Halloween or “Castanyada”?

Laura Lorenzo29/10/24  

Today some Petits Princeps were very happy because on Thursday it’s “Halloween”. It is very fun to wear costumes and go trick-or-treating but we do not know much about  “Halloween”, though.  We saw a video that was very eye-opening…

We thought that the Americans invented Halloween recently just to have fun but we discovered that, in fact, it is a very old tradition that has a long history. And, much more importantly, we discovered that “Halloween” and “Castanyada” have the same origin!

In ancient times, the Celts, a tribe that lived in Ireland and the United Kingdom, celebrated harvest time with a big meal they called “Samhain.” They also thought that, on the 31st of October, the separation between the world of the living and the world of the dead didn’t exist. 

To avoid ghosts, people in Ireland started to dress up to protect themselves from bad spirits. They also left food outside the house to feed the ghosts and avoid them entering. These ancient traditions evolved with time and became the popular “Halloween” traditions that we know.

As somebody in class said “we celebrate the same (harvest and remembering the dead), but we do it in a different way”. 

It was really very interesting! If you want to know more, just check the video! 

Reading in English

Laura Lorenzo03/10/24  

Once children are confident using the language orally, they must start reading in order to fully master English. Learning to read in English, though, is quite different.

Since the children can already read in Catalan and Spanish, they can activate different strategies to be able to get the meaning of different messages. One of these strategies is being able to find similarities between words that help them infer the meaning.

To help them develop this strategy and stress the importance of reading, at school we have distributed posters around the classroom that encourage reading for pleasure. The children had the sentences in Catalan and, working in pairs, they had to match them to the correct poster. After finishing the activity, they explained the strategies they used to find the solution. They all agreed that it was easier than it seemed: “si hay palabras casi iguales”.

This sense of achievement creates a positive attitude towards reading in English for pleasure, an activity we do once a week with the “big ones”.

WHERE ARE MULBERRY TREES?

Laura Lorenzo09/05/24  

The caterpillars need to eat mulberry leaves but… where are the mulberry trees?

Rovellons walked around Vilanova analysing the trees. We looked at the shape of the leaves, the color and the edges to recognise mulberry. Rovellons discovered that, in Joan Margall School there are a lot of Mulberry leaves. Then Jordi reminded us of the name of the high school: PLA DE LES MORERES. Of course, MORERES is MULBERRY in Spanish!

WRITING LETTERS

Laura Lorenzo02/05/24  

Last week Matildes had a surprise… They received a letter from a student in the High school! To be able to answer the letter, they learned the typical expressions to write a letter in English like “It was great to hear from you”, “all the best”, “how are things” or “XOXO”. With the list of expressions at hand and with the help of the dictionary and a checklist, all Matildes wrote their letters.  It was quite an experience!

AROUND THE SCHOOL IN ENGLISH

Laura Lorenzo26/04/24  

Following the work started in Martamatiques, Petits Prínceps learned how to give directions to move around the school. They learned the vocabulary and they started giving directions to their partners. It was fun! Can you do it?

YOU ARE IN PETITS PRINCEPS CLASSROOM. TURN LEFT AND GO STRAIGHT ON. GO DOWN THE STAIRS AND GO STRAIGHT ON. TURN LEFT ON THE SECOND DOOR. IT’S NEXT TO THE TEACHER’S MEETING ROOM. WHERE ARE YOU?

WE HAVE PET CATERPILLARS!

Laura Lorenzo18/04/24  

Rovellons had a surprise the other day… In the box there were 42 caterpillars! They were very happy and intrigued. Rovellons used magnifying lenses to observe the caterpillars and draw them. With the picture ready, they used the correct words from a list to write a text about caterpillars. The caterpillars are colour white (more greyish) and they eat mulberry leaves. Do you know what mulberry is? Ask Rovellons they know!

APRIL FOOL’S DAY

Laura Lorenzo12/04/24  
Matildes discovered that the 1st of April is a very special day in the USA and Britain: it’s April Fool’s day! It is a day to have fun and make jokes. Everybody makes jokes, even companies and newspapers. Matildes read real joke articles (adapted but real) and, in groups, tried to discover the ONLY one that was real… Can you guess which was real? Click here to read the articles

FAKE NEWS

Laura Lorenzo12/04/24  

Petits Prínceps discovered that in USA and Great Britain the 1st of April is a very special day… it is April Fool’s day! It is a day about jokes and having fun. Everybody celebrates it! Newspapers usually invent articles on this day…

Reading joke articles, Petits Princeps discovered that sometimes it is difficult to say if an article is real or fake.  We talked about the fake news that are on the internet everyday (not just in Arpil Fool’s) and discovered some techniques to discover fake news: check the author and the date, investigate the origin of the article (is it from a serious newspaper or organization?)…

It is very easy to create a fake article and they even created their own fake ones!

OUR CATWALK

Laura Lorenzo05/04/24  

Tintins really liked the play in English and, specially, the catwalk part. They were so excited about it that they decided to organize their own catwalk in class. In order to do that, they learned how to talk about the clothes they are wearing doing different reading and speaking activites. Do you want to see the models in Tintins? Just click on the link!