All posts by Mrs Lynch

Last Week of Term

Hello again and welcome to Longhaugh Primary P1 blog!

We started this week by discussing our trip to Montrose Basin. We did two pieces of writing. On our first piece we wrote 2 sentences about the train journey to Montrose and what we saw from the train.

  

The second piece of writing was all about our time at Montrose Basin and all the things we found on the mud flats.

   

We continued with our topic of Grannies and Grandads this week. We looked at toys from the past and toys we play with today. We sorted the toys into hoops, one for toys from the past and one for toys we play with today. We discovered that some of the toys that our grandparents played with, we still play with today (skipping ropes, hoola hoops etc), so we had to have a third hoop filled with toys that were both old and new!

  

We played with some of the older toys and we had great fun. They are going to be in our classroom so we will have the chance to play with them again.

As it is Mother’s Day on Sunday we have been doing lots of craft activities. We painted our hands and put our hand prints on card with a very special poem on it.

   

We made love hearts out of clay and wrote ‘Mum’ on them. We then painted them with bright, glittery paint and put a ribbon on them.

  

On Friday we had a craft afternoon and Mrs Adams, Miss Simpson and Mrs Lynch helped us to make Easter pictures, Easter bonnets and Easter bunnies.

          Spring Lamb

          Easter Bunny

         Easter Bonnet

Although we’ve been very busy doing all sorts of craft we have still been working hard revising all our sounds and words, reading our reading books, continuing to work hard in our addition to 10 and revising our number doubles.

All of the children in P1, Mrs Adams, Miss Simpson and Mrs Lynch wish you all a very restful 2 week spring holiday and we look forward to seeing you all again on the week beginning 18th April!

Montrose Basin

This week we have continued to revise all our sounds and all our words from our word wall.

In maths we are still working hard on our addition using cubes and divided circles. We were working on making stories of 8 and 9.

We all brought in our Grannies and Grandads booklets that we had been working on at home. Our Grandparents had helped us to fill them in telling us about all the things they liked when they were children.

We painted pictures of ourselves and also of our Grannies and Grandads. We hung them on our classroom wall showing when we were born and when our Grandparents were born.

        

On Friday we went on our trip to Montrose Basin. We were very excited and it was great fun to travel to Montrose on the train.

   Our driver and our conductor.

     

 We had quite a long walk to get to the wildlife centre but it was a lovely day and in no time at all we arrived.

  

We had our lunch first as we were all hungry!!

   

 We split into 2 groups and some of us went onto the sands and looked and dug for creatures. We found  crabs, shrimps and sand worms. We carefully lifted the rocks and seaweed to find the creatures hidden underneath.

     

We then swapped over and looked around the wildlife centre. We used the binoculars and telescopes to look at the birds and other animals that live at the basin.

  

We then walked back into Montrose and got our train back to Dundee. We were all tired but had a marvellous day out!

Notices for parents:

Gym – Every Monday and Friday – Please ensure your child has a full gym kit in school on these days.

HomeworkWords and sounds every night.

Open Doors – Every Wednesday3.oopm to 3.15pm.

Number Doubles

Hello and welcome again to P1’s blog!

This week we have been revising all our sounds. We have listened to all the Jolly Phonics songs and have been doing all the actions. We have been practising writing all our sounds and making words on our whiteboards.

Again, we have been working on addition using cubes and divided circles. We were working on the stories of 8 and 10.

                          

We have also been learning our number doubles.

                           

Our trip to Montrose Basin is next week so we have been thinking about all the things we might need on our trip. As well as writing our lists in the writing area, we have been writing the things we need to bring in our Thinking Books.

  

We started our new topic, Grannies and Grandads, by looking at coins from the past and from the present. We talked about the different names of all the coins and how they looked different. We took some of the coins we use everyday and did rubbings of them. We also designed our own coins.

  

Notices for Parents :

Gym – Every Monday and Friday – Please ensure your child has a full gym kit in school on these days.

HomeworkWords and sounds every night. Please see  ‘my school trip list’ in blue reading packet. Please ensure items are in school for 24th March.

Open Doors – Every Wednesday3.00pm to 3.15pm

Pancake Day

This week we learned our last 2 Jolly Phonics sounds. They are ‘er‘ and ‘ar‘. We have now learned 40 sounds and are using them to read and write words and short sentences.

        

The action for ‘er‘ is is to move your hand around and around like a mixer. The action for ‘ar‘ is to open you mouth and say “aaarrr” as if the doctor is looking at your throat.

        

We read the ‘Ruby Bear’ story again and we painted our own Ruby. We made sure that we made her special by painting the spots on her tummy, giving her a crooked smile, making her ears different and painting a ‘s‘ on her paw.

             

We continued our addition work this week. We used cubes and divided circles and worked out how many ways we could make 4 and 5.

This week we celebrated Shrove Tuesday. We discussed that Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent and traditionally people used up all their eggs, butter and milk etc before giving them up for Lent.

Miss Simpson told us all the ingredients we need to make pancakes. We followed a Jamie Oliver recipe! In the classroom we had flour, eggs, milk and butter. We mixed them in a bowl and all got a turn of whisking the mixture. We put butter in the pan and pretended that it melted and then put a spoonful of pancake mix in the pan. Miss Simpson reminded us that if we help to make pancakes at home the adult would have to put the mixture in the pan as it would be very hot.

       

We then had to write the list of ingredients we need to make pancakes. Best of all, we all got to taste a pancake! Yummy!

  

This week Miss Simpson and Mrs Adams introduced our new topic to us! our new topic is to be Grannies and Grandads. We are to be learning how life was different for our Grandparents.

Notices for parents:

Gym – Every Monday and Friday – Please ensure your child has a full gym kit in school on these days.

HomeworkWords and sounds every night. Please see  ‘my school trip list’ in blue reading packet. Please ensure items are in school for 24th March.

Open Doors – Every Wednesday3.oopm to 3.15pm.

Clock Hunt

Welcome back to P1’s blog! 

Our new sounds this week are ‘th‘ and ‘ng‘. 

      

The action for ‘th‘ is to pretend to be the cheeky clown and stick your tongue out. The action for ‘ng‘ is to put your arms in the air as if you were lifting a very heavy dumb bell.  

      

In maths this week we continued to work on addition. We used cubes and divided circles to practice our adding sums. 

   

To continue with our time work, Miss Bonnar took us on a clock hunt through the school. As you can see we found lots of different types of clocks and watches. 

      

Later on this month we’re taking a trip on a train to Montrose Basin. Miss Simpson has set up an area in her class room. It tells us about all the things we will be doing when we arrive at Montrose Basin and all the things we need to bring in to school prior to our trip. We have a check list that we will tick when we bring in to school all the things we need. We also read a story about a train journey and made a graph showing all the boys and girls that had been on a train and the boys and girls who had not. 

    

our graph

we continued to practice writing short sentences in our  thinking books. This time we wrote “I like” sentences. 

Bradley's 'I like' sentence.

Mr Robertson and P6 came down to our class rooms and read us stories. We enjoyed this very much and the P6 boys and girls gave us stickers if we sat nicely and listened well to the stories! 

   

The young footballers from Dundee United came back to our school this week. They were teaching us ball skills. 

   

Notices for parents 

Gym – Every Monday and Friday – Please ensure you child has full gym kit in school on these days.  

HomeworkWords and sounds every night. Please see ‘my school trip list’ in blue reading packet and ensure all items are in school by 24th March.

Open Doors – Every Wednesday3.00pm3.15pm

Our new friends, Luke and Ruby Bear

Hello and welcome and again to our blog. Primary 1 have learned 2 more sounds. This week’s new sounds are ‘oi‘ and ‘ue‘.

    

The action for for the ‘oi’ sound is to put yours hands on either side of your mouth and shout ‘OI’. The action for the ‘ue‘ sound is to point your finger towards someone and say ‘UE’.

    

We met Ruby Bear this week. We found out that she is a special bear and we read about all the things that make her different. We drew a picture of Ruby and wrote a sentence about her.                                               

Ruby is an interesting bear

This week we also met Luke and the lily pads. We put the numbers in order and Luke helped us to jump up the number line, find the number before, the number after and the number inbetween. We then recorded our numbers in our thinking books!

    

Later on in the week we also met Mummy Frog. Mummy Frog is very clever and helps us to count in 2’s. We talked about even numbers and recorded our answers in our thinking books.

  

We also used our frog flip flop books. We worked in pairs and these very clever books help us with our number stories to 10.

    

We are very lucky and some young footballers from Dundee United are coming to help us over the next few weeks learn football skills etc. This week they concentrated on fitness and we played games and were very energetic running around in our Assembly hall!

     

We continued with our Under the Sea project and learned more about an octopus. Miss Simpson made a playdough octopus and put it in a large glass bowl filled with water. We learned that if a preditor such as a shark came near to the octopus it would get frightened. To protect itself the octopus would squirt black ink so the shark couldn’t see it, then it would escape into the ocean.  To let us see what a real octopus would do in the sea, Miss Simpson put black ink into the bowl so the octopus would be hidden. We recorded what we learned in our thinking books.

  

We also made origami whales for our ‘under the sea’ wall. This was a very tricky job and we had to concentrate hard. We had to fold the paper carefully and press very firmly to make sure the whale shape was perfect. we then finger painted spots onto our whales.

          

On Thursday afternoon we had the pleasure of the ‘play on Wheels’ bus. We had fantastic fun playing with all sorts of different outdoor toys and using our imaginations to make simple objects transform into exciting things to play with. I think you’ll agree the photographs show what a wonderful afternoon we had!

     

Notices for parents:

GymMonday and Friday – Please ensure your child has full gym kit in school on these days.

Open Doors – Every Wednesday3.00pm3.15pm

Homework – words and sounds every night.

Telling the Time

This week we have learned out 35th sound! Wow! It was the sound ‘ou‘.

the 'ou' sound

The action for this sound is to use the pointing finger of one hand and pretend it is a needle and jab your other hand and say ‘ou!’

the action for 'ou'

We have been doing a lot of time work this week. We have also started to look at digital time. We used the time washing line and matched analogue clocks to digital clocks. We played time bingo games and used the Bee Bot and time Bee Bot mats.

We made another sea creature to add to our Under the Sea wall. This time we made an octopus. We covered a plastic cup in strips of blue and green paper. Then we curled strips of blue paper to make its’ tenticles. This was very tricky and we had to concentrate hard!

    

Finally, we glued the tenticles on to the octopus body and drew a face with black pen.

    

We were very lucky and the school was gifted apple and pear trees from Morrisons for our community garden. On Thursday ‘gardeners‘ from every stage went out and helped Miss Simpson plant the trees. Lets hope they grow strong and we get fruit to eat!

Notices for Parents :

Gym – Every Monday and Friday. Please ensure your child has a full gym kit in school on these days.

Homework – Words and sounds every night.

Open Doors – Every Wednesday, 3.00pm3.15pm.

Mid Term

Welcome to P1’s blog! We are only at school for 3 days this week so we have been very busy fitting everything in that we needed to do.

We learned two more sounds this week. They are ‘sh’ and ‘qu’.

   

When we do the action for ‘sh’ we put our finger to our lips as if we are telling someone to be quiet. For ‘qu’, we put the palms of our hands together and open them up pretending  our hands are a ducks beak.

   

As next Monday is Valentines Day and we won’t be at school, we made our cards ready to give to some one we love. We had silver foil hearts and using the handle end of a paint brush we pressed a design on the foil. We then turned the hearts over and glued them onto red card. We wrote our message  on the inside.

   

On Tuesday we did another water experiment. This time we wanted to see what objects would float and what objects would sink. Mrs Adams and Miss Simpson gathered together 15 items. We were all given 1 item and had to predict whether we thought it would float or sink when we put it in the water.

   

After we discovered whether it floated or sank we put them in the correct pile. We then recorded our findings on a sheet.

   

Notices for parents :

Gym – Every Monday and Friday. Please ensure your child has  full gym kit in school on these days.

Open Doors – Every Wednesday from 3.00pm to 3.15pm.

Homework – Words and sounds every night.

We are scientists!

Hello again and welcome to Longhaugh Primary’s P1 blog! 

We have learned 2 new sounds this week. They are ‘oo’ and ‘ch‘. 

         

To do the action for the ‘oo’ sound we pretend to be the cuckoo in the cuckoo clock and move our head backwards and forwards. For the ‘ch‘ sound we pretend to be a steam engine and our hands move round like the pistons . 

       

We are still continuing with addition this week and we have been using hoops and cubes to see how many ways we can make 7 . 

making 7

To add to our ‘Under the Sea’ wall we made star fish. We scrunched up yellow and orange tissue paper and stuck the pieces on using a pattern. Don’t they look effective? 

       

We have continued to look at water this week and conducted 2 experiments. For the first experiment we worked in groups of 3 and had a tub each. We put sand in one, salt in the second and sugar in the third. 

   

We added water and gave it a big stir. 

 

We noticed the salt and the sugar dissolved but the sand didn’t. We recorded our findings. 

recording what we discovered

We have left the tubs on the window sill of our classrooms and we’re going to see if any thing happens to the salty, sugary and sandy water

We also wanted to discover which items were waterproof and which weren’t waterproof. Miss Simpson and Mrs Adams put different things in a bag. We put them into our water tray to see if they absorbed all the water or if the water just ran off the top. We found out that woollen things like hats and socks weren’t waterproof but plastic things like bath toys and hard hats were! 

       

We made a pile of the items that were waterproof and a pile of things that weren’t waterproof and we recorded our findings onto a sheet. 

   

Notices for parents

Gym – Every Monday and Friday, please ensure your child has a full gym kit on these days. 

Open Doors – Every Wednesday from 3.00pm to 3.15pm 

HomeworkWords and sounds – please go over these with your child every night.

Robert Burns

This week we learned the sounds ‘ee’ and ‘or’. To do the action we put our hands on our head as if they were donkey’s ears for the ‘ee’ sound and fold our fingers down to make shorter ears for the  ‘or’ sound.

  

We learn our sounds and words every night at home. In room 6 we ‘fish‘ for words in the fishing pool when we are pretending to be Polar Explorers in the North Pole. We have to read the fish we catch and if we are especially clever we make short sentences.

    look how many we caught! 

        Catching fish!              Look how many we have caught!

We are continuing to work on our addition this week. We used addition buses to make our own number stories. We also used coat hangers and pegs this week. We moved the pegs form one side of the coat hanger to the other to make different number stories.

         Working in pairs to make our number stories.

We also started to learn about time this week. We looked at clocks and talked about the big hand, small hand, numbers and the face. We made ‘o’clock’ by moving the big hand to the 12 and the small hand to the hour. We made our own clocks and practised moving the hands.

      

Tuesday was Robert Burns birthday. To help celebrate the anniversary of his birth we held a Scottish themed party. We danced the Bluebell Polka and the Shoemaker. We listened to bagpipe music and we recited our scottish poems to Mrs Gallacher.  Bradley Williamson and Kara Milne were chosen as the winners. Well done! Miss Simpson read us a scottish counting story, ‘A wee Moose in the Hoose.’ We looked at the scottish display table and saw haggis, neeps and tatties. Best of all we got to taste shortbread!

"dancing"      The winners!

For our ‘Under the Sea’ topic we looked at shells. We looked at their shape, texture and patterns. We made our own shells by drawing our own pattern with wax resist crayons and painting an ink wash on the top.

   

Notices for parents:

GymMonday and Friday. Please ensure your child has full gym kit on these days.

Open Doors – every Wednesday from 3.00pm to 3.15pm

Homework – Words and sounds every night .  

                          To reinforce learning encourage your child to collect shells,  pebbles etc., from the beach. Your child could bring these in to show the class.  

Please also return any outstanding Library books as soon as possible.