BIC Sant Agustí Weekly News (01/22/21)

Dear families,

I hope you all enjoyed the holiday this week, I am sure all the children enjoyed their day off school! It was a little bit of a shock though to come back to school on a Thursday especially as most of the teachers kept thinking it was Monday again.

Time seems to be passing very quickly and sometimes we can be guilty of wishing things would happen instead of enjoying what is actually happening now. Time is such a strange concept which changes as we get older. Teaching children how to tell the time is probably one of the most difficult concepts I have ever tried to teach! Some schools have now removed all their analogue clocks and changed them all to digital, as children are now so used to reading digital times everywhere. However at BIC Sant Agusti, we are going to persevere with analogue as well as digital!

Some of these facts about time may be interesting to think about:

• Martin Luther King and Anne Frank were born in the same year, 1929.

• We are closer to the year 2033 than the year 2000.

• Cleopatra lived closer to us now than she did to the building of the Great Pyramids

• Everyone who was born in the 1990s has lived through two centuries and three decades, but they aren't even 32 years old yet

• The Tyrannosaurus Rex lived closer to us in time than it did to the Stegosaurus

• Woolly mammoths were still around when the Great Pyramid of Giza was being built

• At this moment, you're currently the oldest you have ever been and the youngest you will ever be.

I hope you found some of those worth thinking about. Although it is important to think and plan ahead, especially under some circumstances, it is equally as important to live for today too. Enjoy the time we are spending together, enjoy the little things in life, enjoy those special moments.

Have a lovely weekend

Warm regards

Mrs Short

Principal, BIC Sant Agustí

Another week has flown by in Starfish class and our youngest members of the school community have been very busy. Most children are now getting comfortable recognising some letter sounds of the alphabet and we have now started name recognition and name writing. Lots of the children can recognise their own name and the names of others. Keep up the good work Starfish children! Have a great weekend.

Another week has gone by in Seahorses’ classroom. This week we’ve continued with our focus on the children’s interests, from the animal kingdom to the stars and planets, without forgetting how to make delicious doughnuts. We've seen them all! What a huge amount of curiosity the children have. Their Literacy work is improving week by week and these doughnut drawings are amazing. They look so yummy!

In our classroom, one of the life skills we are working on is “teamwork”. The children are gradually grasping the importance of it and you can see through these pictures how good they are getting . Well done Seahorses! Last but not least I would like to send a very special ‘Happy Birthday’ to two of the Seahorses, who are turning 5 this week. I hope you’ve had a super special day. Wishing everybody a safe and lovely weekend!

This week Year 1 welcomed a new teacher named Ms. Golden. Since meeting on Monday the Seals and Ms. Golden have been very busy indeed! We have learned new rhymes,new drama games, new sounds and we´ve even started a project about Katie Morag- a young girl who lives on the island of Struay in Scotland. We love island life too and we can make lots of interesting connections with Katie! We have been busy learning how to skip count in our daily counting choir and counting our pegs while making bonds to ten. Well done Year 1 for all your efforts this week with your new teacher! See you all next week for more learning and doing!

What a SUPER week… Not only was our Word of the Week `SUPER´ but all of the children have been working super hard.

Our hook day was super fun... We made superhero peg sliders to help us in maths, we continued to be punctuation ninjas across the curriculum and we had an amazing time ZIPPING around the superhero obstacle course! Even Super Carter had a go!

Every morning we all `Wake Up, Shake Up´ our bodies ready for a busy day of learning. This helps get the blood flowing, makes us all smile and ready to learn… We also use Brain Gym as a way of getting both sides of our brain to work together!

Our lessons continue to be super active! We have launched a rocket ship into another realm by running to the rocket ship, closing the doors and counting down to a mega blast off! We have also been giving and following lots of instructions as we learn about the features of instructions.

Art has been POPtastic as we have designed our name in the style of Roy Leichstein. We have our very own class sign too…

We hope you all have a super weekend!

This week, Dolphins class enjoyed some outdoor learning in our English lesson. We played ‘simile charades’ and had to describe the action with a simile. We walked like cuddly penguins, danced like gracious ballerinas and jumped as high as kangaroos! On Thursday we used our Art lesson to make a start on our first competition entry of the year! The competition is international and run by COBIS. We are all very excited to take part and produce artwork with the theme of ‘Connections’. The chosen 3 artworks from KS2 will be sent off to be judged. Wish us luck!

It may have only been a 4 day week, but we’ve certainly managed to fit a lot in! Lots of new topics and themes have been introduced this week. We are encouraging the children to stretch their brains and give this amazing muscle a big workout! In English the Jellyfish are basing their writing around Myths and Legends, getting to grips with using a thesaurus to expand their vocabulary. In Maths we have learnt a new method for dividing, including what remainders are. We are loving our new Topic of “Rainforests” and finding out where they are in the world, using an atlas to discover them.

Would you know which animal group a crocodile belongs to? Our budding scientists have started looking at the characteristics of different animals and discovering which animal group they belong to. Why not set them a challenge and see how much they remember!

Phew! I think we can safely say we’ve certainly had a good brain work out this week and the Jellyfish have risen to the challenge! So for now, time to relax, rest our brains and recharge for a new week of learning next week.

Have a very well deserved weekend!

Only four days in school, but they are a busy four! In ICT this term we are entering a COBIS coding competition so we have been honing our computer skills in preparation. On the computers, we have a new Times tables Rockstar this week, well done Celeste, you have taken back the crown! Come on everyone, the crown will be there for the taking next week. I am sending home the children´s log in details next week for practice at home.

The humanities topic this term is River Deep, Mountain High and the children really enjoyed the first lesson where they learnt about the water cycle and then used atlases to locate some of the major rivers of the world. A challenging task, but the Whales did a great job!

This term in Science the children are learning about light and enjoyed getting hands on when they learnt about the colours of the spectrum. They made mini filter machines to test how colours of objects are affected by different filters.

In Art we have continued to explore the skills and techniques to be able to draw and paint a landscape. This week we explored line drawings using the ‘Zentangle’ method and understood how to use tone and shade by creating value scales. In maths, we have been learning how to find perimeters of shapes and the areas of rectangles, triangles and parallelograms.

The students in Year Six are having a great time in their music lessons with Mrs Baggaley, as they are starting to learn to play the ukulele. This is a very versatile instrument, suitable for use in the classroom and the pupils are learning the chords of C, F and G, which will lead on to playing many songs. As they started to play the wonderful song “You Are My Sunshine”, the sun really did start to shine in through their classroom windows and how lovely to hear live music resounding through the school!

Super effort and focus Sharks!

Esta semana, en Year 1 y Year 2 hemos estado conociendo curiosidades sobre Londres y sus monumentos más importantes. Ha sido muy interesante y los alumnos han creado un pequeño mural sobre esos monumentos que más nos han llamado la atención.

En Y5&6 seguimos trabajando aspectos sobre la ciudad y sobre cómo indicar y pedir direcciones. Esta semana ellos mismos han creado sus propias ciudades con sus establecimientos, calles y plazas con el fin de trabajar las indicaciones mediante sus propios mapas de ciudad. ¡Han quedado genial!

Esta semana los alumnos de catalán han estado aprendiendo sobre comidas del mundo y hemos tenido un buen debate sobre la comida y los hábitos saludables. Así que la idea fue que crearan una máquina que ayudará a las personas a tener buenos hábitos y comer bien. Las ideas han sido muy originales: desde una máquina que quita todo el azúcar y la grasa a los ultraprocesados a una máquina que convierte los dulces en frutas y verduras. ¿Os imagináis que existiera ese tipo de máquina? ¡Sería genial!

Miss Martinez has worked in International schools around Spain since finishing university in Manchester. Her own bilingual upbringing has inspired her to pursue her love of languages and to truly value the way languages are taught and acquired. She believes that one of the most important things in life is to understand and appreciate different cultures, languages and abilities. An international education provides children with a well-rounded understanding of the world and people around us. Not only are our students able to study, but grow as individuals who are aware of the world around them.

In her spare time she enjoys sailing, swimming, the beach, reading and the cinema.

We are delighted to invite you to our next parent workshop on Tuesday 2nd February at 5pm. The aim of this webinar is to give you useful advice about how you can support your child's progress and learning at home.

Many people find grammar difficult and this webinar will help you to understand some of the complexities of the English language. Please come along to find out ways in which your children will learn English grammar as well as ways in which you can help them with their homework! We will also be able to answer any questions you may have.

This session is aimed at the parents of students in Primary and we warmly welcome all parents.

Dear families,

Following the opportunities to tour the facilities at our schools, BIC Sa Porrassa and BIC Sant Agustí will be virtually opening their doors to all families who are interested in learning more about our student-centered curriculum, facilities, achievements and values that we promote daily in our schools as well as to gain a great insight into student life at BIC. This will be a unique opportunity for all families to connect with our Principals and senior leaders during a live Q&A session.

Dates and registrations:

BIC Sant Agustí

An Early Years and Primary specialised School located in the high-quality residential environment of Sant Agustí in Palma. The school has a capacity for 160 students from 2 to 11 years of age.

BIC Sa Porrassa

Accommodated in a large, custom-built school situated in the beautiful, rural environment of Calvià. The school is in a very accessible location on the southwest coast of Mallorca and has a capacity for over 450 students from 3 to 18 years of age.

If you wish to organise a tour at either or both schools, please contact us directly:

• San Agustí - office.san@balearesint.net | (+34) 971 403 161
• Sa Porrassa - registrar@balearesint.net | (+34) 971 133 167

We look forward welcoming you to Baleares International College