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.