Kai, Luke, Julien, Katie and Ona) have enjoyed learning some new songs to help them learn the body parts. Katie especially enjoyed learning the ‘one little finger’ and it was lovely to hear her singing it as she completed the activities. Julien loved learning the song, ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’ and he used the song to help him name each of the body parts when sticking them on to his body picture. I was very impressed with how well he remembered the names of the body parts in English. Kai also enjoyed labelling the body parts and when saying the body part to him he was able to correctly identify the correct part on his human body picture. The children enjoyed cutting out and sticking the different parts of the face to create their own person. When questioning Luke, he was able to tell me the name of all of the face parts with ease and independence. I am very proud of how much English he is now using. Ona also enjoyed learning the parts of the face. It was great to see how concentrated she was when colouring in the different face parts in the art area. She was determined to finish and display her work on the window. Sergi has enjoyed helping to set our role play hospital up. He had a great time and was very concentrated when creating name badges for the doctors, nurses and surgeons.

The KS1 children (Jordi, Marcel, Noa, Joana, Arlet, Thais and Carla) have enjoyed creating a large human body. Arlet was really happy to lay on the large white paper and it was lovely to watch how gentle and careful Jordi was when drawing around her. The children had a great time adding the facial features and Noa drew some very nice eyes, with eyelashes. Marcel was very focused and keen to ensure we added the extra features, such as the eyebrows and fingernails. The children enjoyed using the felt; drawing and then cutting out different clothes for our person. Carla was really engaged with this activity and was keen to use lots of glue to stick the clothes on. The KS1 children also did human body labelling activities; labelling the big human body and then a smaller, individual human body. It was great to see how confident Joana was to stick the labels in the correct place and she was confident to point to the correct part of the body when questioned about each body part. It is great to see how well she understands and is trying to use English now. Thais also enjoyed the labelling activity and it was great to see that she used the ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’ song to help her label the body correctly.

The KS2 children (Judit, Sara B, Sara, Arnau, Tatiana, Blanca and Sofia) have been extremely motivated by our new topic. We started the week by writing ten questions of things which they are really keen to find out about the human body. Sara B thought of some fantastic questions and was very determined when researching the answers. She was very keen to share what she had learnt with the rest of the group. When reading books about the human body, I have been very impressed with the information and knowledge which Blanca already has about the human body. She has been confident to share her knowledge with the group, whilst also being very motivated to find out more information about people who suffer from anorexia and obesity. Arnau has been very motivated by the human body topic and he has created several information booklets. He was very keen to use the internet and books to find out information about the main organs in the body and the important jobs which they have. Judit was very motivated to create a life-sized body picture. She independently found a picture of the organs within the body. She then began to sketch the different organs on to the human body picture. She was very concentrated and keen to ensure that she drew the organs in the correct place in the body, to the correct scale, in comparison to the other organs. She has made a fantastic start and is keen to continue adding to the human body next week. In maths, we have been learning how to divide, using the ‘bus stop’ method. I have been very impressed with how hard Sofia has worked to understand this method. At the beginning of the week, Sofia found the method very difficult but she persevered and was very proud of herself when she was able to use the method to work out many division and create her own division triangle. In punctuation and grammar, we have continued to focus on full stops and capital letters, as the children are still not using these correctly within their work. Tatiana focused on the use of capital letters. She was fantastic and very independent when thinking of different names and she correctly wrote them all with a capital letter. She was then able to correctly write different place names, using capital letters. Finally, she focused on the days and months of the year and she was very confident to write each one correctly, with a capital letter.

This week we have been lucky to take two class trips. On Tuesday, we went for a walk to the library in the centre of Mataro. The children were keen to find books about the human body for us to borrow and use in the classroom. Unfortunately, the English corner was unavailable for us to use but the children had a lovely time reading books in Catalan. It was very good for the children to be in an environment where they needed to be completely silent and I was very impressed with how quiet and respectful they were when reading in the library.

We were also very lucky to go to the beach, as part of our ‘Friday treat’. On the walk, down to the beach, we played ‘I spy’ and the children had a great time trying to identify objects and correctly name them in English. We also sung lots of songs; some of the human body and some of their favourite space songs too. When arriving at the beach, the children had a great time exploring; collecting shells and interesting rocks. We then had a little paddle in the sea and played a game, where the children had to wait as long as they could before running away from the approaching waves. It was so lovely to see the children happy and relaxed. They enjoyed having fun together after a busy week doing lots of work.

Next week, we will continue to work on the human body and will be focusing more on the names of different clothing which people wear. I look forward to seeing you all on Monday, ready for another fun and busy week. 

Comets, asteroids and alliens

This week we welcomed another new friend into the class. Julien has enjoyed settling into our class routines and making friends with the other children in the class.

This week was our final week learning about space. The EYFS children (Sergi, Luke, Kai, Ona and Julien) have enjoyed spending the final week focusing on stars. They have been practising writing their names and focusing on the formation of each letter. I was very proud of Kai and the concentration he showed when writing his name and creating his name star. The children also did a great job painting their own stars by painting two triangles. Sergi was particularly concentrated and he worked hard to try and improve the star that he was painting and by the end he was confident to correctly paint the star shape by painting two triangles in the correct shape. The children have also been focused when continuing to extend their space vocabulary, using the space flashcards. Ona did a great job colouring in the planet pictures and I was impressed to see that she was able to follow my instructions and correctly select the colour I suggested for each of the planets. When organising the flashcards within our space display, I was impressed to see how engaged and keen Luke was to help me and it was great to see how much confidence he has developed when cutting out the flashcards; carefully cutting along the lines.

The KS1 children (Jordi, Carla, Joana, Thais, Marcel, Noa and Arlet) have been working hard on their story writing skills this week. The children each chose a space picture and then as a group the children discussed what they thought was happening in the picture, who might be there and what they thought the people might be doing in Space. The children then wrote simple sentences to explain the picture; beginning to create their own story ideas. Jo was very impressed with Arlet as she is becoming very independent when writing and is really developing the confidence to sound out her words and use the sounds she knows to write the words. Jo also explained how proud she was of Joanna as she is now grasping a great understanding of English and is keen to translate to her friends when helping them to think of story ideas. The children have also been working on descriptive Words, whereby they created their own planet and needed to use descriptive words to explain what their planet looks like and the things which we can see on their planet. It was lovely to see  how keen Thais was to explain that both she and Joana needed to live together on her planet. In maths, the children have continued with addition and have been focusing on their number bonds to 10. The children needed to complete the number sentences by working out how many they needed to add to equal ten altogether. Jordi and Marcel did a fantastic job of completing the number sentences and Jo was really impressed that they were able to answer some of the questions independently, without the use of props to help them. The children have also been practising their number bonds to 10 by colouring in different aliens in different colours and then deciding how many of each coloured alien could fit in the ten seats in the space ship. Carla was very motivated by the practical aspect of this activity and was keen to find lots of different ways of making 10. Noa also really enjoyed this activity. She took great when colouring the aliens and she was keen to check that she had correctly coloured ten aliens in each of her chosen colours.

The KS2 children (Sara, Judit, Arnau, Tatiana, Blanca and Sofia) have been working on list writing. The children really enjoyed using a numbered list to show the things they would take if they were leaving to go on a trip into space. It was so funny to read the ideas the children had of what was important to take into space. Blanca wrote a very extensive list of all hair products and make-up that she thought were vital items to take into space. Gabrielle was very impressed by how keen Arnau was to complete the list. He did a great job of numbering his ideas and he thought carefully about the importance of a space manual, whilst also being keen to explain that he needed to take lots of magdalenas into space, in case he got hungry. The children also worked on bullet point lists when writing an application to Nata; explaining the reasons why they would make a good astronaut. Sofia really thought about the skills she could bring to the job and she was very keen to explain how she wanted to start creating life on Mars by planting lots of plants.  In maths this week we have been learning about doubling and halving. It is great to see how motivated the children have been by this mathematical concept. Tatiana has developed a very effective to work out the doubles of bigger numbers. She is now able to independently apply her arrow method as a way to break down and simplify the bigger numbers when working out the doubles of the numbers. Sara has really impressed me by how quickly she grasped the concept of doubling and she was extremely keen each day to be provided with extension work. Each day she was keen to tackle progressively more difficult work and I was so proud of how determined she was to complete the work and find out the answers. In our reading comprehension task the children needed to read an information text about comets and asteroids and then answer questions to show their understanding of what they had read. Judit really impressed me with the knowledge she gained from the text and it was lovely to see how confident she was to explain what she had learnt.

It was great to see some of you at the school’s open morning today and to see how proud the children were to show the school to their families.

Next week we start our new topic- 'the human body'. I look forward to seeing you all on Monday.