Week 3, Day 3:

This morning our students were, once again, working hard in their English lessons.

Raquel's class were learning about houses and family through their space theme. They designed houses on different planets, naming all of the rooms inside:

They also made their own aliens, providing information on where they live, a description of their house, their appearance, their family and their mode of transport. This fantastic example was made by Gregorio.

Helena's class were busy researching technology they had seen at the museum yesterday and making models in preparation for their presentation on Friday.

They made some incredible models of aeroplanes, trains, cars, other vehicles and even a laptop:

Elisabete's class were rehearsing for their Nobel Prize ceremony.

They will be presenting this ceremony to the group on Friday. They will be joining other prize winners such as Barack Obama, the EU and Nelson Mandela! We can't wait to see their performance and learn more about why they have won the Nobel Prize!

Jane's class were working on urban legends. These are stories that are passed down from person to person through time and have gradually become altered. Nobody knows if urban legends are true stories as they are very dramatic.

Here is an example of an urban legend: The Falling Cow

In 1997, the crew of a Japanese fishing boat were rescued after their boat had sunk in very unusual circumstances. According to the fishermen, the boat had been sailing in calm waters when a cow fell from the sky and crashed through the boat. Unfortunately the police thought the crew had made the whole story up and arrested them they remained in prison while the police tried to work out why the boat had sunk. Eventually, the pilot of a Russian transport plane told the police what had happened. Before they took off from their Siberian airbase, the plane's crew had stolen some cows from a nearby field. While they were flying at 25,000 feet, on cow broke free and started running around inside the plane. The crew managed to push it out of the door and into the sea- or so they thought.

They then made their own urban legends, using examples like The Falling Cow, and created comic strips to illustrate the narratives. Here are two fabulous examples of work by Carlotta and Yiqiao.

In the afternoon the students did some fun and interesting activities.

Elisabete's class and Helena's class joined for a board games tournament; they had great fun:

They played Monopoly, Twister, Word Up, Caption It and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

The students were divided into groups and each group had a winner who was the person with the most board game victories. The winners then had a Championship Game of Twister to decide who is Discovery Summer Queen's Gate's Board Game King/Queen 2013. The game was so evenly matched, we ended up with 3 royal board gamers!

Congratulations to Ughetta, Constanza and Giulio!

After the games, the two classes devised their own plays based on a story about friendship:

There was a hunter who lived on the edge of a forest with his daughter. Everyday he would go into the forest and kill bears! One day he travelled into the forest and his daughter followed him. She got very lost and was stuck in the forest all alone! Luckily, all the animals from the forest came to her rescue, even the bears. The bears helped her even though they were very scared of her father. They guided her home and the hunter never killed another animal again.

The groups adapted the story and put their own spin on it resulting in some very imaginative and entertaining plays at the end of the afternoon.