Some pending issues.

Vivi: Here you’ve got some lines…

Assessment for learning:

We set learning objectives for every project, which we share with the students. As they are very young, we do it trough brainstorming what we already know about the topic, what we would like to learn about it and throughout each project we come and go to that and reflect upon what we’ve learnt about it. Moreover, the teacher gives feedback to students systematically. Talking to students about their strengths and weaknesses is part of the learning process and we constantly go over their pieces of work, they attempts and any type of production (written and oral). Many students, after these short talks with the teacher, agree on the fact that they need some extra practice on a certain aspect and we set special activities to strengthen those points. Motivating them making special emphasis of every step forward they make is also extremely important for them to believe in themselves and feel eager to go even further.

ICTs:

We use the net-books in the classroom in every project and we do intense work in computing lessons. Every project has activities done through the use of technological equipment: we’ve listened to songs and watched videos since the beginning of the year. During the first part of the year, students created their own superheroes and described them using different software and web pages, they worked on plants and their habitats through interactive programs on the computer and could do “virtual hands-on-experiences”, like checking what happens to a plant if you water it excessively or if you keep it in a dark room, they did on-line quizzes and labeled pictures and created electronic leaflets with text and images about plants and the environment, which were uploaded to the school’s blog, among many other activities.

Bilingual Project: Plants

We’ve worked on this topic in parallel with Spanish teachers. There were many areas which we introduced together and which were worked on at the same time, like the parts of the plats and their function, processes such as photosynthesis, how plants adapt to the environment, what they need to grow well, etc. We did different hands-on experiences and experiments so as to give children a wide variety of activities. In the morning, they worked more on different types of plants, their descriptions, the types and shapes of leaves, the autochthonous plants from our country, etc., while, in the afternoon we worked intensely on literary elements, language and writing.

Working on this project together with Spanish teacher facilitated learning in our students A LOT!! Having some background knowledge in their mother tongue had a great positive impact on comprehension in the foreign language. Most students got excellent results and transferred what they learnt in one class to the other in both directions. It was a deeply nourishing experience!!