Literacy
Oak enjoyed the story of Krindlekrax, the crocodile-monster that terrorises Lizard Street where skinny 9-year-old Ruskin Splinter lives. There is a quirky cast of characters: Mr. Lace the pencil-chewing English teacher who cries whenever anyone says ‘Shakespeare’; Elvis the big bully who terrorises the street as much as Krindlekrax by breaking everyone’s windows with his football; kindly Corky Pigeon, the school caretaker; and of course, the hero of the story, skinny Ruskin Splinter, who saves the day. In a simple way the book covers themes of bullying, death and grieving, and the importance of resilience and courage.
Mathematics/ Design and Technology
E-BAOBAB
There is a lot of Mathematics in growing trees, especially if they are made out of plastic! On our “eco-friendly / e-baobab” mission we estimated, calculated, measured and looked at the different possible solutions for “growing” our tree. We experimented with pentagonal, hexagonal, heptagonal and octagonal rings in order to construct the separate layers of our solid plastic tree.
“Pensez au tri! Jeter vos détritus à la poubelle!” Instructions for recycling are so misleading that we thought we had to do something about it.
Our message is that it is never too late to start to make changes, and that together each one of us can help to change the world.
We like to think that we are putting the ‘éco’ into ‘école’. Thank you to all the FISP families for their amazing input during this project and a big round of applause to Oaks for their dedication and hard work.
Mathematics
Data handling: Pie charts/line graphs. Averages: Mean, Mode, Median and Range
This term, Oaks constructed and interpreted various tables, charts, and diagrams, including frequency tables, bar charts, pie charts, pictograms and line graphs. We practiced solving comparison, sum and difference problems using information presented in bar charts, pictograms, tables and line graphs. Linked to our “Egg-citing Egg project”, Oaks worked on solving different incubator problems where information had to be analysed in order to calculate the required average: range, mode, mean and median.
Probability and ratio
During this unit, we discovered vocabulary related to probability and know that Impossible, Unlikely, Even Chance, Likely and Certain relate to 0, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1, respectively. We then solved probability problems where we had to find all possible outcomes and calculated the probability of the desirable outcome. We then moved onto solving problems with ratio and now know how to simplify ratios and how to use ratio to compare quantities.
History
The theme was Generation Games and had us reflecting on how societies around the world treat the elderly and what our attitudes are to old people. Oaks were overwhelmingly appreciative of the older people in their lives, particularly their grandparents.
To encourage recognition of older people’s lives and respect for their experiences, often totally outside of our own, we had a first-hand account of what it was like to be in Berlin when the city was divided by the Wall. Unsmiling soldiers with machine guns at the checkpoints, searching the car for smuggled goods on the way in and smuggled people on the way out; shabbily dressed people and poorly stocked shops on the Eastern side, people afraid to be seen talking to foreigners.
The children were rightly shocked; how could a wall have been built to divide a city as everyone stood by and watched? They learned how it was constructed, why it was built (to keep people in rather than keep people out) and of the brave men and women who escaped and those who didn’t.
They learned how it came down in 1989, more by accident than design. They enjoyed the anecdote about people handing the East Germans bananas, a highly prized commodity that was all but impossible to come by on the Eastern side of the wall.
Pupil’s wrote diary entries in the persona of someone living in the East when the wall came down.
Geography
Birds are returning from over-wintering in warmer climes, and we decided to investigate their annual journeys around the world, many of which are extraordinary feats of endurance.
We discovered that bird migration is fraught with dangers and that many birds who set off do not return. When we looked into the list of dangers migrating birds face, we discovered, as usual, that humans play a major role, through light pollution from cities, glass in high rise buildings, wind turbines and destruction of habitat.
Pupils chose a bird and tracked its migratory path on a map, noting the countries traversed. It is incredible to think that the swallows arriving in France have been on an epic journey, on routes that might pass through the Sahara Desert or along the west coast of Africa or the Nile Valley.
ICT
ICT lessons have provided pupils with principles of information technology and computation, which have been applied through programming.
Computing enables pupils to become digitally literate, in other words, to express themselves and develop their ideas through information and communication technology, as well as being active participants in a digital world.
Oak class have started developing coding and programming skills to create their own video games using “Scratch”. Through this programming language children develop a range of mental skills.
They have made several kinds of video games around the egg-exciting IPC theme of this fourth term, “ Eggs”.
First, they started exploring and discovering the Scratch world. Little by little, they began to develop their own ideas and conclusions in order to make specific actions. For example, to move the sprite up and down, they had to use the Y-axis; to move the character right and left the X-axis had to be used. Computing has deep links with mathematics, which allows pupils to apply their maths knowledge.
Once they had acquired the basic principles, Oak class went deeper, trying to improve and make their video games more complex, adding score bars, special variables to double their score, obstacles, background music, sound and pop-up messages.
Finally, they ended the term with a creative project called “Video game week”, during which they showcased their capability, creativity and knowledge of computer science, digital media and information technology.
The aim of this week was to share their games and to explain how they were made. Each pupil presented/broadcast their game and explained the code process.
The presentations ended with a Q&A session.
French/French IPC
Spanish
MY CITY/ MY TOWN.
This term we worked on adjectives and places, so after reviewing the rules of adjectives, pupils had to describe their town or city by using all the vocabulary that we had learned.
FISP being an international school, our students come from numerous cities around the world, and this fact enriched our lessons! While reviewing adjectives, pupils were improving their knowledge of geography, as we looked for their chosen cities on Google maps, to show their exact location.
¿DÓNDE ESTÁS? GIVING DIRECTIONS.
We don’t have to worry if Oak class get lost when in Spain, because they know how to ask for and understand directions!!
It is very important to know directions such as: turn right (gira a la derecha), turn left (gira a la izquierda), straight on (sigue recto). Equally important: To know how to ask about the location of different places. For instance, Where is my hotel? Where is the hospital? Where can I find the closest restaurant?…
SCHOOL CONTEST: KAHOOT
Oak class loves Kahoot! We reviewed some of the previous terms’ content – numbers, family members, animals – and at the same time we were playing and having fun!