Gardening in the Spring

Everyone in Class 2o was really excited to start gardening again. Our first task was to get the garden ready for planting. the children got to work with rakes, spades and trowels, turning the soil and tidying up the beds.

Cova showed us the new poly-tunnels she had ordered from the UK, which will act like mini-greenhouses and help our plants to grow quickly.

As you can see in this slide-show, all the boots we planted with bulbs have flowers starting to show. What a great idea that was!



Have a look at this second slide-show to see the Class 2o students planting peas and salad plants and taking the boots for a walk to the front of the school, so that visitors could enjoy them!



During the first gardening session in May everyone enjoyed looking at the glorious display of tulips as well as investigating what is in the heart of each flower head. Cova explained that inside each flower head are stamen which hold the pollen and a central "tower" where the pollen has to be deposited, either by the wind or by insect activity, so that seeds can be formed. The children were absolutely fascinated by this and were to be seen scrutinising the tulip heads carefully and chatting about their observations.

So many colours and shapes to observe and enjoy.

Taking time to appreciate the colourful display.

Listening to Cova's ideas.

How amazing the centres of tulips are if you take the time to look carefully!

Working in our school garden is FUN!
Thank you Cova!

More activities with our buddies.

As the children get to know their younger buddies better and better, they seem to enjoy the experience more and more and are disappointed if for any reason the activity cannot take place. They had immense fun playing musical chairs, helping the younger children to learn and to appreciate the game.



On another Tuesday, they read picture books with their buddies, enjoying being able to apply their reading skills in a practical way. It gives an enormous confidence boost to know that they can read a story to another child, especially for children who are not completely fluent readers.

Newsdays 1 and 2

Our Tuesday Newsdays started on April 27th, with a great variety of news shared in small groups.

Quentin had news about the Ice Hockey Championship finals in Switzerland, where a deciding match saw Bern beat Geneva Servette.
Adam had found news from a Norwegian website about a bear which got its head stuck in a milk churn.
Federica's news from news.discovery.com was about elephants in Dresden zoo which munch up old Christmas trees.

Philip gave his group plenty of information about the Football World Cup which will be held in South Africa in June and July this year.
Miguel shared news about the local weather forecast.
Sofia told us about a Picasso painting, which was damaged in a New York museum when a woman fell on it.



Sree told her group about an Emirates plane which hit an air-pocket and fell towards the ground. Fortunately the pilots managed to avoid a crash.
Rik told us that in Holland there would be big celebrations for the Queen's birthday.


Asedria wanted us to know about the dangers of the Internet for children.



Ali wanted to tell us about the football league tables for England, France, Spain and Italy and which teams were in the lead.
Peter had drawn a map showing the path taken by the Icelandic ash cloud.
Cillian had news of a basketball tournament played in Ennistymon in Ireland in memory of his uncle. He showed us a picture of him taken when the cup was presented.



Yona had looked on the CBBC Newsround website and showed her group some spectacular pictures of the erupting volcano in Iceland.



Octavia wanted to tell us about the huge Earthquake which happened in Chile earlier in the year.

Lizzie and Faizal were both interested in the amazing pictures of the sun taken recently by NASA.


Kate shared news from the Los Angeles Times about a teenage sailor Abby Sunderland whose attempt to sail alone around the world had been stopped by problems with her yacht.
Ko's news was about the cloud of ash from the icelandic volcano which had caused so much disruption to flights.


On our second Tuesday Newsday, we had fewer news items to share, so the children who had remembered to bring in some news shared it with the class this time.



Ali, Quentin, Octavia and Kate all brought news about the oil spill in the ocean near Mexico.
Cillian was excited to tell us about the discovery of a new species of moth.
Russell (no photo) had news about a new kind of plane the X-48B, Which has no tail. Engineers expect that it will use less fuel than normal planes.

Emilie had done lots of inquiring into the volcanic eruption and Yona had discovered some amazing volcano facts.
Philip shared plenty of information about the space shuttle programme.

Sofia had news of a meeting between UNICEF Goodwill ambassador, Shakira ad President Obama.
Shouq told us about the disastrous floods in Saudi Arabia caused by unusually heavy rains.
Miguel had sporting news about the tennis tournament in Rome, won by Rafael Nadal.
Asedria shared some historical facts about how toy teddy bears came into being, because over 100 years ago an American president spared the life of a bear while out hunting.
Ko had scientific news about the worldwide fight against the mosquito-spread disease, dengue fever.

I'm hoping to hear news from every child on Tuesday Newsday this week.

Journée de La Francophonie

On the last Thursday morning before the Spring holiday, the children went on a French-speaking journey through various countries where French is one of the languages spoken. There were six countries to visit, with a variety of activities to experience.

First we visited Ancient Gaul, where the children heard all about some of the amazing adventures of Asterix and his companions, as well as learning some of the history of what is now France, at the time of the Roman Empire. Philip's mum really kept the children intrigued as she explained about Asterix and Obelix and allowed the children to tell what they knew about the stories.

The second stop was Switzerland where the children watched a few scenes from a film about Heidi, a very famous Swiss character from the book by Joanna Spyri. They also heard about some of the animals which live in the Swiss Alps: the marmot, the chamois and the ibex. Maybe later in the year we will have the chance to visit the zoo at the Bois de la Bâtie to see them

Next we visited Roumania, where the children heard a little about the history of Roumania and Peter's mother taught them to play a simplified form of Boules. This caused much excitement.

Back to France, where Rik's mother, helped by Mrs Emblad introduced the children to the story of how the dessert Tarte Tatin came into being. They were able to help to make the apple tart and then to taste it. Delicious!

Off to Vietnam, where the children had the chance to see pictures of the waterways and then got busy creating dragon puppets.

Lastly the children heard about Lebanon, with its amazing history and its cedar forests.

All in all it was a really amazing and engaging journey. A big thank you to Rosalina and Jacqueline for organising such a wonderful experience.

Click on the slideshow to experience some of the activities with your children.