Roots, shoots and fruit

Since the Easter holidays a lot of exciting things have taken place here in Upper Primary. The first week back, we focused on Numeracy during our Maths week! During maths week we enjoyed problem solving, drawing designs of different types of flower beds, an exciting SET tournament, Miss Maija’s challenge and lots of other things!

We have celebrated both Shawn and Rita's birthdays, so pupils have eaten lots of cake this month! Mieke's birthday will be celebrated later on this term. Happy birthday to all of you!

Our Entry Point took place on Monday 24^th of April, where Upper Primary went on a school trip to the botanical garden. We spent a cosy morning in the green house drawing scientific drawings of different flowers looking at where in the world the plants come from. Since then, pupils have read texts about trees and the life cycle of beans. They have planted beans in plastic bags and set up an experiment to find out more about what a plant needs to survive.

Together with Mr Claude, Upper Primary pupils have built two big flower beds – upcycling donated pallets. Pupils of course first learned more about safety when working with different tools. In the new flower beds, pupils will now plant lots of different things. They also built insect hotels, so hopefully there will soon be a thriving garden corner in our playground.

We then visited the botanical garden a second time, this time for a guided tour to learn more about how to group and sort plants into different families. We also looked closely at local plants in particular and what plants are edible or poisonous.  ‘Roots, shoots and fruits’ is an exciting IPCunit and we still have many experiments to carry out and they still have to research more things about plants.

In Numeracy, pupils are carrying on with different tasks each week, learning strategies and methods to use when solving problems. In Literacy, we have focused on instructions and will now move on to both science reports and explanations. We have been reading both fiction and non-fiction books and the pupils are working hard on improving their language when working with follow-up activities.

Miss Sterre is back after her maternity leave, so pupils now play recorder, sing in the choir and learn about composers, music, rhythm and songs from all around the world during music lessons. Miss Marjolein is happy with the progress during Dutch classes – and pupils now dare to speak some Dutch when asked questions outside of the classroom - for example on the bus on our way to swimming lessons on Fridays. During swimming lessons, pupils can see that they are improving, and they always come back energised and happy after PE lessons. Upper Primary pupils try to take care of themselves by also eating healthy snack during break times.

There is a lot of learning going on!