Topic of plants

This week has been a difficult week for parents, children and staff as we have been fighting to keep our school open  I am really proud of how well the children have coped with having people taking photos and videos of them working in the classroom and doing activities on the farm. They had a well deserved treat in the swimming pool to reward them for being so mature and sensible during the time the camera people were there. They still worked really hard and were focused well in their class activities. Well done everyone!

This week the EYFS children  (Carla, Ona, Katie, Ivet, Cloe,  Nico, Sergi, Julien, Kai and Luke) have been looking closer at patterns of colours, numbers and shapes. Carla loved making a bracelet to consolidate what she learnt the previous week of patterns. She understood the sequence of up to 5 different colours, and had her own pretty bracelet to take home, too.

We have also been looking at our class topic of plants. Katie did such a great job at tracing plant related words, she didn´t need any assistance and her hand is getting steadier and steadier. She has also loved learning a new song that we´ll perform in the new presentation, all about the growth of plants from a seedling to a flower! Ivet got very involved in our class collage of a watering can and water drop for a classroom display. She cut up small pieces just as I had asked and really enjoyed sticking them as she liked! Cloe loved our scavenger hunt through the garden. She spotted all the different coloured flowers, trees of different shapes and sizes and insects that we were looking for. She´s becoming more and more confident to speak aloud and showing how well she is absorbing vocabulary.  Ona has really taken on board the progress of growing. She has loved watching our class bean growing; taking in the vocabulary of all the parts of a plant and she understood the order of sequences in a plants growth.

In phonics time,  Gabrielle was very impressed with Nico’s ability to read. She is also impressed daily with how able he is to sound out the letters and pronounce the words. He is often the winner in our phonics card game, remembering so well the names of the objects. During the handwriting lesson, Gabrielle was also very impressed with Sergi, as he was able to trace his own name. He then identified the letters amongst the rest of the alphabet to add to the page, and freely decorated it with imaginative patterns! During our art session, it was great to see how much more confident Kai now is to draw. He was very concentrated and created a very nice, colourful mouse to put in our class house.

On Friday we also welcomed back our friend, Julien.  After a month in his home country ( Germany) he slipped back into the routines well,  particularly  reading a book titled, ´”can I eat that”, which  was all about the origins of food and plants!

Luke is still in Lithuania with his family but we look forward to seeing him back soon  and hope he is having a lovely time with his family.

The KS1 children (Noa, Carla, Joana, Thais, Marcel, Jordi and Arlet) have also been learning about plants this week. They have been able to verbalise in English what the different parts of a plant  are They all created a lovely little booklet and tried sounding out the letters to spell each component! They all tried their very best!  The group have also been discussing what a plant needs to grow. They have  have learnt that plants need sun, soil, air and water. They have done lots of work to help them remember this.

In maths, the children have continued to work on sequences of numbers and have spent the week learning how to count in tens. Jordi, Arlet and marcel were quick to understand this concept and were even given extra challenges, which they found difficult.  However they all kept asking for help when they needed it and they didn’t give up until they completed their challenges. Joana, Thais, Carla and Noa are now starting to recognise and verbalise some multiples of 10 and they are now able to order the multiples to 100 correctly. 

The KS2 children (Arnau, Tatiana, Nil, Sara, Sara B, Judit, Blanca, Sofia and Pau) have been learning all about data collection in maths. I was particularly impressed with how well Sara B grasped the concept of a tally chart. She was so concentrated when researching the names of different plants. She then confidently questioned all of the children and teachers about their favourite plants’. Sara B then independently and accurately created a tally chart to show her results. Well done Sara B! When working on our charts, it was great to see the confidence which Sara hard to understand pie charts. She was able to independently comprehend the information within  the pies and it was lovely to see how happy she was to be able to help her friends, who were finding the concept more difficult. When creating bar graphs to represent their data about the class’ favourite plants, I  was really impressed with the perseverance of Nil and Pau. They both found the concept of creating the graph difficult but they were keen to listen to my advice and make the necessary corrections to ensure that their graphs were correct and accurate. Both boys had a good understanding of the information their graphs showed and could correctly answer questions about the data they had collected.

In topic, the children have also been learning about plants. We have focused on the concept of photosynthesis. Arnau and Tatiana were very focused when completing a cutting and sticking activity of photosynthesis. They both correctly identified that plants need carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to create food for the plant. They confidently identified and stuck each element in the correct place and could explain the process of photosynthesis really well, when questioned. Sofia has been really keen this week. She understand photosynthesis really well and was keen to complete challenge work. She was able to read a comprehension and answer some complicated scientific questions, with only a little help. Well done, Sofia! Judit and Blanca have also worked really hard to understand the concept of photosynthesis. They both wrote fantastic information to show what they had learnt about plants this week. Judit even bravely read all of the information she had written as the film crew filmed her. You did a great job!

Thank you to all of the parents for your support this week. Look forward to seeing you all next week and hoping for a calmer week ahead.