March 24, 2020
by Mrs McLaughlin
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Tuesday 24th March

Good Morning everyone!

I hope you are all well and are ready for learning!

Please continue to look at our phonics and maths activities from yesterday’s blog post – they will be useful all week.

Maths

Please access Education City and access your maths city. There are lots of activities on there, so please choose one or two.

In class we were revising some of the topics we had covered, including number bonds to 10, even and odd numbers, adding and subtracting. You’ll find a range of these topics on your city!

Writing

Today we would normally do our weekend new writing in class, however weekends may be looking a little different for a while. Some schools have had the great idea of writing a diary.

We are in a strange time where nothing like this has happened in recent years so lots of things are changing all around us. We thought it would be really interesting if once a week you could write a few sentences about what you’ve been doing and why.

For example you might want to think about

what it’s been like learning at home
have you been doing things that are new?
how you are feeling
have you learned anything new on the news?
anything that you have found interesting or that you have enjoyed

Each diary entry should start with the date at the top of the page. It will let us look back and see how things are changing and how you felt about everything!

Reading

While we are learning from home, we will not be using our regular scheme books for reading. I would encourage you to use any books that you have at home with your grown up. Some of them might be quite tricky, but follow each word with your finger and look out for any of our common words and words with our sound. Remember, our sound this week is oa.

While the schools are closed Audible have announced that hundreds of kids audio-books can be accessed for free on their website. This is a great way to access stories and listen out for any new words that you can find out the meaning of, and identify the sounds we have learned.

I would encourage everyone to have a look at the free books and have a listen to anything that takes your fancy. You don’t need to sign up to anything, just follow the link below.

https://stories.audible.com/discovery/enterprise-discovery-21122358011?ref=adbl_ent_anon_ds_ds_dpsh_cntr-0

It can be hard to keep active while you’re staying at home. If it is possible, try to have a little time outside the house, maybe on a short walk.

If you’re looking for ways to get active in the house, try this video, it’s one of my favourite GoNoodle videos!

Joe Wicks will also be hosting live 30 minute PE lessons Monday – Friday at 9AM on his YouTube channel – this will be a great way to keep yourself active!

I hope you all have a lovely day, and I hope to hear from some of you about how you’re getting on!

-Miss Allardyce

March 23, 2020
by Mrs McLaughlin
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Monday 23rd March

Good morning primary 2!

This post will have information for the week ahead.

Assembly

This isn’t something I thought I’d be writing to you! Assembly from home?! Thanks to the fab folk at Fischy Music, there will be a live assembly every Monday at 11AM whilst schools are closed. They have written some great songs that are popular in lots of schools and I know that they love to have a dance too!

If you’d like to tune in at 11AM, head to their YouTube page!

www.youtube.com/fischymusic

Phonics and spelling

Our sound this week is oa. I have loaded an oa activity on to all Education City accounts which you may wish to play. Please enjoy this video of Geraldine the Giraffe finding out about our sound.

Can you think of any more words that use the oa sound?

Throughout the week you may wish to practice the words:

boat
toad
soap
groan
throat
toast

We are also looking at the common words

kind
find

In order to learn these sounds you may wish to choose one of these activities per day.

Rainbow writing – write each word out using a different coloured pencil for each letter
Pyramid words – start with the first letter of the word at the top of the pyramid, on the next line have the first and second letter, on the third line have the first, second and third letter. continue until the bottom of your pyramid has the full word e.g

g o

g o a

g o a t

Uppercase and lowercase – write each word first in lowercase and then again in all uppercase
Bubble writing – use fancy bubble writing to write out each word
Play dough/ pasta/ slime – use any of these materials to form our spelling words

Maths

At Abbotswell we use the Big Maths scheme. Each week the pupils word on CLIC targets which we explore together in short, regular lessons. These help the children’s core numeracy skills. Each letter stands for one of the elements.

C- Counting

L – Learn Its

I – It’s Nothing New

C – Calculations

This week our targets are:

C – Saying Numbers to 100

You may wish to look at your number square to support you. Practice moving from a multiple of ten on to the next line (e.g moving with your finger from 30 to 31), remember that we use a number line the same way we read a book, we start on the left and move to the right. When we get to the end of the line, we move down a line and go back to the left to read the next line.

This song might get you moving!

L – adding on 2

We are pretty good at adding 1 on to a number, can we work on adding 2 now? Start small, and use blocks, lego, pasta pieces etc. to help you memorise

0+2
1+2
2+2
3+2
4+2
5+2
6+2
7+2
8+2
9+2
10+2

I – Doubling and halving

We’ve been working on doubling and halving numbers within 10 (1+1 to 5+5).

To remind yourself about halving, have a watch of this Number Blocks episode.

Can you think about doubling and halving multiples of 10 now? Is there anything similar about it?

1+1 = 2
10+10 = 20
2+2 = 4
20+20 = 40

Do you see a pattern?

C – Multiplication (x3)

Use blocks, lego, pasta etc. to set out 3 equal groups. Remember that a multiplacation sum like 3 x 1 means the same as “3 groups of 1”. Can you use your resources to work out

3×1
3×2
3×3
3×4
3×5

To support some of these concepts, I have added some numeracy activities on Education City, please access them throughout the week. Most are accessible on tablets and phones as well as PCs and laptops.

Additional activities

Throughout the week I will be updating the blog with more ideas for activities and these will include the other curricular areas. I’m including a picture which gives you 100 ideas for indoor activities – I would suggest choosing 1 per day that interests you.

Please share any pictures of your activities and ideas you may have that your classmates might be interested in, I would love to hear from you!

Have a lovely day, and please ask a grown up to send me a message on ClassDojo or by email if you need help or support.

-Miss Allardyce

March 19, 2020
by Mrs McLaughlin
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The weeks ahead

As we start to prepare for the coming days and weeks, there is some useful information for families in regards to learning at home.

The lower stages will not be using Google Classroom for learning at home. They will instead have access to a number of online resources including SumDog and EducationCity. The class teachers will also be using these blogs to provide suggested learning activities and resources frequently.
Many of the online resources are accessible on tablets and phones as well as laptops and PCs.
Learning support packs were distributed on Wednesday – these contain items to support the children with their online learning and any activities set by the teacher. They include things like pencils, number squares and word banks. If your child was absent, you are welcome to come to the school office to collect one – if this is not possible for you and you would rather have the pack sent home with another pupil, please send me a message on ClassDojo.
At the start of the Easter Holidays, we will no longer be using ClassDojo – an alternative is in the works but until it is ready could I ask those who haven’t already to send me a message with their email address so that we can keep in touch.
If you are enjoying a learning activity at home, please share it with the school Twitter account which is @Abbotswell https://twitter.com/abbotswell
If you would like to share something with me directly on Twitter, my account is @MissAllardyce https://twitter.com/MissAllardyce and I would love to see some of the things that are going on. I’ll be sharing ideas etc on there too!

I appreciate all of your support and I want to reassure you that the school will continue to support you and your family in the best way that we can.

– Miss Allardyce

March 14, 2020
by Mrs McLaughlin
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Birthday News!

Happy Birthday Dylan!

Happy birthday to you,
On this your special day.
We’re so glad to share it with you,
To bring gifts, eat cake and play.