Primary 1/2 2016

This week (and for the entire month of December) we will be learning about ordinal numbers.  We will be using a chocolate advent calendar to help us learn how to correctly use 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.  You can try reinforcing this at home too.  Some of us also made our own advent calendars and have been responsible for marking off the numbers each day.

We have been carrying out more ice experiments today.  We have already found out that hot water melts ice and that a coat can act like an insulator.  Today we were trying to find out whether sand, salt or sugar would make the ice melt more quickly.  Lots of us thought that sand would melt the ice because ‘you get sand on beaches and beaches are hot places.’ 🙂

We found out that the salt made the ice melt the quickest.  We could see the ice cube with salt on it getting smaller and that the ice was turning into water.  We spoke about what the  road gritters might be spreading and why.  We found out that the sand was the slowest material to melt the ice.

We have been having fun exploring 3D shape this week.  We have been learning about the properties of spheres, cubes, cuboids, cylinders and cones.  We have been trying to set up a 3D shape touch table but are still waiting for lots of 3D shapes from everyone in the class – well done to those boys and girls who remembered to bring a 3D shape to school.

We have been carrying out experiments to find out which shapes are best for rolling or stacking and are beginning to recognise why this is the case.

Today we went on a 3D shape hunt in the playground to find out which shapes are the most common.  We took a tally of the shapes we found and counted up the total.  We found out that we have lots of cylinders and cuboids in our class.

 P1/2 Homework Reminder

P1/2 homework will be issued, via the blog, every Monday.  Parents are free to complete this homework at a time and on a day that suits them and their children, unless it says otherwise.  Reading will be issued on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  The homework builds upon the active learning approach that takes place in the classroom.  Thank you.

Literacy

Please look in your child’s folder/sound book to find out if they are doing ‘ai’, ‘ow’ or ‘h’ and ‘w’ this week.  The sounds and games will be given out on Tuesday.

AI and OW – please use the ‘read and roll’ game that is in your child’s folder.  This game is for two players.  Each player needs to have a different coloured pencil or crayon.  The object of the game is to get four words in a row coloured in before the other player does.  Each player rolls the dice and finds a word with the corresponding number from the dice.  They read the word and then colour it in.  Keep trying until 1 player gets a row or column of four words.  Possible extension: make a silly oral sentence using some of the words.

H and W – Please watch the storybot videos for h and w.   Please play the read and roll mat that was sent home.  Please see the instructions in purple above.

St Andrew’s Day – to celebrate St Andrew’s Day we are going to be participating in Scottish dance, making our own tartan and decorating shortbread.  We will also be sharing Scottish stories and songs, and learning some new Scottish words.  Try talking with your family to find out different Scottish words. Choose your favourite one and share it with the class by replying to this comment.  I have done an example to help you.  We will all look at the blog on Thursday to share our different Scottish words so please make sure you have replied before then.

Maths

We are learning about 3D shape.  Please watch this video together.  Try finding one small object from your house that is either a cube, cuboid, cone, cylinder or sphere.  Bring it to school for our 3D shape touch table.

We have been having lots of fun in our play zones this week. Look at some of the fantastic things we have created:

Today we had to try and find out the answer to a very tricky question: does a snowman melt when we put a jacket on it? We all thought that the snowman would definitely melt because the jacket will warm it up. We worked in teams to find out the answer.  We were each given a snowman (a bottle filled with ice) and some felt.  We worked hard to create jackets for our ‘snowmen’ and tried hard to cover the entire bottle with our jacket.  We also had 1 snowman without a jacket so that we could compare how much each snowman melted.  After a little while we started to notice that the snowmen with jackets on were not melting.  We collected water from the snowmen with jackets on and compared that to the water we collected from the ‘naked’ snowmen.  We were amazed to find out that the snowmen with the jacket on gave us less water, meaning that they had melted less.  We were all schocked to find this out and tried to suggest some ideas why this might have happened.  We found out that the jacket stops cold air from escaping and that it keeps hot air from going near the ice.  We learned that the jacket was an insulator. Please ask your child more about this.

Literacy

We are revising all sounds this week.

Reading – This week is ‘Book week Scotland’.  Homework will focus on reading for enjoyment.  Please use the reading challenge record sheet to record all the books that you read this week.  Colour in a square on the map each time you enjoy a story.  These could be books that are read to you by an adult or sibling, or books that you have enjoyed yourself.  You could try sharing a book with your favourite teddy or even reading a magazine.    Have fun reading lots of different books that are of your choosing.  Please return reading challenge sheets on Monday 28th November.

Phonics – Please use the bingo sheets that were sent home to play a blending/reading game.  Cut one bingo box out at a team and give one bingo box to each player.  Click here to access the website. Click on ‘I have the bingo cards already.’  If your child has 3 letter words on their bingo sheet please click ‘CVC words using SATPINMD.’  If you have ‘oo’ words on your bingo sheet please click  on number 9 ’00’.  The children then press pull and read the words that come up on the screen.  If they have that word they colour in the small star on their chart.  The first person to colour all the stars on their chart shouts ‘Bingo’ and wins the game.  🙂

Maths 

Please try playing ‘whack-a-mole’  by clicking here.  The children know how to play this.  Try replying to this blog post to tell me your highest score.

We have been learning about polar bears as part of our ‘Polar Express’ Topic.  Today we watched some videos about polar bears and had a long chat about the new facts  that we had found out from the videos.  We asked some very good questions to find out more.

We wrote our own stories about polar bear babies and polar bear habitats today too.  We had to use ‘WOW words’ to make our stories more interesting.

In the afternoon we worked in teams to create our own polar bear homes using a range of construction.  We had some super ideas and were able to share these ideas with our friends as we were building.  We were eager to take our own photographs of our polar bear homes (and out friends) throughout the afternoon.  🙂

Mrs Duncan was a very proud teacher today!  The P1s worked hard to spell a range of words using the magnetic boards.  They tried to orally repeat the word they were trying to spell to help them identify the sounds.  The longest word they managed to spell was ‘underpants’, which of course, they were delighted with! 🙂

They also played a pirate treasure game.  They were very enthusiastic about this new game and were keen to play it at home.  Click here if you wish to give it a try.  Click on the ‘CVC’ option.  The children have to read each word and decide if it is real treasure (a real word) or pretend treasure (pretend word).  Reading words that aren’t real encourages children to truly develop their skills in sounding out rather than just memorising a word.