Class 5th and 6th began the term remembering the Illiad and reviewed certain stories of Achilles and positioned themselves in Ancient Greece. Throughout the block they have learned about Alexander the Great, and through his life story they have understood the wars and battles of his time, travelled the route of his conquered territories and learnt a little about what it would have been like to live in his time. As the block was in English, they have used it to improve speech, spelling, grammar and punctuation.

The children have been listening to stories in English about all the dwellings people live in, in various locations around the world and how the materials and structures vary depending on environment, location and the needs of the people and cultures they live in. The children were invited to make their own creations and present them to their peers. It has been a fun, creative and successful experience for all of us. All of the projects look amazing and the children have all done a fantastic job. Well done to each and everyone of you!

Each year the drama creation process begins with an immersion in the atmosphere and the images of the story, through narrations that offer the global vision. Starting from the general idea step by step we approach the particular, finally reaching the detail. Dynamic, rhythmic and coordinated movement openings develop presence, listening, synchrony and group cohesion. The listened rounds foster collaboration and a common vision of the process. Groups of girls and boys are formed who create, prepare and present the different scenes of the play to live the story and get to know the characters and the atmospheres that make it up. Finally, the characters are distributed and a more detailed process begins that includes movement, gesture and word. The art of the word, eurythmy and musical creation fill the space of the performing arts. Participation in different workshops such as construction of scenery, script, props, posters, costumes, complete the process. Collective creation is promoted, developing cooperation, responsibility and creativity for a group objective. The final performance of the work provides the growth and inner experience shared with the community.

During this last month, and in connection with the last period of the course that who goes through the trades, the second cycle class has carried out a project to build a clay oven. For this we have had the visit of Ilan, who has guided us throughout the process. In order to carry it out, they have gone through different stages where mathematics, physics, chemistry, modelling and construction have been worked: -First, the students were familiarized with the natural ingredients by testing the soil they were going to use and making the so-called “cookies”. -They learned about the correct amounts: the proportion of soil, sand and straw. -They worked the mud with their feet and learned to build with it. -They learned the ecological insulation method. -They worked in teams dividing the work and assuming responsibilities. All the students really enjoyed the work, they were highly motivated at all times and they gave themselves to the task with enthusiasm.

Children in their last year of Nursery Education begin an artistic process that accompanies them until the end of the journey: the making of a bag through weaving a loom. With the loom process, benefits are provided to the healthy development of children by developing: -Creativity, the ability to create and find solutions to the challenges that life presents us. -Patience and perseverance. -Attention and concentration, necessary to carry out any action in life. -Strengthens self-esteem: improves the ability to face a challenge and achieve a goal. -They learn to make decisions: they choose the colors to use and make their creation unique. -Improve fine motor skills through specific and coordinated movements.

It took humanity millennia to develop writing. From being a simple figurative annotation, it became syllabic, until it reached the extreme abstraction of being purely phonetic. Egyptian hieroglyphs illustrate this slow evolution. To make the passage from the figurative imagination of children to the intellectual abstraction of modern writing, the teacher walks a similar path. The introduction of the consonants will begin by telling a story, having as a central figure a character or an element, whose name has this consonant as the first letter. As always, the children will want to draw the story. The teacher will draw it first, on the board, giving a prominent place to the character or element in question, with a shape that recalls the consonant. For example, a serrated line for the mountain "M", or a profile of a king for the letter "R" (in capital letters). The next day, the story is re-told, as well as the drawing, but this time, the shape of the line will be closer to the shape of the consonant. This is repeated several times until the "M" or "R", respectively, are known to the students as the letters of the mountain or the king. At the same time their phonemes "mmmmmmm" and "rrrrrrr" are pronounced. In this way, the transition from the image to the symbol is made, eliminating the collision with the abstract sign. Something similar is done with vowels. Students learn gestures related to feelings. "Ah!" It expresses, for example, the feeling of admiration, of veneration and corresponds to it a gesture of opening the arms. In this case, an object from the outside world is not imitated, but rather the human figure itself transfigured into the image of a "being of the A" that slowly leads to the shape of the capital "A". Little by little, very simple words are formed and written: mountain, king, and finally, short sentences and little stories, embellish the notebooks with coloured crayons. In this way, by the end of the first school year children already know how to write with capital letters. What about reading? What happens naturally, without trauma of any kind, is that the student, after a certain time, knows what he/she wrote and, immediately, in a happy and lively environment, guesses words or texts that the teacher writes on the board. Children’s own interest aroused; autonomously, they will try to decipher words that they find around them. The process may take longer, but the result is the same, living an infinite number of beautiful stories and making an equally large number of drawings and paintings in which all the imagination of the children could be expressed.

Durante este último mes, y en conexión con un periodo que pretende viajar a través de algunos oficios del ser humano, la clase de segundo ciclo ha llevado a cabo un proyecto de bioconstrucción con adobe. Con esto, pretendemos reconvertir y reforzar el arenero realizando un enfoscado con adobe. Para ello hemos contado con la visita de Miguel Ángel Castillo, de LAND, que nos ha ayudado a entender cómo actúan los diferentes ingredientes con los que se prepara el adobe.