An Early Years visit to Italy...

Early Years children went to visit their travel agents 'Happy Travel' and they threw a bean bag on to a world map and it landed on...

The children spent time with their parents researching all about Italy...

They were so engaged in learning about fascinating country...

They brought in items from home...

They told us about the football teams...

They were so inspired they even made items at home!

What do you think about this masquerade mask?

After all this inspiration we set upon challenging the children in the school environment!

We worked on the children's problem solving skills. The children worked together to build their own Leaning Tower of Pisa! Ynystawe children love getting messy! Bagels, cheese, bread and butter! We think our leaning towers were pretty good!

Happy children problem solving and thinking creatively!

Next the children took a trip to the beautiful city of Venice. Here the children were challenging their scientific skills. Could they predict which gondola would travel the fastest down the canals of Venice?

Of course the children had so much fun helping the gondolas to travel!

After all that building and travelling we were getting a bit hungry. What else could we possibly eat apart from pizza?! So we took a trip to a local Pizzeria. Of course, it wasn't that easy! Lots of pizzas needing sharing out. So before we could eat, the children had to work on their fractions!

Children are enjoying learning by 'doing'! 

After pizza, what should we eat for dessert? Of course, Gelato! We made it and served it ourselves in our Gelato shop!

The Early Years children work with adults throughout the day, but we believe in 'independent learning' to ensure confident and more rounded children! Of course this has to be fun!

Who doesn't love getting messy in spaghetti?

Designing our own Italian flag!

We can't wait to show you more of what we learn in Early Years and look forward to sharing it with you soon! 

Ciao! 

Early Years staff and children :-)

The castle and the simple past of the verb TO BE

Teaching the simple past of the verb TO BE to Spanish grade 3 students might turn out a very challenging experience but following the guidelines of our project "Creating Tomorrow's Schools Today" I tried something different this time.

I displayed this picture and video to introduce the topic "castle", definitely a common subject of interest for our students. 

I asked my students "What IS this?" to elicit the answer "It IS a castle"

I asked my students "What WAS this?". It goes without saying that they answered "It IS a castle" but in language acquisition one mistake should be the springboard for more language acquisition. Therefore I repeated "It WAS a castle" whenever a student said IS but I did not make them aware of their mistake in an explicit way. We are trying to teach grammar inductively, you know

I displayed the following text and picture: 

CASTLES

In the past, a castle was a home. It was also a fortress to protect people from their enemies. The castle walls were very thick. The windows were very small. The towers were very high in order to see enemies outside the castle walls. 

Round the castle was a deep moat. The moat was full of water. The only way to cross the moat was on the narrow drawbridge. The only way to enter the castle was through the wooden gate. The gate was very big and heavy. Under the castle was a dungeon. The dungeon was very dark. The dungeon was a prison for enemies and traitors. 

The students realized that IS and ARE forms had been changed for WAS and WERE and they wondered why. Castles are a thing of the past, that's the reason why we speak about them with WAS and WERE. 

They wrote a short text describing a modern house using IS and ARE.

The students answered questions related to the text CASTLES. They answered with the numbers displayed on the following picture. 

Where was...

the moat?

the drawbridge?

the gate?

the dungeon?

Where were...

the castle walls?

the towers?

the windows?

I handed out a second text and displayed the following video. 

LIFE IN A CASTLE

Life in a castle was hard. 

The castle was cold and damp. It was only warm next to the fire in each room. 

The castle was dark. It was only light next to the small windows. 

The castle was smelly. The food was sometimes bad. It was also difficult for people to wash and keep clean. 

The castle was noisy. There were people and animals everywhere. 

But life in a castle was also fun. There were acrobats, jugglers and musicians. There were also feasts, tournaments and games. 

The questions for this second text were the following ones:

1. Was the castle cold?

2. Was the castle warm?

3. Was the castle damp?

4. Was the castle light?

5. Was the castle dark?

6. Was the castle smelly?

7. Was the castle quiet?

8. Was the castle noisy?

To elicit the answers: 

YES, IT WAS.

NO, IT WASN'T.

The students made some research on the Internet about the topic castles

http://www.kidsonthenet.org.uk/castle/view.html

They built their castles and described them and the life in them in front of an audience.

You can also use the following resources from BBC Kids for reading and listening work.

Knight Fight was the icing on the cake of this Middle Age project.

The Veggie Garden

Kids enjoy planting seeds, watching them sprout, and eventually harvesting what they have grown. Allowing children to become involved in the planning, caring, and harvesting of a garden not only gives parents a unique opportunity to spend time with their children, but it helps the kids develop an understanding of that which they are curious about – nature. Children also develop a sense of responsibility and pride in themselves, which can ultimately improve self-esteem.

One of the best ways to encourage enthusiasm for gardening is appealing to a child’s senses by adding plants not only for the eyes, but those they can taste, smell and touch. Vegetables are always a good choice for young children. They not only germinate quickly but can be eaten once they have matured.

These are the reasons why my grade 2 students visited a veggie garden last week. 

Everyone worked hard under the scorching Spanish sun.

We learnt that everything

 that grows in a veggie garden can be eaten. 

Sometimes we eat leaves.

Other times we eat roots

Even some flowers are edible!

After so much work we needed to recover our strength with a yummy salad.

When we came back to school we built our veggie gardens using LEGO bricks. It was great team work!

Then we learnt the names of different veggies in English so that we could describe our veggie gardens in this language.

We sang a song stating how much we love veggies. By the way, did you know that LIKE may mean two different things in English?

Peppa Pig taught us what COMPOST is. Peppa always helps to improve our English!

Did you know that a tiny seed may turn into a big tree? Granpa Pig is kind of an expert in veggie gardening. 

What do plants need for growing? Some group research on the Internet led us to this song.

We all love reading The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. We read it several times and discussed what causes the demise of each seed. (Ex. the bird needing food, by the child picking the flower it no longer gets what it needs to survive, etc.) Each child then pretended he was the seed and writes his wonderful adventure from seed to plant. When completed, they were given sunflower seeds to use as they illustrate segments (beginning, middle, end) of their story.

For and end we were challenged to build LEGO veggies and fruits.

We are Year One 1 2014-2015 Nuestra semana perfecta (Our perfect week)

WE ARE YEAR ONE 2014-2015: NUESTRA SEMANA PERFECTA (OUR PERFECT WEEK):

Here you can read some "poems" written by my year 1 students describing their "perfect week." Enjoy them, they are great!