Author: Mr Cormack

P6/7 November 2021

In Literacy this term, we have written a recount of our October Holidays. I will assess this piece of writing, and then each child will set themselves writing targets to work towards in future writing lessons. The children wrote fantastic acrostic poems to mark Remembrance Day.

 

We have continued to focus on a new spelling rule each week, and the children have practised this in their homework and through spelling activities in class.

In Grammar, we have learned about Similes and Metaphors. We wrote a short piece of writing about a Haunted House, using similes and metaphors to bring our writing to life in the reader’s mind – this was very effective, and the children produced great pieces of writing! Later this term we will learn about more figurative language like personification.

After the holidays we continued with our topic of 2D and 3D shape in maths. We learned to calculate the area of different shapes using the correct formula. We learned about the properties of 3D shape by making posters with a partner, and to learn about the nets of 3D shapes we are currently building cities with nets in groups. Next week we will revisit multiplication and division before moving onto money.

 

In Health and Wellbeing, we have revisited topics of Friendship and Bullying. We learned about the 6 roles in a bullying situation, and some children shared their own experiences of being part of this. In PE, we have been learning about Netball on a Tuesday, and on a Thursday the children have been working to plan and deliver their own lessons to the class with a partner.

Our topic this term is Water and Chemical Reactions. We have so far learned about The Water Cycle, and have begun to explore how some countries do not have access to clean, safe drinking water and toilets. We calculated that we use, on average, 4095 litres of water per week just from flushing the toilets – the children were quite shocked!

 

 

To tie in with Bonfire Night and COP26, we created Glasgow Skyline artwork. We focused on creating the textures of the River Clyde with watercolour paint, then drew the reflections of the skyline on the water. We used different techniques to get the effect of fireworks in the sky.

 

P1/2 November Update

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful response to our Harvest Collection. The P1 children did an excellent job of sending letters and  collecting and sorting the donations. They  also made a card for every household. Primary 6/7 came to help the class to carry the bags of food over to Queen Elizabeth Court as we had far too much to carry by ourselves. The residents were very grateful and  all signed a lovely thank you card. To finish off our Harvest topic the children have also been learning about how Jewish people celebrate Sukkot. Next they will move on to finding out about Festivals of Light in different religions.

In Literacy the children have revised all the sounds they have learnt so far, begun the next set of sounds, and practised reading and making 3 letter words. They also learned about leaving finger spaces in between the words. All the children are taking reading books home now, and we are grateful that you are helping them to practise their reading skills. They are also practising reading their books  to their reading partners from P.6/7 . For this to work well, we need everyone to return the books to school the next day so that they can be used or changed over. We have been doing a variety of activities around the books that are in the Primary One Bookbug Pack, and later this term, the Librarian from Mearns Community Library will be coming to present these to the children.

 

In Numeracy the children have revised all numbers to 10 , practising counting and writing. They have had a hopping challenge to see how far they can hop and count accurately. They will be bringing home a tub with number words in it to practise reading and recognising. They have worked on the language of measurement, and used it in drawing different sizes of items, which was quite a challenge.

Our topic this term is ‘Toys Old and New’. Together the children sorted toys into old and new, made their own timelines to give them understanding of old and new, and discussed the materials that toys are made from. Next they will go even further back into the past and explore really old toys, so if you have any at home they would like to bring in to show the class, they may bring them in for Show and Tell on any day. Miss Robbie will be teaching the class about forces as part of this topic, while Mrs. Smith teaches the P6/7 class  Russian as their 3rd language. They have also being taking part in Drama related to the topic, using their bodies to move in different ways. So far they have successfully turned themselves in to teddies and very disciplined marching soldiers.

Keeping the pulse in different ways has been the focus of our Music lessons and we will be moving on to practising Christmas Carols. In Art we have worked on some Christmas activities that had to be prepared in advance, and will be moving on to using chalk and paint. Some children have still to bring in an old t-shirt or shirt to use as an apron, this is important when we are using these messy materials. In PE, ball skills has been the focus.

P2/3 Update – November 2021

In literacy last term we were extending our writing skills and were focusing on linking sentences using ‘and’ and ‘because’.  The children used their skills to write about their families, hobbies and our favourite toys.  This term we have been looking at formal and informal letters and the children have identified key features of a letter structure to help them construct their success criteria.  They have written a letter to their friend/family and a thank you letter to our dinner ladies thanking them for the lovely lunches they prepare for us every day.  We have also begun our Scottish Reading Challenge to increase our reading for enjoyment.

In numeracy some of the children have been learning to count in twos and identify odd and even numbers; some children have been learning about place value and have been adding hundreds, tens and ones; whilst others have been learning to write number names and ordinal numbers.  We have been building on our mental agility through beating our class scores on ‘hit the button’.  This can be played at home also, here is the link: Hit the Button – Quick fire maths practise for 6-11 year olds (topmarks.co.uk).

In expressive arts we have been learning about pointillism and have created different pictures using the pointillism technique.  We have also begun learning music through Charanga which is an online music resource.

Our Topic this term is keeping healthy.  We have thought of all the ways we can keep healthy and we have designed posters to share with other classes to remind them of the importance of hand washing to keep germs away.

Nursery update – November 2021

A few of the activities taking place in Nursery.

Literacy

This week is Scottish Book Week and the children have been sharing their favourite story books with the staff. We have been talking about the characters, their favourite part in the story and using the pictures to support them to retell the story.

Gym

This week we had great fun in Gym, with balloons. We practiced a range of skills throwing, catching and kicking the balloons. The children also shared with each other how they used other parts of their body to play with their balloon.

We then had a challenge to see how many times they could hit the balloon back and forth with a partner. The highest score was 7! We also had a balloon race where the children had to pass the balloon back under their legs. The last person ran to the front and the first group to the end of the Gym Hall won.

Numeracy

Our current focus is on measurement. We have been doing lots of measuring in nursery and have taken our learning into Fettercairn Woods. In the woods the children had fun finding sticks that were taller and shorter or longer and shorter than the ones the teachers found. We were also comparing the size of different objects and introducing putting them in order from smallest to biggest, shortest to tallest and shortest to longest. The children were also hugging trees and found that they were different widths. They came up with the idea to get others to join them linking arm spans around different trees to see, which was the widest tree in the Forest.

As a home school link to support the children’s learning at home. We sent home a measuring challenge. Included was a piece of ribbon 1m long. The children had to find things that were taller and shorter or longer and shorter than 1m. They have enjoyed sharing their findings with their peers and the teachers.

P4-5 Blog Update November

Literacy

Primary 4-5 have finished their final persuasive pieces of writing and we worked on a ‘final draft’ for these. They wrote a first draft which they checked against our steps to success and then edited it until they were happy that it was their best version!

The class are now learning about the features of a newspaper article and familiarising themselves by reading these before creating their own.

 

Modern Languages

P4-5 have been busy with both Spanish with Miss Davie and French with Miss Riley. In French, we are learning to give our opinion on different foods by saying ‘I like/dislike…because…’

 

In Spanish, the class have been creating amazing comic strips while learning about Spanish greetings and asking ‘how are you?’

 

Numeracy

The class have been working on Addition/Subtraction and have now moved on to multiplication and this will be followed closely by division. P4-5 practice their times tables every week for our ‘morning challenge’ (forwards, backwards and jumbled up) and this has had such a positive impact on their solving of multiplication problems as we got off to a flying start!

We are trying to find rules for our tables to make remembering them and using them easier for us.

 

Topic

The children really enjoyed our Scottish Geography and Landscape topic and finished off by making PowerPoint presentations after doing research about flooding in Scotland.

This term, our topic is inheritance so the children may come home asking questions about why they have blonde hair or are left-handed!

 

 

Health and Wellbeing

The class participated in a BBC live lesson for anti-bullying week and we identified the 6 roles that can be adopted in a bullying situation and what we can do to help – or ensure we don’t take on one of these roles without even realising we have!

In PE this term, the class are doing a block of fitness and we have been doing circuits. The children are working for one minute with a 45 second rest and trying to perfect their form or increase their reps each time. We are tracking our progress each lesson and the children love seeing their improvements each week!

 

Thanks so much to everyone who came to meet me last term for parents’ meetings. As always, if you need me, I’m always just an email away and you can get me on jodi.riley@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

Fettercairn Nursery Blog – October 2021

Just some of the activities, experiences and learning going on in Nursery.

There has been an invasion of Pirates in Nursery this week!!!

The children have been role-playing with the Pirate Ships. To extend their play Mrs Hardie supported the children to make pirate hats and telescopes.

 

As part of our Health and Wellbeing focus, we have been learning about, ‘Where our food comes from?’ Abi Brown has been helping her dad take in the Harvest in the Combine Harvester. She brought in photos and wheat to show the other children. Using the story of ‘The Little Red Hen’ we discussed how wheat turns into flour. The children were really excited to get to make their own bread roll.

 

Baking

After spotting some apple trees on our walk to the woods. One of the children asked if we could make something with apples, so we made apple crumble. Thanks to Mrs Craig for supplying the apples. The children are really enjoying baking and have had an interest in Ice-cream this week. We made a healthy Banana Ice-cream with frozen bananas, milk and honey, which Mrs Mackie donated. The honey came from Lyall’s Aunties Beehive. When we asked the children what they thought of it there was lots of thumbs up and yummy comments.

Helicopter Stories (Using our Imagination to create and act out our own stories – Literacy and Drama)

Mrs Keal introduced Helicopter Stories to the children this week. It is a great activity to develop the children’s creativity and imagination We started off by children acting out stories that other children had come up with. The children were fairy ghosts, monsters, spiders, crocodiles, birds, trees and we even had someone be the lightening!

Staff will now scribe the children’s own stories, which we will act out at Storytime.

A story shared by one of the children this week:

The Butterfly who eated the Monster

“The Butterfly goes into the woods and wakes up the monster. Then the Monster eated the Butterfly and the Butterfly hated the Monster.”

The End”

Woodland Wednesday

This week the children have been looking for signs of Autumn. They were collecting leaves and identifying the trees they come from.

Next week they want to build fairy houses in the woods.

P4-5 Blog Update September

IDL

Primary 4-5 have been learning about Scottish Geography and Landscape in our topic. We were learning about U-Shaped valleys left behind by glaciers in the ice age and had a look online at one in Glen Coe. We went for a walk around the village with Mr Gould, who is a geologist. He kindly volunteered his time to show us evidence of glaciers left behind in our landscape right here in Fettercairn! We learned about the red sandstone that is used in some of the buildings in the square that was brought down from the mountains thousands of years ago by glaciers.

(Some of this sandstone was used to build Mrs Hay’s house!)

 

Expressive Arts

Primary 4-5 used the knowledge they gained about glaciers to create some glacier landscape paintings in art. We spoke about the cool tones of the paint and used these to create a background of sea and sky, and then glaciers which we glued on top.

 

ALEC Virtual Session

On Monday this week, we enjoyed an online session delivered by Aberdeenshire Life Education Centre and the children recognised Harold the giraffe from previous in-school visits! Harold spoke to the children about keeping their brains and bodies healthy.

As always, if ever you need anything please feel free to contact me on jodi.riley@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

P6/7 September 2021

Over the last 2 weeks we have been planning and writing a newspaper article on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. The children have taken on the role of a journalist, and we have learnt about the key features of a newspaper article. When the children have completed their final draft, I will send a copy of the newspaper articles via Marvellous Me.

For our comprehension work this week, we focused on the ‘Metalinguistics’ reading strategy – this means we explored new words and researched the meanings. This helps the children develop a greater understanding of the text.

In maths this week we have focused on multiplication. Most children have focused on mental multiplication, and we have learned about the halving and doubling strategy to aid us when calculating multiplication problems. Here is the link to the video that we watched which explains the strategy – Multiplication Strategy: Doubling and Halving – YouTube

Some children have been working on long multiplication word problems.

In Health and Wellbeing, we discussed our emotions and our emotional needs. In pairs the children created different characters. I gave the children a range of scenarios, and they discussed whether or not their emotional needs were being met. The children came up with lots of positive coping strategies that we can use if we feel upset or down.

 

We learned about earthquakes for our topic this week. The children researched facts on the chromebooks to answer a range of questions about earthquakes and why they happen. This afternoon we carried out an experiment using jelly, marshmallows and straws – we tried to create an ‘earthquake-proof structure’ that would withstand 30 seconds of shaking in the jelly!

P1 Blog – September 2021

Primary 1 have been working on 2 new sounds, r and m, in Literacy. We have also been enjoying working with our first reading book. In writing we are practising writing our names correctly , retelling a story and thinking about beginning middle and end.

In Numeracy we have been working on ordering, writing and counting numbers to 5, and in Mathematics we are learning about 2d shapes, including squares, circles, triangles and rectangles. Please ask us about geometric shapes that we see when out and about.

We have been working on ball skills in PE, throwing, rolling and catching, aiming the ball and using opposite hands and feet. In Health and Wellbeing we are learning to listen to others and take our turn to talk at circle time. We are enjoying organising our School Harvest Collection and hope you received the letter we wrote about this. We are going to decorate collection boxes for each class to encourage people to bring in donations.

In Social Studies we have discussed the jobs that people do, especially the unseen jobs that are done in school by catering staff, janitor, cleaners and administrator. Mrs. Johnstone will visit our class to tell us about all the work she does.