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We have a ‘spring’ in our step!

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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.

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

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    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.

    Oxford Reading Tree: Stage 1: First Words: Pancake

    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.