BIC Sa Porrassa Primary Weekly News (02/26/21)

Next week we are celebrating the magic of books and reading in our annual BIC book week. We have a series of activities and competitions from Tuesday to Friday, and we are excited to share some of these with you.

Primary

• Wednesday and Friday: Online author visit | Clive Pig will be presenting to Years 3 to 6.
• Wednesday: Puppet theatre show | Early Years, Year 1 and Year 2.
• Thursday: Dress up day | All classes will dress up as a favourite book character ready for the primary parade!

Secondary

• Thursday: Dress up day | Dress up as a book character or author, or wear an item that represents an author or a book character with the regular school uniform.
• Friday: Online author visit | Dave Cousins will be presenting to Year 7.
• Take a shelfie competition | More information will be shared with students next week.
• Guess the teacher’s favourite book competition | In classes all next week.

Whole school

• By Thursday, 4th March: Extreme reading competition | Please email your photo to Ms Turley.

We will additionally be reading together as a school during in-class ‘Drop Everything and Read’ sessions at various points throughout the week, so please encourage your child to bring a book or two so that they have plenty to read.

Library activities including a book swap and a book recommendations box are being organised by the PTA - thanks to Mrs Smith and parent and student volunteers - so please take a look at your bookshelves over the weekend for any books to swap during BIC book week.

This week in Year 1 we have started a new English topic all about writing character descriptions. The children were very excited to be introduced to The Gruffalo again. They enjoyed making their very own Gruffalo with craft materials that they will later go on to describe.

This week in maths we have been learning to tell the time in Year 2. They have made their own creative clocks, played fun telling-the-time games, and they have learnt how to convert some analogue clock times to digital times.

Some children in Year 2 were inspired to design their own action figure after finishing the story of Traction Man. They drew and wrote a very impressive description of their creation, which they were extremely proud of!

This week in art; and to compliment the Science topic of Materials, Year 2 made some fantastic clay pots. We described the clay before and observed the changes as they were making them.

In Year 3, we have been looking closely at the parts of flowers. We have used Georgia O’keeffe’s style concentrating on the detail of flower blooms to create close up paintings of lilies. Have a look below at some of the fantastic results - well done Year 3!

The children have also been writing their own performance poems about monsters using rhyme and rhythm to engage their audience.

In Ms Xidakis’ maths group they have been using the inverse operation to solve multiplication and division calculations. We began by using cubes to share when dividing to help us to visually see division, eg 27 divided by 3.

What an excited week it has been for our Year 4 students. We have been learning about different music genres. This week we learned a little about opera and particularly the work of Giacomo Puccini.

We have been warming up our voices in music with some rousing singing of traditional folk songs.

This half term we are learning to play handball in our P.E. lessons. Here the children are practising their catch and throw technique.

Year 5 has had an exciting week learning about Georges Seurat and pointillism - painting by dots which look just like modern pixels. They were keen to have their own go using a variety of mediums. Continuing our Around the World topic we have been learning to recognise map symbols and understand why they are such a useful tool when map reading.

Year 6 are very much enjoying learning about the wonders of India in humanities this term. On Monday we were lucky enough to welcome into school Mrs Sawlani, a BIC parent, who generously gave up her time to share with us stories and facts about the beautiful and rich culture of India. The children were fascinated as they listened to stories about Indian weddings, cuisine and religious beliefs as well as looking at the glamorous and colourful sarees and jewellery. We are very grateful for the visit and would like to reiterate how worthwhile and exciting it is for our BIC parents to come and talk to the children. Please do feel free to offer your time if you would ever like to share your talents, experiences or interests with us!

During their guided reading, our students had a lot of fun performing a court scene, the children represented a judge, an opposition lawyer and a defence lawyer. They put on quite a performance and it looks like we have some amazing actors in the making - well done Year 6!

Hello Poetry !

The power of the lyrical verse is back in Year 5 Spanish. This time we enjoyed the beauty of a poem by Uruguayan writer (Enrique Fierro). The challenge was to balance intonation, rhythm, and spontaneity whilst creating music. The score of the poem was introduced with hieroglyphs only as a challenge. The result is astonishing.

As a sample, let's check Benedict's and Louisa’s oratory. They joined this group recently showing a great deal of commitment and enjoyment in their Spanish immersion. They totally deserve this.

Shout-out to parents

For all of you going the extra mile providing support to your child when needed, for going above and beyond.

Muchas Gracias

Ms. Luengo

This week in Year 3 we have had an introduction to the game of hockey. They began practising dribbling and learned about the basic rules of the game. Keep up the great work!

A reminder that the Extreme Read competition is closing next week. Well done if you have already sent your photo - we have had some excellent entries so far. If not, you have until Thursday to take your photo and email it to claire.turley@balearesint.net. Good Luck.

For all those that do not know me, I am Claire Turley, and I have been a science teacher at BIC for 5 years now. I am originally from Leeds in the UK and began my teaching career there. During my time in the UK I had several roles of responsibility including, Gifted and Talented coordinator, Raising Achievement Coordinator for Year 8 and 10 and Head of Biology.

I have a first class honours degree in biomedical sciences which means that I teach all 3 science disciplines to KS3 and GCSE but specialise in biology at A level. I also completed a Masters degree in teaching in the first few years of becoming a teacher.

BIC has been my first international school that I have worked in, and I am so glad that I made the decision to come to Mallorca and specifically to this school. I am constantly impressed by the students in this school, the quality of the work they produce and their attitude towards learning. I also have to say a massive thank you to the staff I work with - they make everyday fun, and I know if I ever have a problem they are here to help.

As well as teaching science, I am also the Head of Galileo House. I am very happy with how our students have responded to the new House system. The role has given me more of an opportunity to get to know our students, and listen and act on their feedback on certain issues or ideas.

As a science teacher, and Head of Galileo (a scientist) House, my goal is to help our students to question what they see and hear on a daily basis. I want to instil a sense of curiosity and wonder. I don’t want them to just accept what they are told but to experiment and gather evidence to discover things for themselves.