At King's Infant School Elche, we have launched weekly 'Teacher Challenges' for children to complete at home. Alongside our live teaching sessions, these 'Teacher Challenges' are in place to help keep our children active and to ignite their imagination and creativity even when the school day finishes, providing them with the opportunities to experiment, explore and master a variety of skills. 

Last week Mr Hickman set the children the challenge of drawing pictures using only their hands, pencils and crayons. Look how well they did! Click here

Miss Mountain’s Nursery children have been joining live classes via video call for morning register and live story sessions. The children also have the opportunity to see their classmates and share feelings, greatly improving their interaction with the teacher and their friends while we stay safe at home.

Nursery pupils have been practising forming and writing numbers, learning about the properties of objects, floating and sinking, going on colour hunts and talking about how beanstalks grow just like in the class story Jasper’s Beanstalk during story time on live video calls.

Even Miss Port has been recording special video lessons for Nursery showing pupils how to make special Easter Cards for their parents.

Nothing will stop us from learning! From our youngest children in Pre-Nursery to our Year 3 pupils, everyone has been discovering new and exciting ways of learning.

Today we would like to highlight learning in Pre-Nursery: Miss Maulo’s children have been following videos which explain the many activities they enjoy daily and the core texts and songs Miss Maulo reads and sings for them. 

Activities have included matching socks to encourage the children to say the words ‘the same’ and ‘different’, colour and shape hunting to find toys and objects in their house of a specific colour and/or shape and exercising their fingers making different patterns and shapes using your hands, fingertips and fingers by squeezing mashing and rolling Playdough. The children have also been dancing and singing to keep moving our bodies while we stay home.

Before the Easter holidays, with the help of our fantastic parents, the children enjoyed an Easter egg hunt to find the surprises the Easter Bunny left in their house and count how many they have found. 

Year 1, 2 and 3 pupils enjoyed a wonderful school trip to Escuela de Golf Elche (www.escuelagolfelche.com) as part of our collaboration with Elche’s local golf school, introducing this incredible sport and teaching our children about the respect, etiquette, patience and joys of golf.

 

The children practised their putting, pitching and driving skills taking turns at the different stations with competitions for the longest drive, nearest the pin and longest put. Escuela de golf Elche even awarded selected pupils a free class to continue to awake their golfing ability.

Today we practiced the different ways of writing the “au” sound. To make it fun and memorable for the children we did a reading-writing race where they have to read a word with this sound in it and write it under the right digraph. It was so much fun! The children cannot wait for the next sound they are going to learn to do this activity again.

 

This in only one of the ways we try to make our lessons memorable for the children, involving hands on learning where every pupil demonstrates a high level of engagement during class activities.

On Monday, King’s Infant School Elche pupils visited Elche Seniors to bring Christmas joy to the third-age residents. Nursery, Reception, Year 1, 2 and 3 sang Christmas songs and sat down for a conversation. This visit is now a tradition for our pupils who love to share time with the residents of Elche seniors at Christmas and Easter. We look forward to our next holiday celebration together.

• Father Christmas
• A healthy serving of presents
• Two robins
• A sprinkle of snowflakes
• Donkey
• Shepherds and angles
• Baby Jesus

 We have been learning about 2D and 3D shapes at school. From shape searching walks around the school in Nursery and Reception to elaborate constructions in Year 1 and 2, where pupils were tasked with scientifically tracking the number and type of shapes that composed their creations. Just like architects and good engineers, we drew our plans on paper before assembling our 3D and 2D shapes.

In addition, Year 1 and Year 2 pupils created a digital register on the iPads of the shapes in the school which they will put together to make a picture book with a description about the type and quantity of shapes in each photo.

In KISE we appreciate and promote the good behaviour. 

Therefore we have introduced golden tickets. Each day one pupil per class will be rewarded for their good behaviour after lunch time with one of these amazing golden tickets in which they need to write their names and then put them inside the golden box. Winners of the golden tickets competition may eat lunch at the golden table.

During a special PE lesson at King’s Infant School Elche our Year 1 and Year 2 pupils enjoyed a golf lesson courtesy of Escuela de Golf Elche, who we have partnered up with to promote golf as a sport for children.

 

We hope to grasp the essentials during the next special lessons while we look forward to visiting the golf course to show off everything we have learned.

 

Feet in line, check, straight back, check, head up, check, good back swing, check, and... FORE!

In Creative Writing, pupils have been practising asking questions and using question marks by putting learning into practice by asking Beegu, main character of our core text this week, questions about his adventures and his likes and dislikes, especially ‘Do you like....?’ to practice using question marks in our writing. We even had a turn of pretending to be Beegu ourselves to answer each other’s questions and learn more about Beegu. It’s funny how Beegu likes the same things the pupils at KISE like!

In PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education)   pupils have been learning about how we are each unique and special in different ways, that we are a part of a class, and that we can work as a team. To show this, pupils have been creating a picture as a class where individually designed puzzle pieces have been fit together. Joining our individual abilities together to create something even bigger and better

In English, Orange class have been planning their own versions of the Enormous Turnip, changing the characters in the story and the object that becomes bigger and bigger, learning about using apostrophes for contractions and for possession.
In Maths, Year 1 have been doing lots of work on addition and subtraction, using number lines and hundred squares to help. Year 2 have been working on halving and doubling numbers, using partitioning to help, also looking at different methods that can be used to add and subtract.
In Science, pupils have been learning about healthy eating, thinking about which foods are good for us, and which foods people shouldn’t eat in excess, while also learning about the importance of exercise to keep us healthy. And in Geography, the class learnt about maps and what key features they have. 

Pupils at KISE enjoyed a competitive Sports Day at school. Ready, set, go! On a sunny day in May everyone took part in relay races, obstacle courses, and bean bag and hula hoop throwing amongst other playful events. The children had great time competing for their teams and cheering for each other. Team work was the key to victory for each event, pupils had to work together to be the first ones to complete each task. Most importantly we all had fun which made everyone feel like a winner. The main message of Sports Day is that taking part, with your friends at school, is what really counts. 

Pupils are presented with their celebration certificates for their outstanding behaviour and learning at school. During our recent assembly our Star of the Week in Pre-Nursery was awarded a certificate for the amazing amount of English spoken in class. Nursery’s star was awarded a certificate for writing their name while Reception’s certificate went to the pupil with the most Class Dojo points for the week. Last but not least, Year 1 and Year 2’s star of the week incredibly achieved 10 out of 10 on spellings for the last 4 weeks!

During our latest KISE School Council meeting, composed of the elected representatives of Year 1 and Year 2, counsellors expressed their desire to raise awareness regarding environmental issues. Chosen “Eco Warriors” will now start performing Eco Walks to check that the school is being environmentally friendly: Ensuring lights and screens are turned off when not being used, scrap paper being reused or recycled, doors are closed to keep classrooms warm with the heating during the winter and fighting against single use plastic that would pollute the oceans of the Earth are amongst the different aspects our Eco Warriors will be on the lookout for. Let’s all do our part for the environment.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world” - Mahatma Gandhi. Our pupils have been exploring the concept of peace through different classroom activities. Nursery and Reception have joined efforts to create a peace mural to decorate the school. Pre-Nursery has been busy creating and decorating doves that are “flying” around the school and Year 1 and Year 2 have created their own peace books with their thoughts on peace on Earth. We have reinforced the importance of respect, sharing, helping others in need and living together in harmony.