Writing is learned by writing

In our western society, the family is the main transmitter of the oral language and the school is the transmitter of the written language. Since the children are born they are immersed in a world of writing. Parents read stories to children, go often to the library, parents keep reading at home and it is usual in all households to find a shelf space full of books, stories and magazines. This atmosphere encourages reading and writing and when the school begins, the child already has a great background in the fascinating world of lyrics (Marina, 2008). Inspired by Celestin Freinet, at school we encourage writing through the Magazine that is published every month. Boys and girls write their articles and all of them are printed on the monthly Magazine. Also at the Sant Jordi festivity we publish each and every one of the stories that children have written, as you have seen in this edition of 2019 the book 29 Little Stories. Imagine how important that is for the children, even Freinet in 1924 acquired a printing press at his school in the Alps because he wanted to publish the written works of his students, broadcast, publish a newspaper for children and the entire educational community to understand how important the simple works of children were (Freinet, 1974 ). It is important for children to express through writing all their feelings and can thus channel their way of understanding the world; problems, difficulties, challenges expressed through imaginary characters and situations. There is a mandatory book in all homes written by the fantastic Gianni Rodari; the Grammar of Fantasy. This Italian writer has written such famous books as Telephone Tales that surely all of you will remember from your childhood. In this book of fantasy Rodari gives guidelines, an orientation to create and write fantastic stories through various techniques: the fantastic pair, the confusion of stories, the construction of the absurd and so on. According to Rodari at the school, there is a lack of laugh and enjoyment  and it is important for children to laugh and have fun writing, experiencing fantasy and creativity to enrich the child's environment (Rodari, 2012). Writing has the capacity to order the mind, the thoughts, expand the understanding, adjust the expression, it is essential for the child's complete development. And as Confuccio says, writing is learned by writing, reflecting, observing, changing, correcting time and time again. Only by writing a lot and much, do you learn to write:

Tell me and I will forget,
Show me and I will remember,
Let me do it and I will learn it.

Bibliography
Freinet, C. (1974). Consejos a los maestros jóvenes. Hospitalet: Editorial Laia.
Marina, J. A. (2008). La magia de escribir. Barcelona: De Bolsillo.
Rodari, G. (2012). Gramática de la fantasia. Barcelona: Planeta.

Halloween

This week, we celebrated Halloween! Prior to the day, we made decorations and hung them in the classroom ready for our big celebration. On the day, we baked biscuits and decorated them including Halloween shapes and witches' fingers! We had so much fun making and then eating them and all the older children were really helpful supporting the younger children; big thank you to them all! Later that day, we headed to the swimming pool for our weekly lesson where we discovered that the changing room corridor had been transformed into a spooky Halloween scene! The afternoon involved lots of fun Halloween games including pin the bone on the skeleton and wink murder. 

We also welcomed a new addition to the school this week; welcome Emmy from England! She has been helping out with the younger children and they have already formed a good bond. 

In Maths, we have been looking at 2d and 3d shapes and we will continue this learning next week. With the older children, we used dienes blocks to talk about place value (e.g 16 is 10 and 6).

The older children in Key Stage 2 and 3 have been reviewing their long division strategies to solve problems.
Earlier in the week we were creating spider webs using paper and spiders made from pipe cleaners, as well as 3D pumpkins to decorate our classroom for Hallowe'en.
We also began our Geography topic and together we discussed what types of things we would like to learn about in the topic, such as how people live in countries with extreme weather conditions.

Christmas Performance

This week the children have been very excited about Christmas. We have had a very relaxed week, doing Christmas activities. The children have finished their Christmas envelopes and Christmas cards and they now all have a fantastic envelope, filled with all the Children’s Christmas crafts and cards.

The children continued to consolidate their focus Christmas vocabulary- reindeer, snowman, star, snow ball, sleigh, presents, elf. They have coloured in pictures of all these different Christmas objects and we focused on colouring the objects the correct colours. We talked about the different Christmas objects and the parts they play at Christmas time.

We had a relaxed morning watching ‘Home Alone’ and it was great to see that the children understood most of the English and were able to laugh along at the jokes in the film.

We had an afternoon baking Christmas biscuits in the classroom.  We created our own Christmas stencils, in the shape of a bell, Christmas tree and a snowman. We worked together to create dough and then used our stencils to shape the Christmas biscuits. The following morning we created two different types of icing and decorated the biscuits with lots of shiny balls, stars and hearts. The children then enjoyed eating the biscuits as a late breakfast snack.

The children had a great morning creating sock snowmen with Jo. They were all keen to cut the bottom off the sock to create a hat for their snowman. The children then filled their sock with rice and made their snowman big and fat. They then used an elastic band to create a head and body but they all needed help as the band was tricky to tie. The children then had a great time sticking on buttons, eyes and creating a scarf and nose out of felt. All of the children’s snowmen looked very individual, especially when they all drew different mouths , which gave each of the snowmen real character.

The children performed their Christmas songs and dances to their families. They did an absolutely fantastic job and I was so proud of how confidently they performed and how they remembered the song words and dance moves so well. The children had a great time and it was great to see their big, smiling faces. Everyone enjoyed watching the performance and the children absolutely loved being on the stage.  They are already discussing what they want to do for the Summer performance.

The children had a great time visiting the mechanics garage. They made the mechanics very happy by singing their Christmas songs to them in the mechanics’ office. The children then had the opportunity to watch the mechanics change a tyre and they were introduced to all of the different tools, which are used by a mechanic. The children had the opportunity to ask lots of questions and they managed to learn a lot about how mechanics help people by fixing their cars. 

Sara and Judit chose some of their favourite Christmas poems from various web pages. They read them all and focused on the key features of each poem – the rhyming pattern, use of metaphors, similes and adjectives. The children then chose which poetry features they wanted to focus on and use within their own poems. The girls wrote their own Christmas poems, using the poetry styles of their choice. They created their own paragraphs, checked their spellings and added their own illustrations.  They were then very proud to read their poems to me and explain how they had developed their ideas. They did a fantastic job and really enjoyed being little poets.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with your families and I look forward to seeing you all in the New Year. 

Recital musical y literario

Nos reunimos para la festividad de Sant Jordi, donde en Catalunya se celebra con la fiesta de la rosa y el libro. La tradición dice que el hombre regala una rosa y la mujer regala un libro, aunque hoy en día las mujeres prefieren las dos cosas, los libros y las rosas. A través del club de lectura los niños voluntarios hay escrito cuentos y poesías. Hemos recopilado más de 13 relatos y los hemos publicado en un libro que se puede comprar por internet. Nos reunimos para celebrar una jornada musical y literaria. Los niños traen sus instrumentos musicales y leen algunos fragmentos de sus relatos. 

Panellets

Los panellets es un postre típico de Catalunya que se come el día de Todos los Santos, junto con boniatos y castañas asadas al fuego. Son pequeños pastelitos elaborados con almendra, azúcar y patata o boniato. Se pueden decorar con cerezas, piñones, almendras, cacao o café. Los niños les encanta cocinar y especialmente cuando celebramos alguna fiesta especial como es la castanyada. Todos quieren participar, incluso Silvia en brazos de su hermana. Mmm, ¡qué buena pinta tienen!

Feliz Navidad

Bon Nadal, Feliz Navidad, Eguberri, Bo Nadal, Merry Christmas, Joyeux Nöel
Frohe Weihnachten, Nadolig Llawen

 

 

 

El pesebre

Las fiestas de la primera semana de diciembre son un buen momento para preparar el pesebre y adornar el abeto con luces, estrellas y bolas de colores. El pesebre es la atracción número uno para los niños, disfrutan haciéndolo y recreando la sociedad de Belén dos mil años atrás. Los pastores al lado del fuego, el rio, el puente, los caminos de tierra que llevan al pueblo, el establo con el buey y la mula, el bebé recién nacido en su pesebre con la Virgen y San José, los reyes magos subidos en sus camellos con sus pajes, los ángeles, la fuente, el granero, el huerto, las gallinas, año tras año va creciendo la población de nuestro Belén.

 

 

 

 

Castanyada versus Halloween

Debido a la globalización tenemos la mala costumbre de adoptar todas las fiestas que nos vienen de fuera, como es el caso de Halloween, aún y en detrimento de nuestra propia fiesta local, tradicional, que ha perdurado año tras año y que ahora está en peligro de extinción, la castanyada. Los niños han vaciado tres calabazas y dibujado monstruos horribles en ellas, han decorado globos, han hecho pequeñas calabazas con plastilina y se han disfrazado de zombies, fantasmas y brujas. Pero también han elaborado panellets de chocolate, asado castañas al fuego y boniatos. ¡Que no falte de nada para la noche más terrorífica del año!