A Music Lesson

Julia, María and Alba (1º eso B) want to share a music lesson with you. Enjoy!

School Trip to London (3º eso)

Last June, when the exams were over at last, the 3º eso bilingual group spent a few days in London. They were accompanied by their tutor, Paqui, and their English and Technology teachers, Mª José and David. They were all excited and eager to see with their own eyes what they had seen in books hundreds of times: the Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, all the famous landmarks of one of the trendiest cities in the world! It goes without saying that they all had an unforgettable experience, as you can see in the photos they took and the comments they wrote about the trip. You can see more pictures here. 

We say goodbye to Alex, our language assistant

Alexandra Howe, our language assistant, dind't know what we had in store for her when she came to school on her last day as assistant. We had organised a terrific show where music was the protagonist. Every group was given an area in the USA and had to perform a typical song (either live or play back). The performances were outstanding and everybody had a wonderful time!

Music Trip around the USA

Since the show was one hour long, we can only select some excerpts and clips:

1º A danced to "Surfin'USA" by The Beach Boys (California)



3º B sang "I will follow Him" in pure Gospel style (South Carolina)



4º B dared to perform "Jailhouse Rock" by Elvis Presley, singing and playing live (Memphis, Tennessee)

1º C rapped and danced "Gangsta's paradise" (New York)

At the end of the show, Alex was given some presents with which teachers and students wanted to thank her. We will miss you, Alex!

Team Building Day II

In the last few years we have made an effort to put our students in contact with other bilingual students from other towns in the belief that by organising different activities through the curriculum we could offer an entertaining and educational way of using the English language. Thus, last year, for instance, we got in touch with the bilingual coordinator at IES Miguel Crespo (Fernán Núñez), who liked the idea very much, and we organised two sets of activities in what we called a Team Building Day to celebrate in each school.

This time, however, we decided that the event should take place outside the school so we chose Córdoba as the perfect scenario to carry out the activities. The students had met each other last year, so they were eager to see each other again after one year.

The first activity took place in the patio of the Mosque-Cathedral: some students read in English three legends about "El Cristo de los Faroles", "La Malmuerta" and "The prisoner" while their classmates had to answer some questions about each legend.

Reading out the legends

The following activity was devised by our language assistants. The students had to unjumble some sentences to get a paragraph about the history of Córdoba.

Iris and Alex explaining what the students had to do

Then we went to the heart of Córdoba, the Tendillas square, where we were going to have a fantastic "Treasure Hunt". The students were divided into teams and given the clues to find out the hidden words. They had to carry out some tasks as well to get the prize. Here is the thresure hunt:

The winners

The final activity consisted of interviewing English-speaking tourists. They had to interview them in order to learn about their stay in Spain. Although shy at the beginning, once the first interview was finished, the students wanted to go on non-stop. It was a wonderful way to end the day! Everybody agreed that it had been good fun! 

Interviewing tourists

British Festivals

Who is the patron saint of England? Why is Pancake Day so important in Britain? Why do many small towns and cities all over England have a May Queen? We wanted to find an answer to all these questions so we organised a British Festival Day. Students from 1º ESO A-B-C had to learn about these festivals in order to explain to their classmates how British people celebrate them. What's more, we invited 3º Primaria pupils from the other bilingual school in Montoro, Nuestra Señora del Rosario Primary School, to attend and take part in the initiative. 

May Festivals

Antonio and Fran told us about why the coming of spring symbolizes the birth of a new cycle of life. To represent that, in many towns a queen is elected, the Queen of May, who starts the celebrations. In order to choose the Queen, we had 3 candidates from the primary group, and Celia and Sofía asked them questions (in English, of course!) about their subjects at school. They had to ask many questions because they knew all the answers! Finally, once the Queen had been chosen, two handsome knights (Juan and Juanma) wanted to be her King, so they had to win a dance competition to become King. It was really funny! 

 

The May Queen and her King

the May Queen

Contest to choose the May Queen

Questions the candidates had to answer to become Queen

Pancake Day

Mª Antonia and Raúl explained when Pancake Day is and why it is celebrated in Britain. Miguel sang a rap song to introduce all the ingredients we need to cook a delicious pancake. After that, we played two traditional games, Flipping the Pancake and a Pancake Race.

Singing the song "Pancake Day"

Explaining the ingredients to use

St. George's Day

St. George's Day is celebrated on 23rd April. Why did St. George become the Patron Saint of England? and What is the legend of St. George? Sergio and Leo told us about that. In order to clarify everything we had a terrible dragon, a beautiful princess and a brave St. George on stage. Laryssa explained what happened in the story: the dragon (Fernando) wanted to eat a princess (a girl from the primary students), but St. George (Rodrigo) wanted to rescue her and kill the dragon. Laryssa then asked the kids some questions. If they answered correctly, St George would save the princess, but if they diddn't .... Fortunately, they knew all the answers!

The protagonists of the legend

The dragon comes into the room to eat the princess

Black History Month

February is special in America because it is Black History Month. Black History Month is celebrated to help people remember African Americans who have made an impact or a difference in American life and culture.

Normally, children in America write a short biography about an African American who has made a difference. Our 4º eso students have surfed the Net and chosen a black celebrity to write about. Here are some examples:

Ralph Johnson Bunche from rafa

Obama from rafa

Oprah Winfrey from rafa

EU Flags

Among the activities organised for each grade in our high school, today we want to highlight the one carried out with the 1st ESO students. They had to learn about the countries that form the European Union and their flags. The English teacher devoted one lesson to teach them about the countries and the Art teacher devoted another one so that the pupils could draw the flags. After that, we proceeded with the game. In the first round, the three pupils in each class with the best scores were selected. In the second round, the nine best students played the online game. What a hard-fighting competition! The finalists got their objective by one-hundredth of a second. In the exciting final, the two contenders were given a set of ten cards with the names of ten countries, which they had to put next to their flags. They were both neck and neck, but in the end, Miguel Leiva (1º B) was the winner. He received the applause of his classmates as well as a lot of prizes, including a pen and pencil set, comics in English and Spanish, a tourist guide of Scotland, a bilingual dictionary and a huge bag of candy. Congratulations!

Montoro Fashion Week IV

Fashion is part of our lives, whether we like it or not. After Milan, Paris or New York, Montoro Fashion Week is the next big thing. Everybody is looking forward to a new edition. The clothes, the styles, the accessories may not become the new trend all around the world, but the models deserve to be on the best catwalks. See how professional they look!

Recycled Invertebrates

They are usually disgusting, it's true. Nobody mentions any of them when asked about their favourite animals. However, they don't look so nasty if you make them yourself. And that's what Rocío Ibarra, the Science teacher, had in mind when she asked her 1ºESO students to make Invertebrates using recycled materials. In fact, they look cute now! Some of them are amazing! I think the students will find them easier to memorize now and perhaps you won't crush them when you see them in the country!

Euroscola 2014

A group of students are taking part in a national competition called "Euroscola 2014". They must widen their knowledge of the European Union as well as make the Union's values be known by their schoolmates. In order to achieve that, they are reading and studying about the history of the European Union, the different organisms that govern the Union, the duties of the MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) and other related topics. Once they have got immersed in the Union's ideals and principles, the students have to devise a wide range of activities, which will be available to everyone on a blog, so that their knowledge reaches a wider audience and gets a bigger impact. Among the activities already carried out, we want to highlight a survey to find out how much their classmates know about the EU, interviews to European citizens living in Montoro and also interviews to people from Montoro who have experienced living in a European country for some time. They have contacted the press in the area to spread their activities and they will be explaining their project in Radio Montoro next Friday 14th March. There are plenty of other activities in store, both fun and educational, including a debate with political representatives and an amazing acrosport show! We will follow them very closely. We wish them good luck in the competition! The prize is really appealing: a trip to Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament. 

How to save water

After studying "Water" from different perspectives (geography - maths - science - toponyms) the 1º ESO students want to give us some pieces of advice about a really important issue: saving water. Coordinated by their Science teacher (Rocío Ibarra) they have designed some drops of water with a clear message to everyone: every drop of water is essential. We must save water because it is a non-renewable resource.

Christmas Time

We are all looking forward to Christmas. It's arguably everybody's favourite time of the year. How is Christmas celebrated around the world? Do people do the same things or eat the same food in the USA, France or Spain? In order to learn about that some 2º ESO students have prepared some presentations about Christmas time in the English-speaking countries and in France. The audience got lots of information about Christmas typical characters, Christmas decorations, important dates and Christmas food.

We also sang typical carols in English and French. And we met Santa and his reindeer Rudolph, who made sure that everybody was going to get a present.

Through the magic power of imagination we were able to watch a typical Christmas scene in the USA. It's Christmas Eve, and the children are getting everything ready for Santa's coming.