The Very Hungry Caterpillar by 4 años B

For the last week we've been working on a project based on the story "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.
Here we are telling the story...

First, we got to see what a real caterpillar looks like...thanks to Mari Luz we could see how the caterpillars move, eat and build their homes, called cocoons...
  

...then through the story we learnt the days of the week and the different types of food that it ate...

...and when the caterpillar is ready to come out of it's cocoon it becomes a beautiful...

BUTTERFLY!!!

 

 

 

 

 

RULES CHANT in Primary Year 2 A

RULES CHANT

Everyday we rehearse the rules of the class as part of our English Daily Routine. Every child must follow the captain of the day when saying the rules and using the gestures which we made up.

It is said that our brains learn in five ways: by seeing, saying, hearing, doing and feeling. That’s what our students are doing when they recite our RULES CHANT: they see the signs, hear the rules, say the rules, make the gestures and have the lovely feeling of having fun, thus, be happy- (as they claim at the end)!! So there’s learning for everyone!

We’re also involving at least four out of the eight intelligences proposed by Howard Gardner in his 1983 book “Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences”, and these are: Musical-rhythmic and harmonic, Visual-spatial, Verbal-linguistic and  Bodily-kinaesthetic.

If the teacher is addressing the class and some kids are talking and not listening, there’s no need to call anyone down or say any names- the teacher just stops, holds up one finger and loudly says “Rule number One!”- every kid in the class repeats rule one energetically with gestures. This signals the violators to listen- and they do!- so the lesson can go on. (Technique taken from “Whole Brain teaching”)

Rules 

#1: Listen to the teacher and classmates

#2: Follow directions quickly

#3: Raise your hand to speak or walk

#4: Respect yourself, respect the others, respect the school

#5: Be quiet and sit down properly

#6: Speak English

#7: Keep your dear teacher and classmates happy

“Mirror” technique

Another technique adapted from “Whole Brain Teaching” are “Mirror” and “Teach”. Anytime the teacher wants the class locked in to what is being said the “Mirror” technique can be used: The teacher, the captain or the student leading the class says “mirror, please” and all the students respond “mirror, ok”, then they snap their hands into the air ready to mimic the gestures.

A variation is “mirror (and words), please” and the students repeat the words of the leader as they mimic the gestures.

Here four brain activities are involved: seeing, saying, hearing and doing.

When the piece of information with gestures has been presented to the students, they must “Teach” it to each other using mirror, and when they are told to, they switch to guarantee that every student in the class is equally involved in speaking and listening. The talkers illustrate what they are saying with gestures and the listeners, so that they stay focused,(silently) mirror the talker’s gestures.

The chunks must be short for the children to remember them easily and be eager to show off how well they are doing!!! It’s effective, just see how well can Carmen remember the sentence after a few days. Now, whenever I see a pencil case opened I just say “If I don’t close my pencil case…” and they all finish the sentence and check if theirs is closed at once!! They are Great!!

4th Year A Science - Solar Light Bulbs

Solar Light Bulbs

Our class did a Science Project learning to use sun and water - but not money!

First, we got some boxes (we recycled the boxes our AMCO English books come in!) and full bottles of water, and each group painted their box with very colourful colours.

  

Next, we cut a square from the top of the box and cut a circle out of this square. We glued the new shape back onto the top of the box.

Then, we pushed half the water bottle into the hole (on the top of the box), holding the piece we cut off, so that the bottle wouldn´t fall.

Finally, we cut a little door in the side so that we could see light inside the box without light bulbs.

We took the boxes outside and tested how much light was inside the box by covering the top half of the bottle and looking through our mini door. It was very dark and difficult to see anything. But when the cover was taken off the bottle and the sunlight shone into the water, it refracted down into the bottle and inside the box was bright with sunlight!!

It's a fantastic idea! And in poor places they do this project in the roofs of their houses and they have solar light bulbs.

And all this, with only a box, a full bottle of water (and colours if you want to make it beautiful!!)

Text by Lucia Parry 4th Year A

2 year olds: Rain, rain, go away!

In infants the daily routine is very important, and so every day we do a class assembly where we say good morning to each other, the day of the week, numbers and the weather. Every day there is a mini-teacher who is in charge of helping the teacher with this task.

For the youngest students it’s still a bit difficult, but we all help each other.

Lately, because it’s been raining so much, we have learnt this song. We love dancing with our umbrellas.

 

When we’ve finished we like to be artistic.

Finally, because we are tired of it raining so much we sing a rhyme to make it go away, so we can play!

1st Year B (Primary)- Love Somebody, Yes I Do !

Don't we all like to know that somebody loves us ??????
Well, the boys and girls of 1B want to tell their families just how much they love them.
So this is how we went about it :
First of all we brainstormed all of the adjectives (describing words) and the verbs (doing words) that they knew.
Then they quickly got into groups and worked together to invent their cinquain (five-line) poems.

There is one for mum.

 Done by Lys, Clara, Carlos and Natalia

 

One for dad.

 Done by Guillermo, Andrea, Rebeca and Laura

One for grandma.

 

Done by Patricia, Lucia, Adriana, Manuel and Ramón.

 

And last but not least, one for grandpa.

Done by Marta, Lucia, Nacho, Inés and Lucas.

                                                 

          And to finish, here are the children singing a song to show just how much they LOVE you ALL !!