All about animals!

First and foremost a big welcome to Alek and Seo Hu who have joined our class since our last blog! After making lovely firework pictures, to start the new year, we got stuck into a very knowledge rich unit on animals. For our ‘entry point’ the children made animal masks and then while wearing their masks they completed various activities to be considered ‘real animals’. Escaping from Mr. Romain, our fast and fierce ‘Jaguar’ was quite a challenge but a lot of fun! Our focus at the beginning of the unit was on the ‘Rainforest’. The children learnt about rainforests and where in the world they were situated. As Luigi is in our class, their favourite rainforest was the Amazon rainforest of South America. They learnt about the different layers in the rainforest – the forest floor, the understory, the canopy and the emergent layer and the different animals that live in each layer. They drew beautiful pictures to represent these layers. The pictures are amazing and show good understanding. We also created our own rainforest in the classroom, where the children loved to play with our collection of soft animals. Their favourite bird from the rainforest was the toucan. They were delighted to take home the lovely colourful toucans they made.

The children were very curious to learn about the different animal groups and their characteristics – fish, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. They enjoyed sorting animal pictures into their appropriate group. It was lovely to observe children doing this work, thinking, and going through questions in their head before laying the card in the correct group. We talked about the birds in wintertime and made some little bird feeders with pinecones which we hung in the trees in the garden. Thanks Alba, for bringing the seeds!

The children learnt that different animals live in different parts of the world. They painted a large map of the continents of the world together and stuck pictures of animals in their appropriate home. Great co-operative work! 

The children have been drawing and painting animals and some children even made their own ‘animal books’ which they proudly read to their friends. For our ‘exit point’ (tomorrow) we will make ourselves super cosy with our cuddly animals and watch an animal movie together!

Besides all this work on ‘animals’ the children have been working hard in all other areas of the curriculum and are making wonderful progress. It is a joy to come to school every day and share their enthusiasm. Unfortunately, we are very sad to say goodbye to Aura, who has her last day on Friday. She will be truly missed by the whole school.

Have a lovely holiday next week everyone! But first, our carnival party!

Enjoy the pictures! They are a great way to capture and share with you all the learning that happens in upper pre-primary!