Our Class Blogs
Middle Primary 1 Ms Cristi, Middle Primary - Ms Cristi
Friendships, chocolate and dance!
Welcome everyone to MP1’s newest blog post!
These last two months have flown by so quickly, but we have done and learned so much in such a short time! Let me tell you all about it!
Lower-Primary - Ms Julieta
It is the most wonderful time of the year!
For starters, we would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and the Happiest New Year from everyone in Lower Primary 1!
The past two months have flown by, and the children have been incredibly busy improving their mathematical skills, becoming more independent during literacy time, and learning fascinating facts with their IPC unit, The Magic Toymaker.
Year 1 has been exploring new strategies for addition, skip counting by 2s and 10s, and learning about 2D and 3D shapes. Meanwhile, Year 2 has been working with 2-digit numbers, discovering near doubles, and exploring new methods for addition and subtraction.
The children are also becoming more independent with their Daily 5 activities. They now confidently Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, and complete Word Work activities to develop their reading and writing skills. They have been writing recounts about their weekends and discovering new sounds during their phonics lessons.
This term, we also visited the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels as the exit...Read the full article
Lower-Primary - Ms Elspeth
(The) Holidays are comin’!
Lower Primary 2 have packed an awful lot of learning into this term! From Maths to Literacy, from IPC to a Winter Show, so much has been going on!
The children came back from their October holidays ready to get back into learning. In Maths, Year 1s continued to work on their knowledge and understanding of numbers to 20, including reading and writing with words and numerals. They also furthered their knowledge through work with Dienes rods and Numicon in order to help them with partitioning. They then explored numbers up to 100, working on naming numbers and adding and subtracting with the terms ‘more’ and ‘less’. Year 2s have been busy this term, practising different strategies to enable them to add numbers to 100 with increasing speed, including when bridging tens. They also worked on positional vocabulary with left, right, half and quarter turns and degrees, using the Bee Bots to show their learning.
In literacy, Year 1s have been developing their knowledge of joined spelling sounds and some of the more complicated alternative phonic spellings. They also started their work on Jolly Grammar this term, furthering...Read the full article
Upper Primary - Mr Jamie
Baking, Books and Jingle Bells!
This half-term has been bubbling with excitement (literally!) as we explored the science of baking. In our Bake It! IPC unit, students became scientists, investigating how materials can combine, separate, and transform. The highlight of our learning was an investigation into yeast as a living organism. Pupils experimented with variables like water temperature and sugar amounts to determine what produced the most carbon dioxide gas. From balloons stretched over cylinders to measuring frothy mixtures, students worked creatively to capture and measure their findings.
In Design and Technology, we took our experiments to the kitchen by mastering the basics of bread making. First, we all followed a white loaf recipe, learning the foundations of the baking process and creating step-by-step presentations to share our knowledge. Once we had the basics down, we split into groups to explore just how different breads can be. From the pão de queijo, which uses gluten-free cassava flour, to Irish soda bread, which doesn't require yeast, and focaccia, which allowed us to get creative with toppings and textures, pupils...Read the full article
Lower Pre-Primary - Ms Erin
Transport!
Our second unit this year was all about transport, and what a fantastic time we had! In our first week we began by learning about road transport and exploring all the different vehicles that travel on roads. We learned the names of various road vehicles, such as cars, vans, trains, and trams. We also played a fun, hands-on car parking counting game and experimented with ramps to see how the height affects how far a car can travel. We all worked together to paint a big car for our pretend area, which would come to life the following week. The highlight of the week was our entry point: a tram, train, and bus loop. In just one day, we experienced three different vehicles! We took the tram to the train station, bought our own tickets, and observed the numbered platforms. When our train arrived, we were lucky enough to have a look inside the driver’s cab. It was a lovely trip, and experiencing both the train and tram helped us learn to distinguish between the two.
In the second week, our pretend area transformed into a car garage. The children took on the role of car mechanics, fixing wheels or driving cars on imaginary trips...Read the full article
Upper Pre-Primary - Ms Corine
Transport
Our IPC unit called 'Transport' has wheeled us to the end of the calendar year.
Through some of the following activities we worked towards the IPC objectives and strands.
Independence and Interdependence
The children enjoyed our guided observations of cars, a camper van, a normal, electric and folding bike, an ambulance, a hoverboard and an electric scooter. They loved our entrypoint where we experienced and compared a tram, train ad bus as well as our trip to the bike repair shop and the visit from the World Cyclist. All of this connected their learning at school to the wider world. The children have been collaborative in a variety of writing activities, and in making their own carriages for a rainbow class train, or during activities when creating long train tracks across our two rooms. We also competed during a maths board game and a shape quiz. Furthermore we have participated in school activities: everyone sang and danced to our "Jump in my car song" at assembly and we are...Read the full article
Lower-Primary - Ms Elspeth
Halloween’s Coming!
It’s been a non-stop term for Lower Primary 2! The children came back from their summer holidays, excited to start a new school year. We welcomed some new friends from other countries and lots of our Upper Pre-Primary learners from last year were very keen to move upstairs to start Year 1 with us.
We kicked off the year with an IPC unit called ‘Brainwave’ where we learned about all of the amazing things our brain helps us to do. We also thought about the ways that our brain makes connections and how something may be new and difficult for us to learn now, but the more we practise, the more connections will be made and the easier it will become. With a growth mindset, anything will be possible in Lower Primary 2!
Through our second IPC unit ‘Who Am I?’ we’ve spent the term sharing the similarities and differences of our friends from all over the world and considering what makes us unique. We worked on pieces of writing about our families and home countries and used our map skills to find where each of us comes from. Through work on portraits, Year 1s and 2s were able to complete their own self-portrait design, as...Read the full article