Author: Mr Cormack

P1 May Update

P1 have really enjoyed learning about our topic. We had a super discussion about what plants need to grow and were surprised that one of the conditions needed was time! We have planted some seeds in the classroom and are going to see how long it takes for the first shoots to appear. We are also learning facts about minibeasts and looking at the lifecycle of a frog.

In Literacy we have been predicting what happens next in a story, writing speech bubbles for a character and designing a book cover to attract the reader. We also looked how instructions are written and wrote our own instructions about how to cross a road safely. We had a go at acting it out too.

In Health and Wellbeing we learned about emergencies and appropriate services.

In Numeracy we were working on building number family facts and putting them into our memory. We revised doubles and used them in subtraction. We are also working on subtraction with money.

P1 had a lovely time visiting nursery for a transition afternoon. We were kept busy chatting to the nursery children, playing in the sand and farm trays and doing lots of arts and crafts. Nursery staff were impressed with their good manners and helpfulness. The class voted to make another visit soon!

P6/7 May Update

In Literacy, the children wrote a recount of Health Week and the activities they enjoyed the most. The children have been encouraged to write in paragraphs and use a thesaurus to up-level their vocabulary. We have been learning about the use of different punctuation in grammar.

In Maths over the last few weeks, we have been learning about Measurement. We’ve spent time learning how to convert units of measurement (for example, millilitres to litres, centimetres to metres etc) as well as doing lots of practical activities. The children became more confident at making estimations of the weight or length of classroom objects, before weighing or measuring them correctly.

Some children started learning to calculate the circumference of a circle using the correct formula.

Next week we will begin learning about Angles. This will involve naming, measuring and drawing angles.

In PE, we started our Tennis block this week. The children worked well with Mrs Anderson to practise their grip, front hand, and back hand. Next week we will learn more about serving.

We have finished our Food and Nutrition unit in Health and Wellbeing. The children learned to read food labelling and we thought about why labelling food correctly is important. We concluded our block of lessons by estimating and weighing the amount of sugar in common foods. The children were quite shocked!

In our ‘Inventions that Changes the World’ topic, the children have been learning about Alexander Graham Bell over the past week. Each table group were asked to research a different information and make a poster on what they learned. They then presented this to the rest of the class and received feedback on their poster and presentation from another group.

We have learned about electrical circuits. The children learned to draw circuits using the scientific symbols and they had great fun trying to make series and parallel circuits.

P4-5 Blog Update – May

Maths
Primary 4-5 have been identifying areas in maths they feel could use a little more practice. We are going to use these to target some revision over the next few weeks.

 

Literacy

The class have been working with Miss Davie on some debating surrounding the popular story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’. https://www.literacyshed.com/3littlepigs.html?fbclid=IwAR05izKOMZ9ZiuTonn_Hh3ps7JQDUVBokPXhuLVppbrkFYKQTtEudr7az7c
As you can see it is not a clear-cut case! We have invited primary 2-3 to be our jury.
We have been looking at the structure of a discursive piece of writing and trying to follow the format. The class wrote a piece on ‘should primary school children wear school uniform?’. It was great to do this genre of writing alongside the debating as the children were well versed in the language used such as pro and con.

 

Health and Wellbeing
Hockey – the children have been developing their hockey skills this term in order to use these to play some games. We have covered passing and receiving, moving with the ball, getting past a player, tackling, and hitting and shooting.

 

Mindfulness/Art – The children have been experimenting with ‘zentangling’ a method of mindfulness and meditation that is explained like ‘purposeful doodling’. The children use black pens to create different patterns.

Music

Primary 4/5 have been writing their rap for the end of term assembly with Miss Davie. I read their lyrics and listened to them practice it last week and it is sounding fantastic – I will not give too much away by giving you any more information than that!

Nursery Blog May 2022

We have had another busy fortnight in Nursery. Health week was a great success. The children had fun making watermelon and banana smoothies for snack,  as part of our learning about Healthy Eating. The children loved taking part in the different sports activities, with the older children on the Wednesday morning. It was lovely to see so many parents cheering on from the side lines on Sports Day. Mr Clarke came through in the afternoon and presented the medals in Nursery. The children were very proud!

We had a lovely community walk to Fettercairn House on Friday morning, just far enough after a busy week. Barbara  (the school cook) bought all the children an ice pop, which went down extremely well.

Numeracy

We have been learning about symmetry in Nursery, Mrs Keal introduced the concept with a group session on the carpet. We made a Symmetrical Man, using a range of different materials.

The children experimented with paint to make a one fold symmetrical picture.

   

Next, the children will be exploring position and direction. The children will have the chance to program Robot to help support their learning.

Mrs Dubber helped the children make some stain glass butterflies which look beautiful on the Nursery window.

Literacy

Our current focus in Literacy is Rhyming and Syllables.

Health & Wellbeing

This week we have been exploring Similarities and Differences and how we are all unique. Mrs Keal supported the children to collect data to find out the most/least popular Hair colour and Eye colour. The children counted and then took turns recording on the Graphs. We found out that Blond Hair and Blue Eyes were the most popular!

Transition

The Pre schoolers will be joining the p1 class to do some Jubilee Craft and fun play activities in the Active area on Wednesday 25th May and Tuesday 31st May at 1.30 p.m.

We will be heading to the park on Wednesday 1st June to have a Teddy Bears Picnic. We will also be starting to learn some new songs for our upcoming Graduation. Lots of fun and exciting things happening in Nursery.

P2/3 May Update

In numeracy we have been learning subtraction and have been understanding when it is best to use the inverse operation of subtraction.  To improve our mental agility of this we have taken our learning outside and have done a number search.  We will shortly be moving onto money and also revising our times tables facts.

In literacy we have been learning how to write instructions and the importance of them being clear and concise and not missing out any steps.  To build upon our imaginative writing skills, we have written instructions on how to catch a dinosaur should you ever come across one!

The children have been very engaged with our dinosaur topic are learning many facts about dinosaurs; where they lived, what different time periods there were and which dinosaurs lived in which time period.  They have also used Van Gogh techniques to paint volcanoes.

In health and wellbeing the children had great fun learning new skills; wall climbing, zorbing and archery.  We have also been learning about all the many emotions/feelings we can experience and we made a feelings wheel to support us with identifying our feelings to support us in speaking about them.

P6/7 Update April 2022

P6/7 have been focusing on a short film clip called Girl and Robot, linked to our new topic. Our writing over the last 2 weeks has been inspired by this clip. We did a lesson on emotions and tracked the emotions of the main character throughout the clip. We put this information into a line graph.

The children wrote descriptive pieces predicting what they thought would happen during part of the clip, before writing a diary entry this week from the character’s perspective.

Next week we will write a poem inspired by the Queen’s Jubilee. We will also be starting a new class novel next week.

The children have worked really hard in maths over the last 2 weeks. Last week we continued our learning from before the Easter holidays on decimals. We were learning to add, subtract, multiply and divide decimal numbers. This week our focus has been on percentages. We have learnt to find the percentage of a number, as well as linking fractions, decimals and percentages.

Next week we will be revisiting multiplication and division strategies to give children more confidence. Some children will begin learning about BODMAS.

In Health and Wellbeing, we have been learning about food and nutrition since returning after the holidays. We learned about the importance of a healthy, balanced diet. I asked the children to keep a food diary for a week, and this week they sorted their daily meals and snacks onto nutrition plates. The children then looked for any patterns they could see with the food they eat.

Next week we will develop our understanding of the nutritional needs of people who have different cultural requirements and backgrounds.

We have started our new topic this term, which is Inventions that Changed the World. The children have told me what they would like to learn. We kicked off our topic with a STEM challenge to design and build a theme park with only paper, scissors and glue.

We have worked as a class to create a new wall display, showing a timeline of inventions from the 70s to current day.

P2/3 Update April 2022

This term our topic is the children’s choice and the children have chosen prehistoric; dinosaurs and volcanoes.  The children have identified what they already know and what they want to know more about.  We will therefore be learning about when dinosaurs existed, how long they lived for, where they lived, comparing dinosaur facts and all about volcanoes.  The children are building upon their technology skills to being their investigating.

In p.e. we are going to be focusing on athletics; running, jumping and throwing.  The children have also been planning and designing their assault course for the other classes to complete during health week.  They have incorporated skills they have learnt this year in p.e. i.e. hockey skills, ball skills, balancing and throwing skills.  They have also thought about how each station can be differentiated for all stages.

For numeracy this term we are focusing on subtraction; working within 20, 100 and 1000.  We have revised what we have previously been taught and have been creating subtraction stories with a partner in a variety of ways and solving them.   We are now learning the inverse subtraction operation.  We are also continuing to build upon our mental agility in numeracy.  In mathematics we will be learning about Data Handling this term.

Within literacy our focus this term will be imaginative writing; creating interesting characters through their feelings, actions and physical description.  We will also build upon our proof reading skills by reading over what we have written and ensuring it makes sense.  The main focus of our comprehension will be based upon our new class novel; Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

 

 

P1 Update April 2022

In Literacy Primary 1 have started learning to recognise capital letters and form them correctly. We are continuing to work on our reading, tricky words and new sounds. The children are enjoying working in pairs teaching each other to write words with ee and oo sounds.

We are continuing to work on numbers to twenty,  subtraction to five and related vocabulary. In maths we are learning about money. This is a tricky topic for children who have not had much experience in shopping and handling coins. It would be very helpful if families could support their children at home by using a collection of coins to recognise and order [1p to £2].

In French we are working on colours and will be using this to give our school dinner orders.

In Health and Wellbeing we have discussed what goes onto and into our bodies, and what is  safe and not safe.

We have been practising races and games for our school sports in PE.

Our cross-curricular topic is ‘In the Garden’  and we are learning about plants and minibeasts through a variety of activities. We have learned about living and non-living things and have also been tending our tattie barrel in the garden.

Miss Robbie has been teaching us about beat and volume in music.

 

Primary 4-5 Update – April 2022

Maths

Primary 4-5 are still learning to read analogue and digital time with Miss Davie and calculate time durations. They will move on to reading and using timetables. With Miss Riley we are reading and drawing graphs, charts, and tables. We will be collecting data, interpreting it, and answering questions. The children still work on their mental maths skills at the start of the day or at the beginning of a maths lesson each day.

 

Literacy

The class are still working on their reading comprehension skills with Miss Riley and using these to answer questions on their reading books. We have been looking at Blooms Taxonomy and using each level to pick apart our books and create higher order thinking questions.

We wrote newspaper articles in the third person for our Easter holiday news and the children found this quite challenging! Lots of the children managed to include direct quotes and write in formal language which was excellent.

Music

The children are doing music with Miss Davie this term and are learning to read music and play accompanying music on the glockenspiel.

 

Modern Languages

Spanish – the class are learning foods, and to order food in a restaurant setting.

French – We have been learning to start a conversation and parts of the body. We then used our knowledge to create French monsters!!

 

 

Nursery Update April 2022

It was lovely to welcome the children back in after the Easter break.

This term we have started learning about planting and growing.

We discussed the various parts of a plant and what it needs to make it grow. All the children then chose a different seed and we have planted them into pots in the Nursery Garden.

We are also going to plant beans in a clear plastic pot so we can watch the roots and stem develop.

On Friday afternoons one of our parents has volunteered to come and do some gardening with the children. We are planning tidy the area and plant lots of exciting things….

The children have been making wooden hedgehogs in our woodworking area with another one of our parents. Learning how to be safe when using the different tools.

We are looking at repeating patterns in maths, can the children copy, continue, and create their own patterns

We have some caterpillars in Nursery so that will link with learning about lifecycles. We have also been discussing the lifecycle of a frog and the children made their own non-fiction zig zag books

We are continuing with our helicopter stories, in which the children create and then act out their own stories.

We are also having a sponsored bike ride and obstacle course and will be taking part in health week.