counting | Dens Road P1 2012 2013

What a busy week we have had!

We did another sound from Jolly Phonics. This week we did ‘c’ and ‘k’. Just like the sound castanets make. We learnt them together because they sound the same and they have the same action even though they look different. We were very good at writing them on the computer , on whiteboards and on the sound sheets. Our teacher taught us a song about clicking castanets and kites to help us remember the sound and action.You can practise our sounds by looking at the sound book in your homework pocket. We still practise all the sounds we have learned so far.

We have been counting everyday and we been at school for 14 days. We can’t believe it because it’s flown in so quickly! In numeracy we were writing and counting all the way from 0 up to 10. We were writing them in different ways. Some of us are amazing at writing them on them whiteboards!

We had our photograph taken for the Evening Telegraph! Read all about it!!! Primary one are going to be in the paper, Dundee’s Evening Telegraph! Look out for it appearing in their P1 editions. This week we had our photograph taken by a lovely man called Bob from D.C. Thomson. We had to arrange ourselves into three groups. The tallest people sat on chairs, the smallest people stood behind them and the medium sized people sa on the floor. We were very good at arranging ourselves into groups . We were super and all said cheese! We looked very smart in our school uniforms! Our teachers, Mrs Mackay and Mrs Munro are going to print two big copies to put on our door and wall.

At assembly we practise our good listening. We like singing some songs and this week we learned some Makaton and sign language. Maddison got a star award this week for always trying her best especially with her sounds. Well done Maddison!

We listened to three more Sleeping Beauty stories. We are getting very good at telling Mrs Mackay and Mrs Munro about all the different parts of the book eg. the front cover, back cover, title. We remember that the author writes the story and the illustrator draws the pictures. We are beginning to predict what might happen next in the story too. Next week we are going to plan what we want to learn about Sleeping Beauty and how we can do that in our classroom and Active Learning Zone.

We have had our first reading books home! In school we have been finding out all about the Oxford Reading Tree family, Mum, Dad, Biff, Chip, Kipper and Floppy. The books we take home have no words yet but so we have to tell our families the story. We look carefully at the pictures to look for lots of detail. We really liked listening to the story and thinking about what is happening as well as predicting what we think might happen next. We all got a sheet with lots of games on it to play with our families and we practised playing some of these with our teachers. They are;

‘Find the…’

You and your child take turns to ask each other to find an object in the picture. This game can also be played after reading the whole book to revisit the story as well as familiar and unfamiliar vocabulary.

‘How many…’

See how many of the same object you can find in the whole book. This game can be played when your child has worded books eg how many the’s can you find in the story.

‘I think that this is the story….’

As your child to make up a new version of the story that fits the picture pages on the book.

‘What’s going to happen next is….’

Before you turn the page, ask questions to help your child recap what they have read via the pictures or what they have told you is the story. Before you turn the page, ask them to tell you what they think may happen next and also ask why they think that.
‘Sequence your story’

Take a photo of each page of your child’s book, including the cover, print off the pictures and ask your child to put them in the correct order (photos do not have to be the same size as the book page).
‘MY Reading Book’

Ask your child to make their own reading book to tell the story. This may have the same pictures or different pictures. Let them to read it to you as a bedtime / quiet time story.

If you can think of other games to play which will help us learn all bout reading and using books please leave a comment and let us know what they are.

We also used ‘Magic Page’ on the computer to read a book with our teacher. We all enjoyed it. Before we could read and listen to the story on the Promethean Board we got some clues to help us try and work out what the title was! Michael and Billy both got it right and guessed that it was The Lost Teddy. We are all looking forward to using magic page again!

In the Active Learning zone we have been very creative. Our creative area has lots of materials, pens, glue and selotape to help us create. Some of us have made crowns just like the king and queen wear in the Sleeping Beauty story. We have also made lots of animals, pictures and lots more. What a creative bunch we are. We have also been using the iPad and an app called Hairy Letters. This helps us practise our letter formation. At the Promethean Board we have been learning to write our name. And at the role play area, which is Sleeping Beauty’s bedroom, we have been pretending to be a character from the Sleeping Beauty story.

Week Starting 3rd September 2012

We are full time this week. We come to school at 9am and finish at 3.15pm. Remember we will need a packed lunch or money for lunch. If you are going home for lunch then lunchtime is from 12.15pm till 1.15pm.
Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please).
We will send homework out on a Thursday. Please send it to school every day but any tasks should be completed by 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. There will be no homework on a Wednesday night.
Gym is on a Monday and Wednesday. Please remember long hair will need to be tied back and no jewellery. This means all earrings must be removed.

Our project is Sleeping Beauty.

This week we will be learning ;

how to plan our own learning in a mind map
how to use the computer to make a picture using Textease Paint
the Swahili song Jambo so that we can sing it for our visitors next month.

This has been our first full week of part time P1 and we are all feeling pretty tired but not as tired as Sleeping Beauty! This week we started our new topic of Sleeping Beauty. We read three stories and they all had the same title of Sleeping Beauty on the the cover but we noticed that the illustrator was different on each one and the story was a little different too. We discovered that the first story had a forest grow up around the castle, the next story had thorny bushes grow up all around the castle and the third story was very special because even though its title was Sleeping Beauty, it had Biff, Chip, Kipper, their Dad and their friend Wilma in it! We had to put our ‘thinking hats’ on and talked with our teachers about the similarities and differences- they were very impressed with us!

We are still counting our days at school every morning and some of us are getting very good at talking about the numbers that are before and after the number we are putting up. We were amazed to see that wewhen we counted our number on Friday morning we had been at school for 9 days! We checked it against our rabbit number line ( they bring us a carrot for every day we are at school) and it was right!! We are also getting very good at moving the hand on our classroom clock to show what activities we are working on. We like looking at it in the morning when we come in because it helps us to know what we are doing and we can talk about the exciting things we will be doing. Our teacher, Mrs Mackay, says it is helping us learn about time too even though there are no numbers on the clock but we are sure that we will find out more about that soon.

Ms Gauld. our Healthy Eating Assistant, came to visit our class this week. She told us how to wash our hands properly to stay healthy. We were very good at listening to her and giving her ideas of when and why we should we wash our hands. We decided that there were five times we must wash our hands;

After we go to the toilet.
Before we eat anything.
After we have touched an animal, even our pets.
After we cough or sneeze.
After we have been playing outside.

After we made our list Ms Gauld introduced us to Handy. He was a Hand Washing Helper and he told us if our list was right- and it was! He showed us what to do and what we would need, just like Ms Gauld and he even taught us a hand washing song. After that we all had a practise and Ms Gauld and Mrs Mackay said we were good enough that we could get one Handys special stickers!

We have been learning even more sounds this week. This week we learnt p, i and n and in the active learning zone and the classroom we have been practising using them to make words, finding them in words and writing them. We are getting really good and we even took our sound books home as part of our homework this week so that we can teach our families the sounds, their actions and their songs.We have also been enjoying using the iPad to play games all about our sounds.

In the Active Learning Zone there have been lots of new areas to investigate and learn in. One of our favourites this week has been the science table. We have been investigating different objects and shiny things. We know what to do when we are there because Walt is there to tell us what we are learning.

All through the week we have all had a shot at playing a really fun game called PIPs. It helps our teachers see what we know and we all thought it was lots of fun! We had to do some counting, say what some sounds were, find some items in a picture and lots more fun things!

Week Starting 27th August 2012

We are still in for mornings only this week 9.00am – 12.15pm
Remember to bring your filled, named water bottle with you every day (no juice please)
We will send homework out on a Thursday. Please send it to school every day but any tasks should be completed by 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. There will be no homework on a Wednesday night.
DC Thomsons will be coming to take our photograph for the paper on Thursday 30th August. We will let you know when it is going to be in the paper.
We are going to be in school fulltime from Monday 3rd September 2012

Our project is Sleeping Beauty.

This week we will be learning the Swahili song Jambo so that we can sing it for our visitors next month.

Read all about it! Reading books are fun!

We read a story and everyone fell asleep for 100 years!