We have a ‘spring’ in our step!

May 19, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

Well it has been a busy few weeks at school and we have all been having lots of fun and lots of visitors. Our new topics are the Spring and the Seashore. Our class have been very excited because we have had some people in filming us from Promethean Planet and we have been meeting with a lady from the BBC and CBEEBIES who makes Nina and the Neurons. We had to watch some clips of Nina and then we said what we liked. Next we used our listening ears to listen to a radio show that Nina had made and we carried our the science experiments that she was talking about. We had lots of fun and we learnt lots of new words. Best of all, Anne who was our visitor got lots of ideas. Here is a link to the Nina page to share it with your family. We listened to the Sticky Materials show.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/nina-and-the-neurons/

In numeracy we have been learning lots and lots of new things. We have been learning all about sharing (division). We used the Promethean Board to read a story called The Doorbell Rings. It is all about a brother and sister who’s mummy makes them cookies. Mrs Mackay gave us cookies just like the boy and the girl got and we had to solve the sharing problems in the story. It was lots of fun and we were really good at using our thinking brains to divide well. Some of us even managed to work it out in written form too!

Lots of us enjoyed showing our families what we have been learning about dividing. Maddison even made a picture/model of what she had been learning using pasta.

We have also been learning all about fractions in numeracy. We looked at some pictures of pies and and we talked about what would happen if we cut the pie into different pieces. We knew lots of fraction words and we didn’t even know that’s what they were! We all got a paper plate and we had to cut it into smaller fractions and write on each part to say what it was. Next we had to fit the plate back together to help us to see how different pieces fit together to make the bigger fractions.

We have also been helping to create a beautiful school garden in our P1 playground. We were given a big tub full of soil and we had to plant plants in it and try to create a pattern using them. It was lots of fun and we were able to apply what we had been learning when we were planting our sunflower seeds in class to planting the flowers and the lavender bush. The flowers had roots and we had to shake them to loosen them up a little so that they can spread out and help them grow. We can’t wait for all our and the baskets that all the other classes planted to grow even more!

We had been thinking about the sorts of skills people need to do different jobs. Since we had been planting our sunflowers and our garden basket we decided that we would make a list of all the skills a gardener would need. We worked with our learning partner and discussed what skills we thought a gardener might need and we wrote them on a whiteboard. Then we gave our answers to Mrs Mackay and we made a class list. Some of us even went home and made a list of what skills the job we would like to do when we grow up might need.

At assembly we heard a talk from one of the older girls at school. She told us all about her life, where she and her family were from and what her culture was like. It was really interesting and we were really impressed that she was brave enough to stand up in front of the whole school by herself and talk about her life. Mrs McDonald was so impressed too that she asked all of us to think about our families, our cultures and heritage and create a mind map with our families. We all did a super job and Mrs Mackay and Mrs McDonald were both really impressed. Here are some of the mind maps we made;

We were also set a challenge to solve another problem for Mrs McDonald at assembly. She asked us to think about of ‘how to get our families involved in school more’. We talked to our teacher and made a mind map about that too. We had some terrific ideas and we hope that Mrs McDonald finds them useful.

Each term we have a focus on one of the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence. This term our focus is on us to be Responsible Citizens. We have been looking at one of the aspects of this each week and we have made a flipchart page to show us what each one means to us and to see if we are using any of these in our daily school lives. We have been looking at how we can be responsible and care about each other. This doesnt just mean in school but in our community too. Here are our ideas…

Since we are all son good at being Responsible Citizens our Eco Committe decided to have a Green Day. First of all our eco committee member told us all about it. He did so well that we all gave him a green assessment smile! Next, on Friday we had to come to school in something green. It could be green in colour or green because we had recycled it from someone else. We ALL made a huge effort and our teachers were very proud of us. Jamie Lee even made her own top with her family which was AMAZING because it was recycled from a school t shirt into an eco t-shirt and had a message on it! Well done her and her family!

In class we have been finding out who are our class champions. Class champions are people who have tried hard, shown good skills and can demonstrate to others how to do something well. At the moment we have 8 champions.

They are;

Responsible Citizen Champion – Corey

Reading Champion – George

Writing Champions- Carys (handwriting) and Wren (blending and sounding)

Listening and Talking Champion – Lara

Sports Champion – Kyra

Numeracy Champion – Becca (Number, Money and Measure (weight))

Technology Champion – Billy (design)

Friendship Champion – Edyn

We are still collecting our Monstor points using Class Dojo and we have been asked to talk to Mrs McDonald, the rest of the school and teachers about what we have been doing. We are still doing really well with hitting our targets but in order to create our presentation we had to work with our learning partner and note down some ideas that we thought would encourage other classes to use it. We made a list using these on the big board and we have been taking photos of our monsters, awards, champion of the day medal and head teacher stickers that we use along with our monsters. We are going to use all of these photos in our presentation at assembly… we are all very excited!

We have been trying to keep fit during our Fit Fridays and we have had lots of fun having a taster session of Karate. It was so much fun. We had to be in teams and follow the Sensei (the teacher). To make it easier to follow him we all wore a red and blue band on our wrists. This made it easier to work out which was our left and right hands and feet. It was great and we were really excited to hear that we could all join the after school club on a Friday. We all got a letter but if you are interested and can’t find your letter please phone the school or the sports development team.

We have been learning lots of lots in music this term. We have been learning all about tempo and beats as well as LOTS of new songs! We have been playing instruments and singing everyday! Keep an eye out for your invitation to our assembly where you will hear some of our new songs!

Edyn has enjoyed learning how to play the instruments so much that she and her family even made their own musical instrument- it’s a guitar!

We have some visitors in class… We have been learning how to care for not just our class fish but we have been observing tadpoles and helping them to grow big and strong into frogs! We will have some pictures of you next week but here is a video clip of them in the wild.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/green-balloon-club/watch/green-balloon-club-tadpoles/

Lastly, our teachers have been playing a very fun game with us to see what we know. Some of us have been practising this ourselves and have been making a sound sheet using all of the magnetic sounds we know and take a picture of it. Here are the sounds Wren knows.

Week Beginning Monday 20th May 2013

Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please).

The sunny weather is here (sort of) – remember to bring in your own lotion (your child must put their own on) and sun hat on the sunny days.

HOMEWORK – Please send it to school every day but any tasks should be completed by Wednesday. The teacher will collect in the weeks work on Wednesday. Each week there will be a Yellow Book Challenge to do but you can pick which challenge you want to do from a list of 3 each week. There will be no homework on a Wednesday night.

Gym is on a Monday -please remember long hair will need to be tied back and no jewellery. This means all earrings must be removed. Thank you.

Fruit money for this half of the term is £1.40 please place in a named envelope.

Please return your child’s trip form and money as soon as possible (these do not have to be sent in together).

Our class topic is ‘The Seashore”.

PLEASE NOTE THE SCHOOL IS CLOSED ON FRIDAY 24TH MAY AND MONDAY 27TH MAY.

Buttons T Bear

April 23, 2013 User deactivated 1 Comment

A special package arrived in Primary 1 and P1/2 on Monday morning.

No one knew what was in the package but it was addressed to Mrs Munro and sent to Dens Road Primary School. We opened the package and look what we found!

Buttons T Bear was in the box with his passport. He had come all the way from Killarney in Ireland. Buttons belongs to a class or 4 and 5 year olds. In the box we also found photos and information about their surrounding area. Their school is right beside a National Park. We loved the photographs they put in the box of red deer that live in the National Park. Buttons has a special job at Killarney. He sits beside the boys and girls and helps them with their work. And listens to their stories and gives them a cuddle if they are upset. We looked at Killarney on Google Earth. It is a long way away.

Buttons set to work with the boys and girls in the Active Learning Zone.

He helped them choose where they were playing.

He went to the bricks and helped the us build.

He went to the writing table to help us write.

We drew pictures for him too.

He went to the Weather Studio and helped tell the weather.

He went to the computer and played on Education City to help him with his Literacy and Numeracy.

He went to the Skills table where he helped us with our adding and taking away skills.

He went to the story corner and lots of us read him stories.

When he was in the story corner he made lots of friends with the other bears that live there.

He also get a little bit dirty. But he loved painting daffodils!

We have made Buttons a book to show all the boys and girls in Killarney what Buttons has been doing.

Buttons T Bear will be starting on his travels again. I wonder where he will be going next! We will have to wait and see…..

Things That Go Vroom…

April 1, 2013 User deactivated 1 Comment

This week in the Active Learning Zone we have been learning about things that go and what makes them go. We started with a mind map of the things we knew about moving and what makes them move.

On the Science table we have been investigating lots of toys that move. We have the BeeBots, the remote control cars and toy cars. We have talked about the things that make them move eg. batteries and chargers which need electricity.

We have had lots of opportunities to find out about things that go and how they go through lots of activities. At the art table we have been painting a truck.

We designed a road for our cars and garage and lots of us helped and added to it.

At the Promethean Board we have been thinking about what things need to go. We have been drawing lines to match up the car with petrol, the hair dryer with electricity and the remote control cars with batteries.

At the playdough table it has been invaded by trucks and lots of rocks! We have been creating a bit of a construction site.

Last but not least we have been answering some blooms thinking questions. We had some super answers and have great knowledge about things that go and how they go. We are going to continue to explore things that go more in the Active Learning Zone.

Week Beginning Monday 15th April 2013

Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please).

Gym is on a Monday and Thursday. Please remember long hair will need to be tied back and no jewellery. This means all earrings must be removed. Thank you.

Fruit money for this term is £1.40 please place in a named envelope.

Please return your child’s trip form and money as soon as possible (these do not have to be sent in together).

The first week back we will be learning about Spring.

Monsters (and some have a red nose)!

March 15, 2013 User deactivated 2 Comments

This has certainly been a busy and slightly unusual week for all of us. On Friday it was Comic Relief which we have been calling it Red Nose Day. The main thing that made it strange is that we all came to school either dressed in our pajamas, onesies or red clothes… even the teachers!!! We all thhought this was very funny. Then we had a special day of things ahead. First of all we got to go to the special ‘red’ tuck. We got to buy lots of sweets, cakes, treats, jelly, juice and other lovely things- it was fab! We were all very happy because we were helping a charity and we were getting to eat treats! YUM. Primary 6/7 were organising it and they did a super job!

After that we got to go to a special zumba session. We all got very red in the face because it was so hard but it was lots of fun too.

We watched a video and talked about why we were doing all these fun things and we watched a video about a little boy in Kenya, Africa called Robert who is 8. We discovered that some things in his life were the same as ours. He liked football, playing with his kitten, and playing games like hide and seek and we all agreed that we like doing those things too. We found out that some parts of his life were very different though. His house was very different and the way his family lived was different too. We felt a bit sad at the start but we realised that the money we were raising would help people like Robert and lots of other boys, girls, men, women and families in the UK and in Africa. We felt really happy that we were helping and very proud of ourselves. The video is below if you want to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMBu4xr_wvk&feature=player_embedded

At the creating table some of us made our own red noses and red nose pictures.

In the afternoon the people who had made it through the class talent show performed in the Comic Relief Talent Show Final! We had lots of different acts during our class performers. We had karate shows, dancing, singing, magic, and lots. lots more. In the end there could only be three perfomances for the final and from P1 we had;

The Primary One Dance Troupe (dancing and singing to Starships)

Becca, Wren, Maddison, Billy and Jamie Lee

The Jokers (telling jokes)

Josh, Chamseddine and Leyan

The Amazing Hula Hoopers (accompanied by the very bendy Erin)

Kyra and Carys

The show was in front of the whole school and we wowed and amazed and we all did very well.There were 29 acts altogether and in the end the winner was the P5 dancers , and in 3rd place it was Casey from p3/4 but in a superb 2nd place it was…..

The Primary One Dance Troupe (dancing and singing to Starships)

Becca, Wren, Maddison, Billy and Jamie Lee

We are all really proud of them and they are going to recieve a special award at assembly. Some of the comments about our performances were “amazing”, “they are so talented”, “wow” and ” brilliant”. Lots of people told us we could be on the TV we were so good!!!

We got surprise on Monday because we did know that we had monsters in our class. They had come to help us learn well and and to follow our class and school rulesEverybody got their own monster and they are all different. When we are doing something well we give our monster a point this can be if we are being sensible, well behaved, hard working, being polite, being respectful, creative or lots more. If we are not following the class or school rules we have took take a point away from our monster.

Everyday we see who has the most points and that person wears the special points champion rossette for the day and they get a special sticker from Mrs MacDonald.

We have been set a challenge by Mrs Mackay and if we can log on at home, in the library or on our grown ups phones we can change our monster to whatever design we want and we can share how we have been getting on at school with our families. Mrs Mackay sent a sheet home to show everyone what the page looks like and we even get a point if we log on ( don’t worry if you can’t though!).

Mrs Mackay set us the challenge of getting at least 15 points each by Friday but we all did so well that we earned a whopping 548 green points (they are the fab ones!) and just (21 red points (they are the not so good ones!). She is VERY proud of us and we are all enjoying using it that we showed Mrs MacDonald. She was so impressed we are going to give a little presentation at assesmbly and tell the rest of the school about it and the skills it is giving us! If you want to know more or see what we are talking about here is a link to a video telling you all about it! If anyone is having any problems getting onto their page just write a not your green books and Mrs Mackay will try to sort it out for you.

http://youtu.be/KaeNSYJvrn0

This week with Ms Gauld we learned all about the Green Protector Food Group. This is the groups which is made up of fruit and vegetables. We had to taste different foods and then write about the food we were trying. We tasted peas, grape juice , mango juice, tomato juice, lemon juice, bananas, oranges, and lots more. We learnt that we grow fuit and vegetables from seeds and we saw a model to help us understand. We learned that they are really good for you but they do contain sugar so we shouldnt eat loads of them but we mu8st try to eat at least five portions every day.

In numeracy we are learning all about the half past time. We can tell it on a digital clock and on an analogue clock. We played a matching game with cards on clocks. It was easy because we worked as a team. We have also had to draw the hands on analogue clocks to show what the time was. It was a bit tricky because we had to read the digital time first!

In literacy we are continuing to write our stories about our pet penguin. There are some amazing ideas and we are all being super creative! We had to use our thinking triangle again and also our thinking flowers. Here is what we got written down this week.

As part of our yellow book homework challenges we have been thinking about what we do in a day and when we do it, looking for signs of spring ( although the snow this week made that a wee bit tricky, and playing a game with our families. We all did really well Kyra played hungry hippos and ‘let’ her dad win 3 times! Kaitlyn played a gingerbread man with her brothers and Sameer played the sounds game with his mum and brother. Here are some of the other pieces of fab homework completed this week!

In the Active Learning Zone we have been practising time. We have been investigating this on the Numeracy table looking at watches, clocks and stop watches. We have been playing a game on the iPad called What’s the Time Mr Wolf. We have to match the correct time to the clock. At the end of the game we have to save our score.

We have been continuing to learn about Nature and habitats and are still exploring our Nature Table.

Week Beginning Monday 18th March 2013

There is our annual school Bingo on Thursday night – please see office for tickets and help us raise money for the new Activtable. We would love to see you there (pupils must be accompanied by a grown up).

Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please).

Gym is on a Monday and Thursday. Please remember long hair will need to be tied back and no jewellery. This means all earrings must be removed. Thank you.

Fruit money for this term is £1.40 please place in a named envelope.

Please return your child’s trip form and money as soon as possible (these do not have to be sent in together).

This week we will be learning about counting in 10’s(numeracy), writing a story with a beginning, middle and end (literacy) and the purple food group (sweets and sugar) (healthy and wellbeing).

Time on Desert Island Books

March 9, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

In numeracy we have been learning all about time. We started by creating a mind map. In green we wrote all the things that we already know about time. In orange we wrote what we want to learn about time and in purple we wrote how we would like to learn. We all talked about what we would like to do with our role play area and we decided that we would like to have a clock shop in the classroom to help us learn about time. We thought about what resources and activities we would need in a clock shop so we all made a plan of what we would need. We also had to think of a name for our shop. We decided to call our shop Mr Wolf’s clock Shop. We love playing in our clock shop and we have been putting prices on things to help us learn about money, sorting broken and working clocks and writing the times. We have even been making our own clocks to practise telling the time with at home.

At the writing table we have been practising writing and sounding out using blend sounds. We were surprised when we came in to find that the Easter Bunny had visited us and left us an early Easter present of eggs….but not just ordinary eggs they were spelling eggs. We have to turn the eggs and match up the sounds to blend them together to make words. Once we have read them we have to sound them out to write them.

In health and wellbeing we are still learning all about the food groups with Ms Gauld. This week it was the pink builders. In this group there are things which contain protein. This is the group which helps you to build muscles and can help keep your blood healthy. We couldnt do any taste testing this week but we did play a game on the computer with Mrs Mackay where we had to select the healthiest food possible from a supermarket and put it in our trolley, from a cafe and put it on our tray and when we made our breakfast. It was good fun and we had to think carefully about what foods where in which groups as well as thinking about how much of each of the different types of food we should eat to stay healthy.

We are still learning all about Lost and Found, our moving images education project. This time we had to record what we liked and disliked about the book and the film. We did a SATA which is when we Sit About Talk About to share our thoughts and opinions with our friends then we wrote our thoughts on a paper and stuck it on the book or the film board. We all got different colours of paper so we could see which ones were our ideas. We also took a picture of everyone together who liked the film and everyone who liked the book then we wrote in a speech bubble to tell people why we thought that. In our class only one person, Becca, liked the book the best and 22 people liked the film the best.

We have been very busy in art recently and we all made a penguin as we have been researching lots about them for our topic. We decided that it would be a good thing to write and imaginative story about. So this week, for World Book Day we started to write our own story. On the first of day we used our used thinking triangle and flowers to remember and apply so that we could give our Penguin a character name. Next, we had to think about some information for our penguin character using our analysing flower. We had to think about some facts about our penguins so that we could use them to build our story. We were all very creative and are looking forward to writing our stories next week too. When they are finished we are going to turn them into a class book for our library area.

We got a surprise package in the post this week. A very nice doggy sent us a fab book with lots of pictures to put in our story area. We love hearing about the adventures Mrs Mackay’s dog has so when we found out that one of her dog friends had written a book we were very excited. Mrs Mackay told us that the dog, Spaniel Harry, was a famous dog because he interviews people just like the people on the news, and he writes books. He sent us a picture of himself which we put on the wall and he sent us the book. We all love reading the book to see what words we know and we all love looking at the pictures.

We also got to watch a short film that taught us about other jobs that dogs can do. It had Spaniel Harry in it too but this time he had a friend called Nelson the firedog. Nelson has a very important job with the FireBrigade and he helps the fire fighters work out where the fire started and because he has a special nose he can smell lots of things that the human fire fighters can’t. Nelson doesn’t wear a fire suit like human fire fighters but he does wear special boots to stop his feet from getting hurt.We were excited to find out that animals can sometimes need skills for work too!

We all talked about staying safe and we got a special task to go home and get our grown ups to check that our fire alarms worked and to remind our grown ups to check them. Here is a link to the video we watched …

Harry and Nelson really captured our imaginations and lots of us drew pictures of them but they also got us thinking about what jobs we would like to do when we are older and what skills we would need. Edyn and Carys want to be artists becuase they are good at art. Maddison decided she wants to be a ‘police girl’. She made a list of the skills she needed in her yellow homework book.

We were looking around our room this week and we decided that we wanted to make our library a bit more interesting.

First we made a plan of our ideas. we used orange to show what ideas we had about what we wanted it to look like, purple to show what activities we wanted to have in the library and we used blue to show what we wanted to put into the new library area.

Next we set about changing it. We went with an island theme and we have called it Desert Island Books. It is now much more busy and we love using the cushions to lie under the blue twinkly stars and read or listen to a book.

We have been doing so much reading we decided to start a book rating system. We can write a book review, draw a book review or take a picture with our favourite book and a star strip.

In ICT we are getting really good at logging on with our individual log ins and passwords independently. We are also really able when programming a beebot (and a HUGE thank you to Kyra’s dad who helped Mrs Mackay and Mrs Munro out by fixing a beebot!).

We took part in a GlowMeet with lots and lots of other schools all across Scotland. It was called Flushed with Success? The RIGHT Big Toilet Debate. and it was lead by Tam Baillie who has a very important job. He is Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People (which basically means that he want to make sure that we all stay healthy, happy and safe). We had to talk about what our school toilets were like. We had to vote and type talk o other schools. It was really interesting and we all did very well.

This Sunday is Mother’s Day so we thought is would be nice if we made someone we cared about a card. First we had to fold our card, then we had to stick in a message and write who our card is to and who it is from. Next, we got our hands painted and we made a hand print on the card. We turned our hand into a flowering plant by sticking a flower petals and a flower pot on to the card. We think that they look fab and our special person will really love receiving them.

Lastly, Mrs Mackay got a surprise this week from Josh and Lara. Josh made her a beautiful pot on his potters wheel and Lara brought her in some flowers to put in it. It was so kind of them and Mrs Mackay loves her vase and her flowers. It makes her desk look fabulous. Thank you!

Week Beginning Monday 25th February

Friday 15th March is Red Nose Day- come to school in your pyjamas and bring £1. There is a cake and candy stall for pupils (donations welcomed) so bring some money for that too if you want to buy some cakes and treats.

Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please).

Gym is on a Monday and Thursday. Please remember long hair will need to be tied back and no jewellery. This means all earrings must be removed. Thank you.

Fruit money for this term is £1.40 please place in a named envelope.

Please return your child’s trip form and money as soon as possible (these do not have to be sent in together).

This week we will be learning about Time – half past o’clocks(numeracy), writing a story with a beginning, middle and end (literacy) and representing our school for Red Nose Day (healthy and wellbeing).

Trees, Bees and a Highland Fling!

February 23, 2013 User deactivated 1 Comment

This week was another busy week for us. In number work we have been completing some pages in our new Check Up booklets. These are our new workbooks which are very special because they give us lots of questions and let you teachers know how we are getting on. We have been showing how much we know about subtraction and we know a lot! Mrs Mackay and Mrs Munro are very proud of us!

Everyday we have been practising our addition and subtraction using our Activexpressions and a Self -Paced flipchart. These are lots of fun and we all like to see how well we are doing at the end. It also lets our teachers see how were are getting on and we have gotten so good that we have moved up a level! Two of us have now completed training to become Activexpression Experts. Well done to Corey and Magnus who got their certificates at assembly this week.

In art this week we have been making beautiful cherry blossom art pictures. The skill we were learning was printing. First we got out the paint we needed. We decided that we needed some brown paint for the tree and then we needed pink paint for the cherry blossom but Mrs Mackay said that she didn’t have pink paint and could any of us think what we could do to make some. George and Maddison pulled on their thinking hats and said that they thought we should mix red and white together to make pink so we tried that and it worked! Next, we got some empty water bottles to print with. We got long pieces of paper and made our beautiful pictures.

In ICT we are building on our skills using programmable Beebots. We worked in teams and each had a different activity at each station. At the first station we had to programme the Beebot to go to the letter our name starts with. At the second station we had to programme the Beebot to go the money that out team picked . At the third station we had to programme the Beebot to go the number our team selected on the mat and finally, at the fourth station Mrs Mackay gave us a challenge to move the Beebot to a picture on a Beebot mat and she assessed us. It was lots of fun and we enjoyed moving around and trying to programme the Beebot.

In health we have been learning all about different food groups. This week it was the turn of the Yellow Builders. These foods are things like potatoes, pasta, rice and bread. We tasted lots of different types of bread ( and none of the ones we tasted were like the bread we get on our sandwiches!) The most popular was the pretzel bread and the garlic bread. We also got to use some of the foods from the yellow builders to create pictures. We were very creative. Kaitlyn made a picture of a sailing boat and Chamseddine created a dinosaur using the pasta, rice and noodles.

On Friday we had two special events. We had our Gym lesson but instead of Mrs Mackay, Miss Davies or Mrs Paton teaching us it was two proper gymnasts. They were really nice and played lots of fun warm up games and cool down games. They wanted to teach us how to move our bodies in lots of different ways and using lots of different equipment. We had to balance, use forward rolls and pencil rolls, jump and hop around a circuit. Billy was very good at balancing, Wren was brilliant and bunny bouncing, Lara was super at leaping on the vault, and we all amazed Mrs Mackay at doing forward rolls and pencil rolls. The ladies told us about a club they are running and we will take a leaflet home on Monday to show our grown ups.

In the afternoon, we had our Highland Games. It was lots of fun and we all found out what house we were in. Some of us were in the blue house called Baxter, some were in the yellow house called Dudhope, some of us were in the green house called Caird and the rest of us were in the red house called Camperdown. The house we are in will stay the same all the way through to P7 until we leave Dens Road Primary. We had to cheer our team on, most of us were supporting our teams but some us were chosen by our house captains to take part in the races and events. Billy and Edyn were on the Caird (green) team, Leyan was on the Dudhope (yellow) team, Kayla was in the Baxter (blue) team and Michael from P1 in P1/2 was in the Camperdown (red) team. They all did really well at games like toss the caber, hurl the wellies, leap the burn and lots more. In the end the Primary 7’s added up the scores and the Dudhope Team won! They got certificate and a team trophy. All the other teams did so well so they got a certificate too and we all had a great time!

As part of our homework this week we had three challenges to choose from we could write or draw things which make us happy, we could write a dragon story or book just like the Chopsticks story we heard or we could draw or make our own Chinese dragon. We all really come up with some amazing homework and we wanted to share it with you so here are some samples of what we did with our families.

Week Beginning Monday 25th February

Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please).

Gym is on a Monday and Thursday. Please remember long hair will need to be tied back and no jewellery. This means all earrings must be removed. Thank you.

Fruit money for this term is £1.40 please place in a named envelope.

Please return your child’s trip form and money as soon as possible (these do not have to be sent in together).

This week we will be learning about Time (numeracy), Lost and Found (literacy) and throwing skills (healthy and wellbeing).

There is no drag-on our school day! Kung Hei Fat Choi!

February 16, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

This has been a very funm busy and exciting couple of weeks for us. We had a long weekend and we have been learning all about Chinese New Year! Did you know that the Chinese New Year holiday lasts for two weeks but there is one special day and on that day everyone wishes each other ‘Kung Hei Fat Choi’ which means happy new year and good fortune.

We decided to make our role play area a Chinese resaurant and we thought about all the different things we would need. We looked in some books to get some ideas. Some were fiction (which means they are imaginative books) and some were non fiction (which means that they are all about real events, objects and facts which are true). In one of the books we discovered that Chinese people eat with chopsticks instead of cutlery so we put these in our restaurant and we also saw that people ate sitting on the floor at a low table so we put cushion to sit on instead of chairs. We all really love being in the restaurant and practising using the chopstick to eat as well as using the wok to cook in.

We learnt that instead of presents Chinese people give each other red envelopes with letters of good luck inside and money ( we all liked that idea!). Sometimes at family meals there would be a decoration covered in red envelopes and people would take one when they when home. We have been trying our some Chinese writing at our writing table and some of us made our own red envelopes to give to our friends.

Did you know that the Chinese New Year is named after an animal? 2013 is the year of the snake. We wanted to know about why the years were named after animals and how they worked out which order they would come in. We heard a story all about a race which the Emperor’s daughter organised because all the animals wanted to go first. We all really enjoyed the story and lots of us said that we thought that it was a very clever way to solve the problem.

To try to help us remember the sequence of the animals who won the race by completing a cut and stick worksheet. It was tricky but we all did well.

In literacy we all completed a fact sheet to show what we have been learning about Chinese New Year. Some of the pictures we had to draw were already in our classroom and that really helped us.

In art we all made our own Chinese dragon puppet. We had to design a head design and tail design then fold the paper carefully using the fold and flip method. We all did really well and were so excited about them we all took them straight home to share with our families!

In music we have been learning about chinese music and rhythm which is the musical word for pattern. We learnt two songs. One was about two tigers and the other song was called Gong Xi which means good fortune. We were really good at singning them so we played some musical instruments following the rhythm. We used a tambourines, indian bells, symbols and wooden blocks. It was really fun and we are looking forward to learning some more songs and trying to play different rhythms.

We were lucky to work with Ms Gauld this week. She let us taste and smell lots of Chinese foods. We even got to wear some chinese clothes. It was all really good fun and we learnt lots. Almost all of us thought that the smell of ginger was the nicest thing.

On Tuesday we were all really hungry because it was Pancake Day which is sometimes called Shrove Tuesday.

Some of us remembered that we had read a reading book where Dad makes pancakes ( but they don’t eat them which we thought was funny). We all talked about the ingredients that Dad needed and we made a list. Then Mrs Mackay showed us a recipe on the promethean board and we talked about what it tells us to do and equipment we would need if were going to make pancakes at home would be. Next, we made our own recipe sheet and made a super job of it!

Before we went home we read a really funny book called Mr Wolf’s Pancakes. Mr Wolf was really trying to be nice to all his neighbours but they are all horrible and use terrible manners. Nobody would help Mr Wolf but he still managed to make his pancakes in the end but then his mean and rude neighbours turn up at his door and demand some pancakes (how rude!)…. don’t worry Mr Wolf soon gets his own back but we don’t want to give away the ending!

In ICT we have been learning all about using programmable resources like Beebots and controling the turtle by progamming his path. We all to take turns programming the Beebots to travel to our friends then we took part in a Beebot Challenge where we had to work out how to make our Beebot make a pattern on the floor. We made shapes, flowers and went forward and back as well as in a circle.

We are still learning all about subtraction in numeracy. We are all getting much faster and able to answer more questions correctly using the activexpression in self paced challenges in addition and subtraction every day. We are also finding tha cubes really helpful when we are working out our subtraction and addition work in the classroom and ALZ. After we finish our work we self evaluate and then we show it to our teachers and they evalute our work too. It helps us to think carefully about what we can do well, what we need to work on and we are getting so good at it that we normally have the same evaluation as our teachers.

This week we had our Open Afternoons. It was lovely to see so many of our families and we enjoyed showing them around our classroom and Active Learning Zones. We also had fun telling our grown ups about what we have been learning by going through our folios with them. After their visits our grown ups left us a note in our special folder.

Week Beginning 18th February 2013

Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please).

HOMEWORK – Please send it to school every day but any tasks should be completed by Wednesday. The teacher will collect the weeks work on Wednesday. Each week there will be a Yellow Book Challenge to do but you can pick which challenge you want to do from a list of 3 each week. There will be no homework on a Wednesday night.

Gym is on a Monday and Thursday. Please remember long hair will need to be tied back and no jewellery. This means all earrings must be removed. Thank you.

For the pupils who applied for tennis club it will begin on Monday 18th at 3.15pm – 4.15pm. Please check with the office or class teacher if you are unsure of anything or if your child has a place. Thank you.

What a SENSATIONAL time we have had!

February 2, 2013 User deactivated 2 Comments

We what an exciting and busy week we have been having in Primary One! We have been learning all about Scotland and all things Scottish over the past couple of weeks. We started off by learning a poem by J.K Annand call Nessie. It was all about Nessie the Loch Ness monster. We had a competition and four of us made it to the final which will be judged by Mrs MacDonald and Mrs Fraser. Well done to Kyra, Billy, Wren and Carys!

We also watched a little story about the Loch Ness monster on our Promethean Board and then we had to think carefully about we had seen and heard. We had to put pictures in the right order and we could read some sentences to give us a help.

We had lots of fun dressing up in some traditional Scottish clothes and learning a Scottish dance called the Flying Scotsman. It is named after a train and we even get to make a choo choo noise during it… we all had lots of fun!

In health we were learning all about foods which come from Scotland. Some of them were new to us but we enjoyed tasting and trying lots of different foods. A lot of us decided that we really liked eating Beetroot (even though it gave us purple fingers and tongues). We also got to complete different tasks including putting together a map of Scotland, Chamseddine was very good at this.

In art we made our own tartan pattern using paint. Some of us even made it in the most amazing tartan patterns in our homework books.

We were very lucky to go on a trip this week . We went to the Dundee Science Centre (Sensation) and had a great time being ‘explorers’. We learnt lots about different animals, about what a food chain is, about matching animal footprints to the animal they belong to and lots, lots more! We all went into groups and got to explore different activities and had a great time whilst we were learning. Here are some of the photos we took.

We also had a fantastic surprise. Mrs Munro arranged for an ActivTable to come to our school for a couple of days so we could have a look at it, some of us could use it and we could decided if we thought we should get one. We loved it and saw that it was a bit like a table but instead of the table top you would normally get it was a huge computer screen that we could touch and use- it was FANTASTIC. The boys and girls in our class told the rest of us about it and about what they learnt whilst using it. We filled in a sheet to give to Mrs MacDonald and Mrs Fraser to tell them about why we think we should get one and what we thought of it.

We took some pictures of us using the ActivTable. It was fab we played games that helped us to learn about money. We used maps to find things. There were musical instruments for us to learn about and learn all about timing. There was a pond which we could run our fingers through and touch the fish (Mrs Mackay and Mrs Munro thought that was very relaxing!) and lots more!

We have been learning all about problem solving in the last few weeks. During assembly Mrs MacDonald and Mrs Fraser have been setting us problems to solve. We tell our teacher what they are are and then we try to come up with some solutions to the problem. We have been using our thinking triangle and flowers to help us. After we have come up with as many solutions as we can we think about what skills we have used. We are doing really well with it!

This week was our 100 Days of School!!!! We have been counting everyday we come in and on Thursday we counted that we had been at school for 1o0 days! We counted all the bears in our number chart. We made ourselves a party hat with the number 100 on it and 100 spots. We said that we would need 10 strips because there are 10 rows in our number square and on each of the 10 strips we had to put on 10 spots because each row in our number square had 10 numbers on it. We also made necklaces with the number 100.

We enjoyed lots of different activities using a flipchart and we listened to a counting song which we all loved. Click the link below to listen and watch at home.

http://youtu.be/e0dJWfQHF8Y

Mrs Bell came and helped us to explore where 100 steps would take us. It was lots of fun. Some us ended up in different classrooms, some us found ourselves in the teachers staffroom (where we don’t normally get to go so shhh!), and some of us even found ourselves in Mrs MacDonalds room. It was lots of fun!

We all decided that because it was such a special day we should have a party to celebrate. We all made a centipede cake and gave it 100 legs and 100 spots and then we iced it. Our teachers had changed our classroom around so that we could all share some party food with our friends. We had lots of food which we had to make into the number 100. We played party games in the hall and some of us won a prize.

Week Beginning 4th February2013

Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please).

Gym is on a Monday. Please remember long hair will need to be tied back and no jewellery.This means all earrings must be removed. Thank you.

Fruit money will be £1.00 until the mid term break in February.

Next week is Chinese New Year Week

SCHOOL WILL BE CLOSED ON

THURSDAY 7TH FEBRUARY
FRIDAY 8TH FEBRUARY
MONDAY 11TH FEBRUARY

WE WILL BE HAVING A OPEN AFTERNOON EVENT IN P1 ON TUESDAY (12TH), WEDNESDAY (13TH) AND THURSDAY (14TH). Please come along between 2.45 – 3.15pm on any of these days. Your child can show you around the classroom and ALZ and will share their learning in their folio with you.

It’s all adding up in our new year!

January 18, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

What a busy time we have been having since we came back from our holidays! We have all been talking about what we would like to challenge ourselves to do for the new year. We even learnt the long word ‘resolution’. We all talked talked to our families about what we would like to write and some of us wrote it in our yellow jotters then we all wrote it on our resolution sheet to put in our folios.

We also have some new friend in our class (thanks to Mrs Paton!). We have some pet fish but some went on holiday and never came back so our fish ‘Goldie’ was getting lonely. We were so excited when Mrs Paton said that she had two fish who she found out wanted to find a new home! We decided that we couldn’t just call our new pets ‘fish’ so we decided to name them. We all thought of a name we liked and put in on a flipchart. Some of the names were very unusual but some of us thought of the same names as our friends. We had so many names that we all took turns to vote for our favourite one – some of us even decided that we liked other peoples ideas instead of our own. Once we had all voted we counted the results and the top two won. Meet Goldie (our old fish), Meemo (our goldfish who is orange) and Twinkle (our goldfish who is orange with a golden tummy).

In number work we are still practising our adding up. We have been using lots of things to help us work out the answer and some of us have really gotten the hang of it! We have been looking at finding the missing numbers in addition sums. It is tricky but we got there in the end!

Our water tray turned into a magical science experiment. We were all amazed when Mrs Mackay said that a special box had appeared and it was full of snow. Lots of us thought she was kidding because it was not very big but she told us that it was a science experiment made with magic. She showed us what was inside and explained that this bag was full of snow. We didnt think that this was right because the bag was just small and the same size as her head. She asked us if we could think of what we might have to do. George had the idea that snow is made of water so maybe we needed water to make the snow so we tried and something magical happened…. we got cold, snow and lots of it… the white powder reacted with the water and got bigger and bigger until we had lots!!! We have all enjoyed playing with it and investigating what would happen and how it feels.

We have been planning what we we want to know about our new topic ‘Lost and Found’. We watched the film which we thought was very sad but then we were very happy at the end (we even cheered!). We are really looking forward to learning more about the story. We enjoyed reading the book but were fascinated that some bits were the same and some bits were different. Some of us even noticed that there was a different illustrator because the way the pictures looked was different but the story was almost the same so it must be the same author.

Each week Mrs MacDonald sets the whole school a problem to solve. This week the problem was- what should be do about Friday afternoon activities. We decided that the best way to solve the problem was to make a mind map because Carys told us that it was important to plan if we want to do it well. So we all thought very carefully and we made a map with all our ideas on it. Then we picked the three that we thought would solve the problem the best and put a tick. We are very excited to see if our ideas will solve Mrs MacDonald and Mrs Frasers’ problem.

This term we are focusing on being Effective Contributors. We decided that the way to explain this is that we have to try our best, join in and be clear when we are explaining things. This week in our Folio Friday time we all looked at four of the ways we can be effective contributors. We looked at a picture for each one and thought about what we have done over the last two weeks that matched the picture then wrote it on the promethean board to record our ideas. We had lots of ideas. At the end we worked with our shoulder partner and shared if we each thought that we had been effective contributors. Then if we thought we were effective contributors we told our other shoulder partner what we thought we had done best from the four pictures we looked at.

In the ALZ we have been busy with more penguins!

We have made a tremendous Penguin adding wall to help with our adding stories.

We have also been self assessing. We are getting really good at it. Not just putting a green smiley face on but really thinking about if we needed help or managed it ourselves.

At the Promethean board we also have a flipchart to help us add. We need to find all the penguin friends that go together. Then write our name on it.

Week Beginning 21st January 2013

Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please).

Gym is on a Monday. Please remember long hair will need to be tied back and no jewellery. This means all earrings must be removed. Thank you.

Fruit money will be £1.00 until the mid term break in February.

Next week is Scottish Week

Remember to practise you Nessie poem at home for our Scottish Poetry Competition.

On Friday we are having a Scottish themed dinner. Remember to fill in your form if you want school dinners that day. Packed lunches run as normal.

It’s a New Term – Lost and Found

January 13, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

Our new topic is going to be Lost and Found.

If you want to watch it again at home you can find a link for it on this page…

http://www.literacyshed.com/the-picture-book-shed.html

In the Active Learning Zone this week…

we have been practising our adding stories with a little help from some penguins.

We have been looking for a penguin with a number on his tummy and he helps us with the numbers that go together to add up to that number. We will have lots more practise of this.

Also in the ALZ there is an igloo where we have been fishing.

And there is also Antarctica with lots of penguins.

At the making table we have been creating some wonderful penguins.

At the playdough table we made some snow dough. We had to mix together cornflour, vegetable oil and glitter. It is very messy! We have been learning to use the dustpan and brush to clean up after ourselves. Mrs Munro says it’s a good skill to learn!

Week Beginning Monday 14th Janurary

Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please).

Gym is on a Monday and Thursday. Please remember long hair will need to be tied back and no jewellery. This means all earrings must be removed. Thank you.