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.