Hello everyone,
I hope you are all well and keeping cosy in this wintery weather!
In the past two weeks the boys and girls have been learning lots. We have looked at new sounds, ‘There’s a volcano in my tummy’, Chinese New Year and have almost all learnt how to log onto the computers independently!
Last Thursday we woke up to a sight to brighten the children’s day – snow!! Even though we had a later start to the day we still got a chance to play outside together.
In circle time and expressive arts we have begun talking about feelings. We are identifying the different feelings and what they do to our bodies. Mrs Moir shared a story with us called ‘A Volcano in my Tummy’ which is all about anger. It was a great story that helped us think of ways to calm down if ever we feel angry. We even got to make a volcano experiment to show the feeling of anger exploding from inside of us. It was really great!
Over the past few weeks during ICT with Mrs MacKinnon we have been learning how to type. Specifically, typing our usernames and passwords so we can log on to the computers independently. We are all getting so much more confident with this and have now started using Microsoft word. On Microsoft word we can type our names and change the size of it!
We have been doing ‘Beat That’ timed mental maths sheets on a Tuesday with Mrs MacKinnon. She is so impressed that we can do all seven sums in only 60 seconds now! Next week she tells us she is going to give us even less time!!
*Big Maths is a mental maths scheme used within the school for the children to develop their automaticity of a selection of sums. These sums are called learn its and the P1 ones are ; 1+1, 1+2, 2+2, 2+3, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5. Please feel to practice these at home with your child.
After our Beat That test we have been doing some problem solving and experimenting. We had to sort 2D and 3D shapes;
Test to see which shapes could roll or stack (occasionally both!);
We were also talking about symmetry and making our own symmetrical pictures;
This week in problem solving we had to work in teams. Mrs MacKinnon gave us each a tray, a ruler, a paint brush, a sponge and a cup. We had to work together to free a playmobil man from a block of ice. We stopped every so often to share our ideas until we worked out the best way to free our victim!
We decided that we needed heat so tried using our hands and breath – this started working but our hands were getting awfully cold!
Mrs MacKinnon then told us we could all have one more resource and we had to decide as a team what we would like. All the teams decided they would like warm water in their cups.
This really worked and soon our victims were free!!
We worked so well as a team 🙂
One of our sound groups made ‘green crowns for the queen of sheep’ (ee sound)
Whilst the other group made a ‘quilt for a queen’ (q sound). We very much enjoyed choosing which pyjamas to have our queens in and decorating her patchwork quilt!
On Tuesday afternoon we looked a little bit at Chinese New Year. We now know a few things that happen for the people who celebrate Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the pig so we wrote the Chinese symbol for ‘pig’ on a red piece of card and then folded it into a fan.
As well as this we made some springs and a bright colourful dragon face that we turned into a festival dragon.
*Important Information*
Week beginning Monday 11th February the children are only in school Thursday 14th and Friday 15th February. Monday 11th is a holiday followed by two in-service training days.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend when it comes! Take care one and all,
Mrs MacKinnon and Mrs Moir
