Your guide to all news at school
A message from Janice Short, Principal
Dear families,
We have most definitely “Stepped into Christmas” in the last two weeks and the whole school has been “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree” as “It’s Beginning to look a lot like Christmas” - just to mention a few of the songs that the children have been listening to.
One of the first events was our super Christmas Cookie and card workshop which was organised by our Friends of the School, which about 90 children attended! It was a very busy but well organised evening with cards, cookies and hot chocolate all going down very well! The concentration on the children’s faces as they iced their cookies was a sight to be seen ….even though some of the icing did not always finish on the cookies!
Our Christmas shows were a highlight of the celebrations, with “Santa's Lost his Hat” being performed by some of the youngest children in the school - our Nursery, Reception and Year 1 children, who did an amazing job with their performance to their parents. Everyone was very proud, and their singing and acting skills are already being put into very good practice. Just in case you are wondering, Santa’s hat is now found, safe and sound!
The second show for our Year 2 to Year 6 told the story of two dodgy dealers trying to take Christmas away for their own financial benefit by kidnapping Santa - as if that is possible! Needless to say, with the elves on board and Little Elf saving the day, Santa was found and all was well. As we know, as the elves continue to wrap the presents, “No one Wraps Like an Elf”and this show really allowed our older children to shine, displaying their acting and singing skills so well. A super show, well done everyone!
The BIC Sant Agusti school choir went to the Domus Vi Residential home to entertain the residents - which was enjoyed by all!
Christmas Lunch was enjoyed by many of the children, wearing their Christmas jumpers. Part of their education on that day was to learn how to pull a cracker and how to keep a Christmas hat on your head! Some children are still learning about the benefits of gravy, although many now enjoy a Yorkshire pudding - the different cultures of our children shine through in so many ways at BIC Sant Agusti!
We also sent Christmas Gift Boxes to the Fundacio Monti- Sion to distribute to the children who need them. This year we collected 50 boxes which is a super effort from everyone. Thank you very much for your continued support for our charity work - it makes such a difference to the charities but it is very important that our children learn to give as well as receive. Thank you.
We sadly have to say thank you and goodbye to one of our teachers this coming week ….Mrs Anita Baggaley has decided it is time to retire after 37 years of not just teaching but teaching at the same school, BIC! To say “Thank you” is never going to be enough for all the effort, joy, enthusiasm and love that she has put into her teaching, encouraging the children to sing, play instruments and enjoy their music. She has taught generations of children and I am sure her infectious enthusiasm has been passed on to many of the students. She has always been there at our concerts and shows, ready to rehearse before the shows, offering advice and support. We all hope Mrs Baggaley has a happy retirement. We are going to miss her but hope that she can now enjoy some relaxation and more family time. Thank you so much.
Have a lovely weekend and we will see you next week for the last week of term!
Warm regards
Mrs Short
Principal
Baleares International College, Sant Agustí
Nursery Starfish Class
Reception Seahorses Class
Christmas is here! Even though we've only been in school for a few days in December we have gathered all the magic of this time of the year and sprinkled it all over the school. We are making lots of decorations for the classroom and for our beautiful corridor which, along with Year 1 and Year 2 we’ve transformed it into our own Christmas Wonderland. The most magical place around school I would say.
We also had time to perform our show ‘Santa’s lost his hat’. The children were amazing and did a fantastic job; everybody had a great time. From Christmas trees to reindeer hats, Christmas baubles and even making our own snow, even our phonic lessons have a bit of a Christmassy twist these days. To almost close the season we’ve celebrated our Christmas day with a special lunch and wearing our best Christmas jumpers. We are ready to do the same with our families and friends, here or far away. Merry Christmas to everyone from Reception Seahorse class and see you all again in 2023!
Year 1 Seals Class
With only 4 days in school since the last newsletter, you'd think we'd have nothing to write about…..well we have, as it has been one of the busiest 4 days EVER!
Year 1 Seals pulled it out of the bag and gave it their best during the Christmas show, Santa's lost his Hat. So with a slight battle against the wind, props weighed down, everybody dressed in costume and looking so cute, getting into their stage role and singing away was an amazing experience to watch. I'm sure you´d all agree, they were truly FABULOUS! Well done Seals!
So Christmas is upon us and activities have started. The children have been super busy in class and during Friday's golden time, have made a start at making many fun Christmas decorations. These will be sent home next week so you too can appreciate them and all the hard but fun work put in to them.
Talking of Christmas, it has come slightly early for us all in class and Santa has delivered Seals class a brand new Promethean Board. This is wonderful, we can now have interactive carpet sessions, active Phonic sessions, split screen English and Maths sessions, the list goes on. The children were all excited when it arrived and after only a quick guide on how to use it correctly, both the children and I were hooked.
“It looks like a TV” …… “We can touch it, it's magic!”..... “The pictures disappear when you touch a button”..... “You can listen to music and write on it at the same time, It's so clever”..... These are just a few fun statements mentioned by the children.
The photos below show the children using the interactive board during a maths, money session.
We can move the screen up and down by touching it, so we went shopping upstairs and downstairs. Haha!
During maths we are concentrating on the value of money and the individual coin values, shape and size. Below the photos show the children working in groups to calculate which coins were needed to be used for the items in the shop. In the photos the children are working in pounds and pence but we always revert it to euros and cents. And after emptying mine and Ms Karen´s purse we could see the similarities between both currencies.
We have had a few extra art sessions lately, which has been great fun. The children have been painting, colouring, drawing, cutting and sticking and that's just half of it! The children painted their hands to make an eco-friendly Christmas Tree and door wreath, they´ve looked through toy magazines to choose what they'd like to find inside a stocking and designed a Christmas jumper for the school house competition. Well done to Poyraz, Andreea and Valeria who were the overall jumper winners in Seals Class!
“I look like I'm turning into the Christmas Grinch”
Lots of conversation happened during the cutting and sticking of toys for the stockings!
The Christmas jumper designs were all extremely creative, bright and fun, just the way a Christmas jumper should be.
Well done to everyone!
So as you can see a fun packed 4 days……and many many many more to come next week as we count down to the Christmas holidays!
“It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas…..lalalalala”
Year 2 Turtles Class
Christmas has certainly arrived in the Year 2 classroom. This week we had one of Santa's scout elves arrive. We think Santa must have wanted to check who should be on that ´naughty or nice´ list he has. Our elf arrived and we read the book about what he does and how he helps Santa. The class had a vote and decided to call him Pop. On Tuesday when we arrived into class we couldn't find him until we went to use the whiteboard and he was hiding up there and had played a trick on us. He had put a great big pom pom on the projector so we couldn't see anything! He is the naughty one, not us!!
This morning we came into school and Pop the Elf was obviously listening in school as he had come in today with his Christmas jumper on too!
We have been using Elf for ideas in our writing this week and have had to try to work out why he is here…….there were some great suggestions including one that Father Christmas has sacked him, he´s run away and even Mrs Short has hired him to keep an eye on us all!! What will he get up to next in class we wonder.
In art we have been very busy making Christmas decorations using a range of materials. We have made snow globes, 3D shape trees and baubles and clay Santa’s using our handprints.
Our corridor is looking very festive with everything hanging up!
Yesterday was the ultimate excitement though when Miss Emily arrived with a letter for our class stamped at the North Pole. There's only one person that could have been from…SANTA!
We all sat very quickly on the carpet while the envelope was opened and inside was a letter for each of us from Santa telling us if we had made the nice list or not!
I think this face sums up the excitement in our classroom!
We are looking forward to our Christmas show on Friday and the rest of the festivities. We wish everyone a very happy Christmas and look forward to welcoming everyone back in 2023!
Year 3 Dolphins Class
We hope that you all enjoyed our class assembly-The Globe. Mrs Carter, Miss Rachel and I felt extremely proud of how well all of the children performed. They were absolutely amazing and worked extremely hard. This week, we have continued practising for our Christmas performance. What hard working elves we are!!
In English, we have been studying the narrative poem-Twas the Night Before Christmas. The children were able to identify rhyming couplets and to discuss the meaning of certain vocabulary used in the poem.
In PE, we have continued to develop our football skills and our understanding of the importance of resilience, focus and comradery in team games.
Year 4 Jellyfish Class
One of the highlights of the last two weeks and there were many to choose from was the Year 4 trip to Ancient Egypt Expo in Palma. The children were treated to a guided tour, an excavation activity and a informative video whilst having the entire centre to themselves. There were gasps of wow and wonder around every corner and the children had a great time. They showed how much they had learned about Ancient Egypt and the guide was so impressed with this and their outstanding behaviour! A wonderful trip in many ways!
In school we have been coming to the end of our various units of work across the curriculum. In Maths we have been looking at data handling and division. The children have really enjoyed stretching themselves and trying extra challenges at the end of each session.
In English we finished our Horrid Henry series by creating a new character and writing character descriptions also. The children have studied many aspects of writing from searching for language features to plots and illustrations. It has been a very enjoyable unit of work.
We have spent time getting ready for the various Christmas activities and performances that are taking place this week. The children have been a credit to themselves! They have given 100% at every rehearsal, song practice and performance.
Amidst the business of Christmas we have been finding time to make some Christmas decorations, cards during Art and Crafts as well as making props for the KS2 play. Well done all!
Have a wonderful Christmas and joyful New Year and we look forward to seeing you all again in 2023.
Year 5 Whales Class
The Whales are fully into the swing of Christmas and have been working super hard during rehearsals for the upcoming performance. To help create props for Santa’s workshop we learnt how to wrap the perfect present in our art lessons! The children learnt how to cut the paper carefully, use sellotape to stick the neatly folded edges and then they even learnt how to tie and curl ribbons. The Year 5 classroom was transformed into a wrapping station and the presents certainly look good enough to go under any tree!
In Maths we have been learning about the parts of a circle and learning how to measure the circumference, radius and diameter. Then we learnt how to use a compass to draw perfect circles. We found out about Kandinsky’s style of art using concentric circles and then had a go at creating our own.
In our English lessons we have been looking at the features of descriptive writing. We learnt that three important elements are precise vocabulary, vivid sensory details and figurative language. Linking into our science topic, we then used images of scenes from otherworldly planets to describe using our new writing skills. The children played a game where they had to describe a scene from a page with different images but using no words linking to colour! This really tested their skills of using specific details and vocabulary.
We also looked at how you can change the mood of a piece of descriptive writing. The children wrote descriptions based on the same image and then had to guess the mood that the writer was trying to create!
Year 6 Sharks Class
Miss Abbott kindly accompanied three of Year 6 to Radio 1 Mallorca last week. Those of us who remained in school were very proud of our fellow classmates as they were superb representatives of our school. We were all impressed by their wonderful singing, especially considering they did so without musical accompaniment.
In maths we have been continuing to look at fractions and how to add and subtract them. We also learned that the word fraction has its origins in the idea of sharing or breaking bread (Latin: frangere).
In English, we have been getting deeper intoHoles and continued to practise writing complex groupings with one particularly impressive example being produced:
Finally, year 6 got deep into their characters while rehearsing for this year´s school production.
Spanish and Catalan with Miss Maria
En estas semanas de ensayos y preparación del SHOW los alumnos de Year 5&6 han hecho una de sus redacciones más interesantes: UNA AUTOBIOGRAFÍA. En ella han seguido unos pasos en los que han ido contando cosas como dónde y cuándo nacieron, las personas y acontecimientos más importantes de su vida, dónde viven, cuáles son sus aficiones o qué les gustaría ser cuando sean mayores. ¡Buen trabajo chicos y chicas!
Por otro lado, también hemos aprovechado para hacer actividades de comprensión lectora relacionadas con la navidad. En este caso, ha sido una lectura muy divertida: EL ELFO TRAVIESO. Para empezar, hemos leído la historia con un tono de voz apropiado y que cautivara al resto. Después, hemos pegado el cuento en el cuaderno y hemos completado las diez preguntas.
Cada vez comprendemos mejor las lecturas y respondemos las cuestiones que se plantean.
Spanish and Catalan with Miss Ainhoa
¡Otra semana más! Esa ha sido especialmente diferente ya que, como todos sabemos, la Navidad está cerca y tenemos ganas de divertirnos y pasar un buen rato mientras seguimos aprendiendo en estas últimas semanas. Así que hemos decidido repasar los conceptos aprendidos mediante diferentes juegos y actividades. En la clase de catalan con Year 5, esta semana hemos jugado a ¡BOOM! ¿preparados para desactivar la bomba?
Spanish and Catalan with Miss Marina
¡Hola de nuevo! Ya queda nada para Navidad y, por eso, durante esta semana hemos estado haciendo algunas actividades relacionadas con ésta.
Los alumnos de catatán de Y2 han realizado un árbol navideño pero han tenido que seguir unas instrucciones. Han dibujado todo aquello que era necesario y del color que correspondía. Ésta es una buena manera de trabajar la comprensión lectora a través de juegos. ¡Qué bonitos nos han quedado!
