A Sneak Peak: Digestion projects for 2nd grade

Students in 2nd grade are learning about the digestive system in science class. Here's an example project using information about the digestive system along with an interactive drawing.

  

 

Halloween Celebration

Halloween is a popular holiday in the United States. This year, we decided to make a show out of Halloween--quite literally! For the 1st and 2nd graders, we taught and performed the story "Five Little Pumpkins." If you're not familiar with the story or song, take a look at this wonderful youtube video by The Kiboomers.

First, we created actions and taught the children how to do the actions along with the story. Then, Jacqueline told the story to the children while Melissa and I used our pumpkin "puppets" to tell the story. The kids had a blast, and so did we!

For the 3rd through 6th graders, we had a whole different plan...

Melissa and Jacqueline adding final touches to our mysterious boxes

"Brujilda" with her potion pot and boxes of "ingredients"

Luckily, "Brujilda" made a special visit to Colegio Torrente Ballester and was able to teach the children how she makes her special Halloween potion. All she needed was: the squishiest of brains, the heart of a wild pig, the skin of a goblin, the intestines of a vampire, the fingernails of a princess, the prettiest of eyeballs, spider legs, the baby teeth of a zombie, and Frankenstine's hand.

We put all these "ingredients" in boxes for the kids to feel. Later, the students had to guess what the special ingredients actually were. Can you guess what ingredients we used?

Here's a reveal of one of Brujilda's special ingredients: intestines! Our "intestines" were actually the leftover insides of a pumpkin (from our morning pumpkin carving activities with infantil). 

Happy Halloween from Brujilda, Pirate Jackie, Minnie Mouse, and the rest of Colegio Torrente Ballester teachers and staff! 👻

 

Infantil class: Classroom Vocabulary and Body Parts

In Infantil, the children are learning basic classroom vocabulary and phrases to be able to communicate well in English during the rest of the year. The children were learning phrases such as, "listen," "see," and "turn on the lights," to name a few. Soon enough, they'll be saying these phrases with ease!



In another infantil class, the children were practicing body parts with Melissa. Here, the kids are practicing identifying the main body parts.

Of course, what is English in infantil without a fun song to go along with the vocabulary?! The kids had a great time pointing and moving about to learn the body parts in English!

5th Grade Science Lab

In 5th grade, the kids were looking at leaves, dirty water, and yogurt bacteria through a microscope. What a fun and interesting day in science class! Thanks to teacher Melissa for the science lesson and photos!

Euro Tour Memories

"Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!" and the ABC's with Infantil

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is a classic children's story I remember from my childhood. The story is about the letters of the alphabet climbing up a big coconut tree. The artwork is beautiful, and since my infantil kids have been learning the alphabet in English, I wanted to create a craft with them.

You can listen to the story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hz1QmvO6W8

There are three videos I like to use when teaching the alphabet. If you want to practice with your child at home, check them out!

1. The slow song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y88p4V_BCEU
2. The song that gets faster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR-Qr1V8e_w
3. The alphabet + animals and sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wp0vZnR_FM

After practicing the alphabet, the kids started to make their own coconut tree surrounded by the letters of the alphabet. Here's the example project:

While the kids were working on their projects today, some of them started to sing the alphabet. After a couple minutes, almost all the students were singing! They love learning the alphabet!

EuroTour in Colegio Torrente Ballester

During May and June, the students will be working on different projects for our "EuroTour" day. The tour will take place in June, but the students will be working on their project during the next few weeks.

Each grade will learn about a different country, create projects, presentations, and posters related to the information they learned, and then they will present and "travel" to all the different countries with their Colegio Torrente Ballester "passport."

Here's the breakdown...
1st grade: Spain
2nd grade: Ireland
3rd grade: Italy
4th grade: Portugal
5th grade: Poland
6th grade: Germany

The students have to prepare little flags and one big flag for classroom decorations. Students must also create a big map and label important cities of their country. Each student must also learn how to say, "Hello, my name is _______" in the native language of their country. Finally, the students will work on little projects involving different topics such as:

- Traditional food
- About the flag
- Famous sights and monuments
- Traditional clothing
- Weather and climate
- Language(s) of the country
- Traditional music
- Celebrations, holidays and festivals

I've started with the flags and map with my 1st grade class already. Check out their work below! They're doing a great job!

These students are from Primary 1B.




The students who finished their flags got to work on a big Spanish flag to decorate the door. They had great teamwork skills!



Some students were working on the map of Spain. Spain has 17 regions, so it's not easy to draw the map. Nonetheless, the students did a great job and worked together well!



Here is the "big flag" team showing off their nice coloring skills. Up next: the Spanish emblem!

Stay tuned to see more projects from our primary students for the EuroTour!