Month: December 2022

P1/2 Update – December 2022

In Literacy P1 have covered the 4th set of sounds and have been writing labels. P2 have been learning to write a list, working on alphabetical order and sound blends. We have also worked on the books from our Bookbug packs.

In Numeracy , now that P1 are secure in their numbers to 10, we have begun addition and will continue next term. P2s were working on different strategies to take away from 20. We have also been working on Measure and have been learning about Length and Weight.

The children have been very excited about our Night and Day topic and have been recording what happens to the moon in different phases. We have also been drawing shadows in the playground, and reading our class novel ‘The owl who was afraid of the dark’.

   

We have visited the Nursery for Transition sessions, participated in Art and Craft and made new friends. Miss Riley has visited the class to teach IT skills when Mrs Smith is teaching Russian to P4/5, and we have been learning how to log in with our passwords.

We were very impressed by how well the children learned their lines and songs for our Nativity production. They were also ready to step in if any friends were absent during rehearsals. They enjoyed working with P6/7 to make their headbands too.

In PE we have learned some Scottish country  dances.

Lastly, thank you very much to all parents who sent in resources to enhance our Post Office role play and wet playtimes box.

 

 

P6/7 – December Update

In Literacy this term, we used a short film called Shadow of Blue as stimulus for our writing. The children wrote brilliant character and setting descriptions, up levelling their vocabulary using a thesaurus. We learned about synonyms and antonyms, and we explored symbolism and what different characters/objects might represent.

 

We have been reading ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ which the children have loved! This book ties in with our topic this term, so we have been learning about key vocabulary which has helped us with topic work. P6/7 particularly enjoyed creating a list of questions they would ask the Prime Minister if they came to our school, then did a ‘Hot Seating’ activity where they acted this out with a partner.

 

At the start of the term in Maths we continued with Division. We learned how to use our times table facts to divide numbers beyond the times tables. We practised long division by 1- and 2-digit numbers, which proved to be quite tricky! This is something we will revisit next term for consolidation.

Over the past few weeks, we have learned about Money. The children applied their knowledge of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to problems involving money. We have learned about different ways to pay and have discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each method (cash, credit and debit cards, digital wallets, banking apps). P6/7 have really enjoyed learning about budgeting – the children budgeted for a bedroom makeover and soon realised that things cost more than they initially thought!

Next term, we will be learning about Fractions, Decimals and Percentages, as well as Time.

In Health and Wellbeing, we learned about Online Safety. We created posters showing how everyone can stay safe when using the internet. We have practised our debating skills and have worked on listening to others and being respectful, even if our views are different from others.

In PE, we have loved learning to play Badminton this term. We have learned about grips, footwork, attacking and defending, and how to play a game. We enjoyed pairing up with P2/3 to play some games too. The children are becoming quite competitive!

Next term, P6/7 will learn about Food and Health.

Our current topic is Democracy. We learned key vocabulary by doing a QR code hunt outside. The children have created timelines of the Scottish Parliament, and most recently we learned about political parties in Scotland and their leaders. We will continue with this topic at the start of next term where the children will be creating their own manifestos and will be continuing to develop their debating skills!

P6/7 have worked so hard to plan for the Christmas Show which takes place on Thursday. We planned craft lessons to make props for the show with other classes. I can see the children’s leadership skills developing very well!

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

P2/3 Update – Term 2

In numeracy this term we have been focusing on addition up to 20, 100 and beyond 100.  We have been developing different strategies to support us and have been strengthening our mental agility.  To help us we have played beanbag addition and challenged ourselves to see if we could add more than 2 numbers together.

In literacy we have been writing letters, focusing on the layout of a letter and seeing if we can use different openers.  We have also written persuasive letters to Mrs Strachan using ‘bossy’ language to convince her that their shop name and what is sold in our role play shop is ‘without a doubt’ the best option to go with!

We have also been developing our ICT skills this term.  Some of us had never worked with a keyboard before so we have been familiarising ourselves with the keys, signing in and out of the chromebook and have even started to type out our persuasive letters.

In health and wellbeing we have been speaking about kindness and what kindness looks like.  We have also been thinking about our bigger emotions we can feel at school sometimes.  We then developed a HWB ‘I feel… So I can…’ display where the children came up with feelings and what somebody could do if they felt that feeling.  This has been getting used very well in class so far.

P4-5 Update – Term 2

Hello Everyone!

Primary 4-5 have been busy this term with lots of activities such as learning about fire safety, sessions with the SSPCA about animals and mental health and making poppies for Remembrance Day.

Literacy

This term, we have been working on creative writing. The children are working towards writing a Christmas-themed story. We started with traits of characters and listened to some good examples from popular stories. Then we created our own characters to use in our writing. Next, we used the 5 senses to create a setting e.g. ‘my character can see…’. Then the children went on to plan their stories and come up with a plot. I can’t wait to read what the children write once they bring all of this learning together!

We have been talking about WOW words a lot this term and have been identifying them in popular stories. The children have been practicing saying these out loud with an accompanying action so that the words they are saying have more of an impact, for example, BELLOWING!!!

 

Maths

This term, in number with Miss Riley, the children have been working on the four operations – addition, subtraction, multiplication and will be starting term 3 with division. We have worked hard to learn lots of different methods to figure out these problems, so that the children can choose which methods suits them best for each individual problem.

In beyond number with Miss Davie, the children have been learning about time and money. They have been answering questions about time durations, reading timetables and working out the duration of time between two times. The children have been carrying out practical tasking using money and adding and subtracting amounts of money and giving change.

 

Health and Wellbeing

Primary 4-5 have been working on their gymnastics skills in PE with Miss Davie. The children have been learning to balance and link movements. With Miss Riley, we have been learning to play Kurling and Boccia and are having a little tournament against the rest of the class. The children have learned the rules of these games and how to score them.

We are also learning about relationships in health and wellbeing. The children are identifying features of healthy relationships with friends and caregivers and how to promote positive interactions in these. We are working on conflict resolution within these relationships also.

 

Other Curricular Areas

Languages

The children have been learning greetings in French with Miss Riley and are learning how to say a short greeting to introduce themselves.

Primary 4-5 have been learning a little Russian from Mrs Smith this term. They have learned how to say, hello, how are you? And my name is…

Now, they are learning a Russian song!

 

RME

The class have been learning about Hinduism this term with Miss Davie. They are learning about the main beliefs and practices of the religion and have been learning about Diwali.

 

Topic

Our topic this term has been States of Matter. The children learning about solid, liquid and gas and how one changes into the other. We are learning about the boiling and freezing point of liquid and carried out some experiments to determine what things were soluble or insoluble. We changed some variables such as heat and stirring and observed the effect they had on the dissolving. We also learned about saturating water with salt and sugar.

 

Christmas

As always, this term is choc-a-bloc with learning songs and lines for the Christmas show. The children have been absolutely excellent, and I can’t wait for you all to see their hard work on Thursday evening!

The class made some wreaths with Mrs Gatherum, Christmas cards with Miss Riley and are writing a review of their panto trip this week.

 

All in all, we’ve had a brilliant, busy term. Thanks so much to those of you who took the time to come and meet me for parents’ meetings. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and I’ll see everyone in 2023!