Classroom fun and learning about Animals!

Firstly, I would like to give a warm welcome to Solomon who joined our class in March and to Vritika who joined our class last week. We are delighted to have them with us. Since our last blog it has all been about ‘Animals’. We have had so much fun and so much learning!

We kicked off our unit with a wonderful ‘entry point’. The children had a morning filled with different activities they had to complete, led by their animal trainer (Miss Mia)! Our lovely pictures of this event you have seen hanging outside our classroom!

We began by learning about the Rainforest - the different layers of the rainforest and the animals that live there. The children situated the rainforests on a world map. Their favourite rainforest was the ‘Amazon’, which of course Fernando and Marina were very proud of! They loved the beautiful birds that live there and made some very colourful toucans of their own! We created our own rainforest in the classroom which involved the children drawing and cutting many leaves to create a wonderful canopy, they painted some tall trees to form the emergent layer. The classroom will be quite strange without our rainforest!

The children went on to learn about the different animal groups – birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles and fish. The children enjoyed sorting animals into their appropriate group. They thought it was so funny that humans belonged to the mammal group!

We have read many stories and fun facts about animals. The children have also drawn, coloured and painted many animals! They painted a very large map of the continents of the world on which they took turns to situate different animals in their appropriate continent! The study of animals has brought lots of working together, discussion and sharing moments. A pure pleasure to witness!

Our tip to the zoo was the best exit point we could have chosen. The children are still talking about it. Many thanks to all the parents who joined especially to Rad (Caius's dad) who, along with Caius and Solomon  were our zoo guides!

In the middle of our unit we had a special ‘word adventure’ week where we enjoyed reading different poems and learning nursery rhymes. The children did lots of work around nursery rhymes and made little books. At the end of the week they sang and recited the nursery rhymes they had learnt to the whole school. They did a wonderful presentation. I was very proud of them. Well done upper pre-primary! During this week we also had a very special moment with our buddy class (year 4). In small groups of one or two children our older buddies read us stories! It was a lovely sharing moment together.

Congratulations to Lenny-Jean and Sanvi who both had birthday celebrations since our last blog!

I hope all the mums loved the little surprises they made for you for Mother’s Day. They were very busy and excited making your presents! Happy Mother’s Day!

Miss Mia