We looked again at all the emotions we have learned over the last few weeks. We know that things can happen to make us feel a certain way. We started to discuss the old saying ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’. A range of children came up to say unkind things to a paper man. Every time they said something it left creased a part of the man. Even after each person said sorry when we flattened him back out, there were still marks left from the unkind words. This showed us that actually words can hurt us. So we are trying to always say kind things to others.

Mrs Bennion and a couple of our P1 pupils confidently stood up to tell us all about how we can ‘fill each other’s buckets’. We imagined that every time we come to school our ‘bucket’ (heart) is empty and we need to help fill our friend’s buckets by saying kind things. This is our goal as it is important to be kind to others.

Star Assembly Class: Well done P2W for winning the trophy this week! You modelled how to sit smartly and quietly during our starting song.

Star Pupils: Congratulations to the final Star Pupils of the term.

Unit Star Class Winners: This term we saw the children working together as class teams to gain as many unit star stickers as they could (both the Green and Purple units). Every time they got a sticker for following and exceeding the school rules they were awarded a tally mark for their class. Congratulations to our first class winners of P2M and P3F. On W

Wednesday they were treated to a special games and party session and they were awarded a class certificate.

Open Day

Thank you to all the parents/carers/family that came to visit the children in school on Thursday 28th March. It was great to have you in and we hope you enjoyed it too.

Have a wonderful Easter holiday and we will see you all at the start of Term 4!

Miss Catlow

On Thursday 21st March it was our annual P1-3 disco ran by a very dedicated group of parents.

The children all had a great time. There was a lot of dancing, drawing, eating and drinking! Some teachers managed to come along for a quick boogie. I hope the children slept well after – I certainly did.

The effort and organisation that goes into such an event is huge and it has not gone unnoticed. So thank you to everyone who helped organise or volunteer to support. It makes the world of difference at these events and ensures the children have a safe, but fun time.

During assembly on Monday 18^th March the children all showed excellent listening skills. Well done!

We continued to learn about our emotions this week, where we looked at the last two emotions – Fear and Disgust. We listened to some examples of how children were feeling and had to guess whether that person was feeling Fear or Disgust and how to help them manage the feeling.

This was interesting because one of the examples was a little girl who was scared of cars and crossing the road. To start with the boys and girls thought she shouldn’t be scared of cars and the road. We explored this further and then began discussing how actually sometimes a little fear is healthy as it keeps us safe. In this example Fear would stop the girl from running in front of cars.

We then discussed the P1-3 Disco arrangements for Thursday evening, which the children were very excited about. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday everyone.

Finally, we wrapped up by celebrating some of our learning from Red Nose Day and thanking everyone for their contributions. The children were able to discuss how the money raised would go to help children who aren’t as fortunate as us.

Star Assembly Class: I was extremely please with P2K as they came in before everyone else, as quiet as mice, and sat down waiting patiently for the other children. An excellent role model to our younger P1 pupils.

Star Pupils: Congratulations again to all the Star Pupils this week.

For assembly this week we paused our learning about feelings as we had two special visitors!

We have learned all about the Walking Bus which is a fantastic way to get to school. We discussed why walking to school is so important for not only our health but also to help reduce the amount of cars on the road.

Alison, one of our school parents, helps to lead the Walking Bus and is really keen to get more children joining in. If you are interested please sign your child up – they can come once or twice a week or even every day! The children were shown a song that the walking bus like to sing on the way to school which looks great fun! We even had a visit from Strider, who is the Walking Bus mascot. The children were very excited by this! The Walking Bus also accommodates park and stride pupils, so even if you don’t live close you can park up and take your child to the Walking Bus – you just need to register your child first!

Red Nose Day is this week and it is wear a touch of red day with our school uniform.

Star Pupils: Well done to a range of people who achieved the star pupil certificates this week. Lots of hard work again!

On Monday 4^th March 2019 we focussed on the feeling of Anger. At the start of the assembly I asked the children if they felt that feeling anger was a ‘bad’ thing. Most of the children said that they felt it was bad.

With the help of some actors and the use of a volcano made by some boys in P2, we explored the feeling of anger and likened it to a ‘volcano in our tummy’. In the story a little boy ‘Sam’ found that during the day at school things annoyed him and made him angry. Slowly these things built up (we added bicarbonate of soda to the volcano each time he got angry) until eventually he tripped over someone who shouldn’t have been sitting on the floor and he exploded (we added vinegar to the volcano and there was a reaction). We saw Sam lash out and anger took control of him.

However we continued to discuss that we will feel anger at points, because it is a feeling and we are all human and can’t control what happens around us. Instead we discussed how ‘Sam’ could have taken control of anger instead of letting him take control of him. For example, the first thing that annoyed ‘Sam’ was when his friend ‘Mark’ didn’t sit next to him in the dinner hall. Instead of getting annoyed about it, this time ‘Sam’ used his feeling of anger to instead decide to start talking to the people around him and make new friends. Then ‘Sam’ started to feel better and this kept him in control of his anger.

For the times when we do get angry, we explored some strategies to use to help us calm down. In assembly we learned how to use a technique called square breathing. Ask your child to show you how to use this!

After exploring the feeling of anger I once again asked if it was a ‘bad’ thing. A lot of the children changed their mind and felt it didn’t have to be a bad thing as we realised that it is a normal feeling and if we learn to manage it rather than letting it control us, then we can still make positive behaviour choices even if we feel angry.

We then discussed the importance of using friendly hands outside in the playground even if a game doesn’t go our way and we get annoyed. There are green friendly hand reminders stuck to the outside doors to remind us to use friendly hands.

Finally we looked ahead to World Book Day on Thursday 7^th March. We are looking forward to celebrating reading and I am very much enjoying the World Book Day Family Selfies that have come in so far! Such a great effort from everyone and it will help to create a real ethos for the love of reading at Cults Primary.

STAR ASSEMBLY CLASS – Congratulations go to my P1D class. They listen so well all the time and we had some confident actors and actresses up helping to explore the feeling of Anger. Well done P1D.

STAR PUPILS: Congratulations again to the star pupils for this week. I continue to be very proud of the children and the teachers are too! Lots of children making real improvements in their learning as well, which is great to see. Keep up the fantastic work everyone!