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The Glitter Class
Upper Pre-Primary
Dear Family and Friends
Where do we start? This unit has flown by filled with new experiences and opportunities to learn through the senses.
This year, without covid regulations we took full advantage of organising trips and having visitors from our community into the classroom to share their knowledge and expertise about food. We have been privileged in this respect, our class has 16 different nationalities and 16 different cuisines which meant that we could all learn from each other.
Here are some highlights:-
Our Exit Point was decided by the students who wanted to make Gingerbread cookies for some of their community. The Glitter Class decided to share them with their Reading Buddies and the greater school community. It was a tasty ending to all of the learning that had gone before.
We have been extremely lucky to have experienced a huge variety of foods, this would not be possible without the awesome support of our wonderful parents. Always willing to contribute to our programme and create those moments that will never be forgotten by our students. Thank you everybody for giving up your time, we had some absolutely amazing times together.
The food unit has offered special moments for the students to explore and be risk-takers whilst also learning about why we need to eat and how we can make good food choices.
Please enjoy a selection of photographs from this unit.
Have a wonderful break, see you in 2023!
With kindest regards.
Ms. Marianne and Ms. Laura
It seems long ago that our journey began together but the reality is only eight full weeks! Sixteen students and two teachers, connecting for the first time.
The IPC unit of ‘Family and Friends’ was a fabulous starting point.
Our entry point was family photographs, firstly looking at the photographs together as a group and sharing different information about our families including how many people were in our families. This led to our ‘big block’ provocation, students had to find their families on different blocks. It was delightful hearing students shouting “look my family”, but also to observe students handing friends blocks with their brother, sister, mother or father on. A new level of connection because we did not just know each other we knew who our families were too.
We also counted and stamped family members into houses and listened carefully to stories about different kinds of family. We learnt that not all families are the same.
We had lots of fun looking at what we looked like as babies and learned to recognise our friends from their baby photographs. We had all grown in similar ways from drinking milk and not being able to take care of ourselves to walking and talking three, four and five year olds who are more independent but still need love and care from our families.
We are a class with 16 different nationalities. Our home languages reflect this and we embraced our “Mystery Readers’ for their diversity, enjoying stories not just being read in English. It was always a fun guessing game leading up to ‘Mystery Reader’ as we tried to find out who was coming using the three clues that had been given. We weren’t always right and this showed on surprised faces as we opened our eyes and smiled at our special guest. ‘Mystery Reader’ will continue throughout the year. The connection it offers is wonderful and we love to have family and friends visiting us.
We spent time singing ‘hello’ in the different languages of our class members. Learning how to say ‘hello’ in a student's home language is a wonderful thing and our students have been working hard to remember the different greetings that we can use. Alongside our different languages we have been excited to make flags and also find our countries on our world map and globe. “I can drive to you”, said David when we found our homes in Europe. “I have red, yellow and black too”, said Dylan as he noticed his German flag connected to Finn’s Belgian flag. Connecting once again through maps and flags.
We have also been building community at school and are lucky enough to have Upper Primary, join us as our ‘Reading Buddies’. Reading to us, with us and also sometimes working with us on special projects. We even drew our buddies and they drew us! We haven’t forgotten our Lower Pre-Primary friends who also join us once a week for a session of play, dancing and stories. This offers Glitter Class members an opportunity to be role-models and leaders within our own classroom which is great for our self-confidence.
The unit ended with a wonderful ‘Mystery Reader’ on location trip. Students were excited to find an invitation from our ‘Mystery Reader’ to their home. Students wondered who it might be and the guessing game began. The students were delighted to be going on a trip together, Ms. Mia and Ms. Lily were coming too. We set off and walked for a long way before finding the house we were looking for. The door was open, but nobody was home so we called ‘Mystery Reader, where are you?’ and out popped…Ms. Laura! It was a fantastic surprise. Ms. Laura read ‘Our Class Is A Family’ by Shannon Olsen and it is quite true that whilst we have been learning about families we too have built a family within our classroom. The Glitter Class family.
The trip was our exit point for ‘Family and Friends’, but the children had another surprise.
Ms. Laura gave a clue about what our next topic would be. She brought out a tray of croissants…..what did this mean, were we going to learn about croissants? After a few close guesses the students guessed that we would be learning about food. We walked back to school in the drizzle but didn’t mind at all because we had been on a trip!
Connection is important at the beginning of each school year, students finding out about their commonalities and differences and connecting through them. As teachers we offer students a safe place where they can be curious and interests are sparked each day. The Glitter Class have a sense of belonging and it is clear that some special relationships are developing on this year-long journey together.
Have a wonderful break.
What a wonderful year we have had in upper pre-primary, so much growing, so much learning and so much fun!
Our last unit on ‘Treasure’ was a great success. From the beginning the children became like real pirates! For our ‘entry point the children had to follow a map and work together, completing different challenges along the way to find the treasure. What a wonderful celebration when they found the box of treasure hidden in the sand- so many happy and excited faces!
Over the past few weeks, the children have been super busy and creative making all things related to pirates-treasure boxes, small pirate boats and treasure maps. They especially loved making their telescopes and cutlasses and of course the large pirate ship which they made together. As we were no longer learning about ‘transport’ the children thought it would be a good idea to turn our bus we made into a ship. Great recycling!
In the ship the children had many adventures, sailing the seas and oceans around the world. To further enhance this play the children made their own maps of the world and learnt the names of the oceans. They were very curious to learn about real pirates, where they sailed and what they did. Blackbird, Anne Bonny, Henry Every where names very regularly heard in upper pre-primary! Pirates survived at sea by fishing, the children become true fishermen and learnt how to catch fish using magnetic fishing rods. To extend their mathematical skills the children learnt how to measure the size of the fish they caught! Through our study on treasure the children also learnt about money, recognizing coins, sorting coins, counting and adding coins together.
Our unit on ‘Treasure’ lead us to a mini study on ‘islands’. The children were very curious to learn about different types of islands – tidal, volcanic, coral, and tropical. We talked about different animals that live on islands. We looked on the world map at the location of some islands and learnt their names. Stimulated by this learning the children created their own individual islands using recycled materials! They were beautiful, so creative!
We sang songs and read stories about pirates, some of the older children even wrote their own pirate stories. The class was full of treasure. The children enjoyed bringing special treasures to school, they loved sorting and exploring each other’s treasure.
To end this fun unit on treasure we had two ‘exit points’. An imaginary trip to a tropical island where they children pretended to be pirates searching for a coconut and a watermelon, having a big feast, and enjoying some friendly pirate fights with the cutlasses they made. And secondly, a trip on a real boat in Ghent. What a wonderful day we had, so exciting being on a boat with all our friends!
The last days of school was very special, the graduation for the older children going to primary, a special art day with Lower pre-primary, a water day, two birthday celebrations for Tulgar and Bruno and a school fun run!
Both Ms. Laura and I would like to wish you all a very happy and sunny summer holiday. We look forward to seeing you all when you return in September!
Lots of love,
Ms. Mia
Hi everyone, welcome back to the upper pre- primary blog. We have just completed a wonderful unit called ‘Let’s Pretend’. The children had so much fun and so much learning during this unit. Before we got started the children celebrated the new year by making lovely firework paintings, writing New year resolutions and writing New Year poems.
To kick start our unit we had a lovely ‘entry point’. The children dressed as a character from a book they like. They explained the story and who they were dressed as to the rest of the class. (I already shared these beautiful pictures with you)
During this unit we read many stories , the children had a particular interest in fairy tales and were always pleased when they ended with a happy ending. Through the stories the older children in the class were inspired to write their own stories . They also made many puppets of the characters from the stories. We had a little puppet theatre in the class which the children used, to tell their friends little stories and perform puppet shows. The children developed values such as respect and co-operation during this work. They particularly loved the story of ‘Hansel and Gretel’. Each child wrote a piece of the story so we could display it in sequence. They also enjoyed acting out different stories , such as ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. But the story that led to the most inspiration was ‘The Wizard of Oz’. The children practised performing the show. As a part of our ‘exit point’ the children proudly performed ‘The Wizard of Oz’ to lower pre-primary. They were amazing, they each took their part seriously and did their best. Well done to all the children. The children worked hard together prior to the big performance to make the scenery. What a beautiful ‘Emerald City’ and ‘Witches castle’ they painted!
As a final end to our wonderful unit the children set up a puppet gallery and invited all the children from the school to come and look!
Today was carnival day, action packed with playing, a sports lesson, a little party feast and a carnival parade with the whole school! Enjoy the holiday everyone!
Love Ms. Mia
Hi everyone, welcome to the Upper pre-primary update. The children have enjoyed their new unit on transport while also enjoying the beautiful season of Autumn. After making their own recycled nature bags, we went on a little adventure nature walk. The children collected leaves of every colour, looked for mushrooms and kept their eyes open for a squirrel. We look forward to returning in the new year! I love the leaf print paintings they made with our collection of leaves.
To kick start our unit on transport, the children had a wonderful round trip on a tram, a bus, and a train. They had to be very responsible looking after themselves and their cuddly toy! The children have been busy learning about many different forms of transport, they have divided transport vehicles into three groups – land, air, and water. They have learnt about transport long ago and how it was different! The children all agreed they would be afraid to go on a ‘penny farthing’! Aya very kindly brought her ‘modern’ bike to school and the children learnt the names of the different parts of a bike. The children have been busy drawing vehicles, making transport books, crafting all kinds of vehicles using boxes and different recycled materials. There have also been super Lego transport inventions. They worked together to make a large Belgian bus, the number 70, which we rode on during our entry point! They had lots of fun playing in it, taking turns to be the driver, the bus conductor, or passengers. The ‘bus’ led to lots of creativity, imaginative play and co-operation – wonderful skills to develop. It was a cold Autumn Day when we headed out to do a ‘car survey’. However, this did not stop the children from having so much fun, counting the different coloured cars that passed the school. They had their clipboards with them to record their findings. During our study of boats, the children made little boats, did a floating and sinking experiment and learnt about the Titanic. The children were very proud and excited to bring their own bike or scooter to school for our exit point. They had to follow a special route together, keeping safe and following the rules of the road. They had to watch out carefully and not crash into their friend. No sooner had we finished transport when the children got busy making Christmas things – exciting! And preparing their Christmas song for you! I hope you like the Christmas present, Christmas tree decoration and card they made for you!
Besides all this creative work and learning through our unit the children have been busy working on their language and numeracy skills. It is a pleasure to see so many children enjoying reading!
Wishing you all very happy holidays, enjoy the time with your children and see you all in the New Year!
I would also like to take this opportunity to say thank and good-bye to Artemis. Her Erasmus internship is coming to an end, and she will return to Greece. We will miss her but she plans to come back and visit!
Happy New Year everyone!
Hello all, welcome to our lovely Upper Pre-Primary class blog. It has only been two months since we returned to school but there has already been such a buzz of activity and learning going on. The children have settled into their new class well and even though, quite a few children have no English they have already begun forming good friendships and are having fun together. We are the ‘owl class’, and as a result the children made beautiful owls, to display on the front of our classroom. We have also done a small study on owls; the children were eager to find out more about these interesting birds. They were very excited to dissect an owl pellet and find many bones, hair, and feathers that the owl had thrown up. I was super proud of them when they shared their knowledge of owls with the rest of the school during assembly.
Our first IPC unit was ‘All about me’. What a great way to get to know each other! Our fun ‘entry point’ got us off to a good start. The children came to school wearing their favourite clothes with their favourite toy and shared their favourite snack together. Since then, we have been learning where each child comes from. They have been painting flags and making globes of the continents of the world. The children also made posters with pictures and captions of the things they like and the things that make them happy. They also made beautiful self portraits which are on display outside our classroom. Great work from all the children. We talked about how each child is different and unique, to celebrate this the children painted their individual handprints to make different animals They look beautiful! Our latest big study was all about the inside of our body. The children have been very interested and curious to learn about the different parts of our body and the different functions of each part. They enjoyed working with our model of a body and helping to colour a large body picture (the outline of Yoni’s body) with all its parts. Some children have even gone further and made their own inside of the body diagrams. I think we have a few future doctors in our hands! The children had lots of fun running very fast so they could hear their heart beating faster!
To celebrate our learning, for our exit point, we played some fun games using our wonderful senses. The children used their sense of touch while feeling in a bag and guessing what was inside. They also felt inside a bag of buttons, they had to feel and touch the buttons carefully to find the matching pairs. They explored their sense of taste by tasting sweet, salt, sour and bitter tastes. There was lots of fun and lots of squeals especially when tasting the sour lemon. They also put their sense of hearing to work by listening to different sounds and matching the similar sounds.
Besides our unit work the children have also been busy with phonics, reading, writing and numeracy work. All the children are following at their own pace and making good progress. Well done everyone!
This week is all about Halloween! The children are making crafts, singing songs, and decorating our class for the Halloween party. We are looking forward to a fun morning! I wish you all a wonderful Autumn holiday with your children. See you when we return!
The school year has come to an end, but what a truly amazing year we have had in Upper Pre-Primary. The children have grown so much, in many ways and became a real little class family. We have shared so many special moments together. Since our last blog about ‘Animals’ we have had two more units - ‘Plants and Flowers’ and ‘Up and Away’.
During our ‘Plants and Flowers ‘study we created our very own special garden in the classroom. The children took care of the plants and enjoyed sitting in the garden to talk and read books about nature. It was a very cosy place indeed! The children planted many seeds and watched their plants grow. They drew and painted flowers, learnt about the needs of a plant, learnt about pollination and like real scientists they each did a flower dissection. We read the story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and the children had lots of fun, taking turns acting out the story.
We started off our unit ‘Up and Away’ with a super ‘entry point’ – a trip to Australia – involving a flight, a safari, and a sleepover! There was so much preparation – making the plane, passports, boarding passes and learning about Australia. The children were so excited to bring their little suitcases, with their pyjamas to school! It really felt like we had gone on a journey together that day! During the unit, the children had fun playing in the aeroplane, taking turns to be the pilots, flight attendants and passengers!
The children have been super creative making all sorts of ‘up and away’ objects. They also made kites and learnt all about hot air balloons. As the children made so many beautiful things, we decided to make a museum and invite the other classes to visit. What a proud moment for all the children! During our study, the children were also very curious to learn about space, rockets, and the solar system. They loved laying out the planets in their correct order on our black space mat! There has been lots of songs about space, but their favourite song was ‘Up, up, up’. They are constantly singing in the class as they work! So lovely to hear! For our exit point, we ended with a big ‘bubble event’ which we celebrated with Lower Pre-Primary.
We also enjoyed a wonderful sports day with Lower Pre-Primary with all kinds of races and a little picnic.
The children love learning about nature and bringing all sorts of insects to the class. Due to their interest in ladybirds. they made beautiful life cycle charts of the ladybird. We have also had the amazing opportunity this year to have tadpoles in our class and watch them develop into little frogs. But what was so amazing to see was how our little caterpillar friend changed into a cocoon and then after three weeks watching him in his cocoon, last Friday he emerged as a beautiful moth. It was incredible, he could hardly fly in the beginning and stayed for a long time crawling along Andrew, who stayed very still.
The last days of school were celebrated with the Wacky Olympics. The children participated in all the events and had lots of fun. I was very proud of them.
Unfortunately, the school year has come to an end, and we have to say good-bye to Sally, Luigi, Giulia and Marco who are leaving Belgium and to Inigo, Kezhen, Suzumi, Andrew, Alek and Daksh who are going to Primary and to Mr. Romain who is leaving! We will really miss them in Upper Pre-Primary, but we will never forget them. Have a wonderful summer everyone and I look forward to seeing Stan,Yoni, Alba, Hargun, Aya and Bruno in September.
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!
What a wonderful time we have been having in Upper Pre-Primary. The children have all settled into the class and have become great friends. There is a constant buzz of activity in the class with the children driven by excitement to learn more. In September we had a little mini project on apples. The children learnt about the parts of a tree and drew beautiful apple trees. With the yummy apples Alba brought to school, we made delicious apple crumble.
Our first IPC unit of work this year has been ‘Houses and Homes’. So much learning and activities have happened in the class surrounding this topic. We kicked off with a super ‘entry point’. The children had to go on a little hunt, around the school to find six envelopes. Each envelope contained a challenge the children had to complete before finding out where to search for the next envelope. In the final envelope the children found the ‘magic key’ which opened a room that contained different materials from which they could build houses. The search for the envelopes brought them to Ms. Jenny’s class, the music room, the lunchroom, Ms. Ellen’s office, the sports hall and then a little locked room in the sports hall. They were so happy to find the key and unlock the door! The children had to work together in groups to build their houses. Wonderful!
During the unit we looked at the children’s own homes, but we also learnt about different types of houses around the world – mud houses, stilt houses, log cabins, barges, igloos, tepees, bungalows, apartment buildings. We learnt about the continents of the world and looked on the map to find where you would find specific houses. We also looked at some famous buildings like the Taj Mahal and the Eiffel tower. We had interesting discussions about houses long ago, how they were different and how they did not have electricity. The children also learnt about how the first people made their homes in caves. They enjoyed learning about their lives and made their own caves from clay. They also painted beautiful cave paintings. The children designed their own house with a box, deciding where to put the windows and doors and what colour to paint it. During the unit they have had lots of fun playing with these houses. They also painted their own street called ’Rainbow street’ with beautiful unique houses. To get inspiration for making and drawing houses we went on a walk in our neighbourhood. We even passed by Spandan and Aura’s houses to say hi to the Mums. We had lots of fun comparing houses and reading house numbers.
The children loved the story of the ‘Three little pigs’ so we decided to make the three houses-the house of straw, the house of sticks and the house of bricks. The children all had turns at acting out the story. They were super happy to do the show for Lower Pre-Primary!
To end our unit on ‘Houses and Homes we had a quiz. The children were very excited to take part in their first quiz and answer all the questions. It was a wonderful way to celebrate their learning. I hope you were all very happy with the surprise letter, the children sent you in the post!
Besides all the work on houses and homes the children have made great progress in their language and numeracy work.
Both Celia and I were very, very proud of the children when they performed their poems at the school assembly. They all participated, were composed, and did their best.
Well done to all the children for a great first half term! They are now all very excited getting ready for Halloween! They have been singing songs and making crafts!
Have a lovely holiday everyone!
Hello everyone! First, I would like to welcome Sebastian, Ganesh and Miss Katerina to our class, they have all settled in wonderfully and have immediately become a part of our little school family.
To start the year off the children painted explosive firework paintings and wrote some very thoughtful new year’s resolutions. I hope they’ve been keeping them!
Following this we have had a very interesting, creative and knowledge rich study on ‘Clothes’. For our ‘entry point’ the children came to school dressed in their traditional clothes or clothes with the colours from their flag. We had a fun parade and enjoyed visiting the primary classes where the children had to guess our nationality!
To get interested in clothes and design each child made their own cut out doll which they dressed in clothes and material of their choice. This involved lots of patience cutting the material and then gluing it correctly on the body. The finished dolls looked lovely, some unusual pattern combinations but all unique and very personal!
The children learnt about clothes from different countries and learnt lots of new vocabulary – kimono, kilt, clogs, sarong, lederhosen. They tried on different clothes accessories. Thank you, Sebastian for bringing the sarong from Kenya for the children to try on.
The children loved the story of the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’. As a group work together, we painted a giant Emperor. He looked very royal! We enjoyed reading several different versions of the story. Following this the children were inspired to act it out. They knew the story so well they needed little direction, volunteering lots of ideas and choosing their costumes. It was a wonderful activity and great fun! The older children also drew pictures and wrote sentences to tell the story. Each child took a different part of the story to write about. From this story the children learnt about weaving. We looked at pictures of different looms and saw how material and carpets could be woven. We had a little mini loom in the class which the children could practice on. They also managed very well weaving with paper. The results were beautiful.
Following this work a big part of our study was about where clothes come from. At the beginning of the unit the children had little knowledge about where clothes come from and how they are made (‘from the shop’ was their main answer!). They were very curious and interested to find out more. They learnt that their fleece jumper is made from plastic bottles, that cotton comes from the cotton plant, that linen comes from the flax plant, that silk comes from the silk moth. The made lovely life cycles of the silk moth. They have been investigating the labels on their clothes to check what they are made of. They discovered that most of their clothes are made of 100% cotton! I was very proud of the children at our last assembly as they presented all their learning about clothes to the whole school. They drew and painted pictures which they held to show while they spoke. They were very informative and spoke with loud voices. Super work!
Throughout our unit we have also celebrated special days – blue day, odd sock day, funky hat day. On the funky hat day, we turned our class into a ‘hat factory’ - the children were free to go as crazy as they wanted! We had some pretty nice results!
For our exit point we had a very special visit from the Police. They showed us their uniforms and talked about their work. They were very kind and answered the many questions the children had prepared. The children were very lucky, they tried on a police jacket and got to sit in a police car.
To completely end our unit on clothes we will celebrate on Friday with a carnival party. Happy holidays everyone! See you soon! Love Ms. Mia
