The Start of a New School Year

August 17, 2012 Mrs Lynch 4 Comments

Hello everyone!! Welcome back to Longhaugh Primary 1’s blog. It’s lovely to be back at school and this year in primary 1 we are welcoming 46 new children.

We have all settled in very well in our first week here at Longhhaugh Primary and we have already been working very hard.

We learned 3 new sounds in our first week. We learned ‘s’, ‘a’ and ‘t’. We also learn songs and actions to go along with our sounds, this makes our learning fun and it’s much easier to remember them too.

The action for ‘s’ is to move your hand as if it was a snake. The action for ‘a’ is to move your hand up and down your opposite arm as if ants are crawling up your arm and the action for ‘t’ is to move your head from side to side as if you are watching a tennis match.

We hope you will be practicing doing these actions when saying the sounds, because we will be practising.

We practised writing our sounds on our whiteboards and we made a ssssnake using tissue paper.

We looked at colours this week too and sorted coloured objects into coloured hoops. We also looked at colour words. These words were printed in their coloured ink and also in black ink. It was quite tricky to match up the words and put them into the correct hoop.

We also had a walk around our school to get to know the other adults and the important places we will be visiting e.g. the gym hall, the assembly hall and the dinner hall.

We also got our blue homework packets home this week. It has our daily planner in it. Our teacher writes all the things that our parents/carers need to know and if we have any homework it is also written in our planner. We need to bring our blue packets to school every day.

We all think we’re going to really enjoy being at Longhaugh Primary School! We hope you will enjoy following our learning. Please leave comments as we will be looking at the blog and we would love to hear from you.

Notices for parents:

Gym – Please ensure that your child has a full gym kit in school.

Your child has been given a blue homework packet, please ensure your child brings this to school every day.

The Primary 1 school day ends at 12.15pm lunchtime for the first 3 weeks. They will be in a full school day, coming back in the afternoon and finishing at 3.15pm from Monday 3rd September 2012.

The End of P1 2012!

June 28, 2012 Mrs Lynch Leave a comment

Well, this is the last P1 blog from the class of 2012! This school year has flown by and it’s hard to believe that we will be going into P2 in August and Longhaugh Primary will be welcoming the new P1 children.

We had our prizegiving this week and all the parents/carers of the prize winners came along to see the boys and girls receive their prize.

Well done to Daria Trofimova, Warren McGuire and Robbie Gibb who won the P1 prizes for working very hard in P1!

We also had a very special assembly on Wednesday. Mrs Kiddie, our P4 teacher, has taught at Longhaugh Primary School for 23 years and she retires this year. Each class sang a song from her favourite musicals. P1’s song was “I’m gonna wash that man right outa my hair” from South Pacific and the whole school sang “We Raise You Up“, another of her favourite songs. It was an emotional day and there were a few hankies being used!!

Well, all that’s left to say is thank you for reading our posts and we hope you have enjoyed joining us and sharing our P1 journey. We are very excited about going into P2 but a little sad we are leaving our teachers. We hope you will continue to follow the P1 blog in August when we welcome 47 new boys and girls into our Longhaugh family.

On behalf of all the boys and girls in P1, Miss Simpson, Miss Bonnar, Mrs Rooney and Mrs Lynch we would like to thank you for all your lovely comments and we hope everyone has a fabulous summer break and we’ll see you all again in August 2012!!

The Puppet Show

June 22, 2012 Mrs Lynch Leave a comment

Well, this is our last full week in Primary one before we break for the summer holidays! Where has the time gone.

We have been busy continuing with subtraction this week, this time we had to find the missing number. That was quite a tricky job!

We planted the beanstalks, that we had been growing, into our school garden this week. Hopefully they will grow over the summer holidays. We’re not sure if we want to find a giant at the top of them though!!

We also wrote 2 sentences in our thinking books saying what we had planted in the garden.

We used the giant characters that we had created a few weeks ago and we wrote a story about them. We had given them a name and some of us took them on an adventure. Some of us talked about what they would like to eat, what games they would like to play and places they would like to visit.

We had our inter house sports this week. We joined P2, P2/3 and P3 and we split into our houses. Longhaugh Primary has 4 houses – Mains, Claypotts, Dudhope and Broughty. We then were split into 4 teams within our houses and we had to do an obstacle course. We were all timed and the quickest team will be announced on Monday!

We had a very special treat this week. A story teller was visiting Longhaugh Nursery and they invited us to come and listen to his tales and watch his puppet show. His name was Steven and he told us, with his puppets, the traditional tales The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Jack and the Beanstalk.

We all enjoyed it very much and it was lovely to visit all the boys and girls in the Nursery.

Notices for parents:

Gym – P1A –Wednesday & Friday, P1B – Thursday and Friday, P1C – Wednesday and Thursday. Please ensure your child has a full gym kit in school. Also please note that all jewellery must be removed for gym.

The school will close on Thursday 28th June at 12 noon for the Summer holidays. It re-opens for the new term on Tuesday 14th August 2012.

Keeping Fit at Activity Week!

June 15, 2012 Mrs Lynch Leave a comment

This week at school has been very different from the normal working week. It’s been Activity week and every day we have been going to and trying out all sorts of physical activities.

We have already learned how important a balanced diet and exercise is to keep us strong and healthy and we have also been looking at different sports as the Olympics are coming to London very soon. So it was great fun and really interesting to spend a whole week of trying all sorts of new and familiar physical activities.

We tried gymnastics. Pam, who came from a local gymnastics club, showed us basic gymnastic skills. She showed us how to do a forward roll properly and we had different stations around the gym that we all tried out.

We also went to try cheerleading. Eleanor, who runs a local cheerleading club, showed us how to warm up properly and we did some basic moves ending up performing a small routine!

We tried Zumba! Zumba tonic is the zumba dance craze for children and Jai, the instructor, made sure we warmed up correctly and she taught us simple moves and we learned a dance called the Penguin Dance! Great fun!

Next we were able to try Hip Hop. Our instructor came from the Chest, Heart and Stroke charity. She told us it was important to eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables and drink 8 glasses of water every day to keep our heart strong. Exercise is equally important and she showed us simple hip hop moves to introduce us to the dance.

A few of the activities we were able to do on the playing fields outside. Paul and Jordan had different stations on the grass and we practised kicking, dribbling and shooting the football into the goals. We worked in teams and Paul gave us points each time we scored a goal etc.

We also learned about the sport Boccia. This is a sport that’s in the Paralympic Games. We all had to sit in chairs, some in red chairs, some in blue. There was a white bowl called a Jack and we had to throw the bowls as near to the Jack as we could.

Our teachers set up an assault course on the grass and again we worked in teams and we jumped over hurdles, crawled threw tunnels etc. It was great fun!

We had a sports event with the P2’s and the P3’s. We had a practise first and we did running races, three legged race, the potato and spoon race and a wheelbarrow race. We also practised some silly races like the monkey race and the running backwards race!

On the day of the sports, unfortunately it was raining, so we had to have our sports in our assembly hall. It was a pity we couldn’t go outside but it didn’t spoil our fun.

As part of our activity week we have been learning more about the Olympics and the meaning of the Olympic torch.

We watched the Olympic torch live as it arrived in Montrose and we watched it on its journey as it was coming down towards Dundee. We met Stephanie who was very lucky and had been a torch bearer in Wales. She came dressed in her Olympic tracksuit and showed us her actual torch. It was very exciting.

We decided to make our own torches. I’m sure you agree they look equally as good as the real thing!

We also learned about the mascots,Wenlock and Mandeville. We read about them and we designed our own mascots on the official Olympic site. Also on the official site we watched Wenlock and Mandeville’s rainbow journey.

Phew what a busy and active week we have all had!!

Whole school trip to the Cinema!

June 8, 2012 Mrs Lynch Leave a comment

We’ve had a very short week this week as the school was closed Monday and Tuesday for Victoria Day and Jubilee Day!

We have, however, continued this week to revise all our sounds and go over all the words on our word wall. We have been doing more phonic activities around the classroom and have been working on our blends so we can continue to sound out and make new and more difficult words.

Again we have been looking at subtraction and we have been practising our take away sums on our white boards.

On Friday was our whole school trip to the cinema to see Journey to the Mysterious Island. We had hoped we would be able to go to Camperdown Park and play games and have a picnic lunch. Unfortunately, our Scottish weather has not been kind to us and we had to change our plans.

We did manage, however, an hour or so in the park to eat our lunch and have a play in the park. We got back to school just in time as the heavens opened!! We were very lucky indeed.

This trip is to reward all the boys and girls at Longhaugh Primary School who have behaved well throughout the whole year and who have made Mr Munro and Mrs Jenkins proud.

Thank you Mr Munro and Mrs Jenkins very much, we really, really enjoyed our day!

Notices for parents:

Open Doors – Every Thursday from 3.00pm – 3.15pm. Come into the class room and see all the hard work your child has been doing.

Health week – Monday 11th June to Friday 15th June.

P1a Assembly

June 1, 2012 Mrs Lynch Leave a comment

Welcome back to Longhaugh P1’s blog!

We have continued to revise all our sounds this week but have also moved on to blends such as; cl, fl, sm, gr, etc. We have been using them to sound out and write longer and more difficult words.

We have continued to work on subtraction this week, looking at the number before and less than. We used Jack’s magic beans to help us and we wrote our take away sums on our white boards.

We built up our own character in our topic work this week. We had to create our own giant. Firstly thinking about his feet and legs, we then drew them on a section of a piece of paper. Then we had to think about his body and his arms and imagine what they would look like and draw them on another section of the paper. Lastly we had to create our character’s head and face. We had to use our imaginations and draw them on another section of the paper. When we had completed all our character’s body parts, we had made a whole giant. Our final thing was to give our character a name.

This week was the turn of P1a to show family, friends and the whole shcool their assembly. They decided to show everyone all the work they’ve been doing on Jack and the Beanstalk and they even acted out parts of the story. They did a fabulous job and everyone enjoyed it very much indeed!

Well done P1a!

Finally this week we all went on our P1 trip to Active Kids in Stanley! We had a fantastic time. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t as sunny as it has been over the last few weeks, but we didn’t let that stop us having fun.

We went on the trampolines, the go-carts, the fort, the jelly belly, the flying fox and all sorts of things.

We also went round with our teachers and had a look at all the animals that they have on the land. It was an excellent day out and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Notices for parents:

Open Doors – There will be no open doors on Thursday 7th June 2012.

The school will be closed on Monday the 4th and Tuesday the 5th of June for Victoria Day and Jubilee Day.

Enjoying the sunshine!

May 25, 2012 Mrs Lynch Leave a comment

We have been enjoying glorious weather here in Dundee and although it has been warm in our classrooms we have still been working very hard.

We continue to revise our sounds every week and we have been using the phonics activities in the classroom. We have been sounding out CVC words and writing short sentences, especially in our Jack and the Beanstalk area.

This week in our number work our teachers introduced subtraction. We looked at all the different words for subtraction….minus, take away, less than. We had to find the number before on our number tracks and we know that when we take away, the number will get smaller. We wrote our take away sums on our whiteboards.

In our topic work we looked at the different parts of a plant. We read an information book and it told us the names given to all the different parts of a plant; flower, stem, leaves, roots etc. We had our own sheet with a picture of a plant on it and we labelled all the parts ourselves.

We also made our own paper daffodils. It was quite a tricky job as we had to cut a rectangle into a round shape by carefully snipping the corners. We also had to very carefully cut and roll a long rectangle shape to make the trumpet part of the daffodil. I think you’ll agree they turned out rather well!

As the sun has been shining we decided to have our gym lesson outside on the grass. We are all excited that the 2012 Olympics is coming to London so we had our own Olympic type events. We threw javelins, had running events, hurdles and did all sorts of activities. I’m sure the professional atheletes would have been very impressed with our efforts!

Notices for parents:

Open Doors – Every Thursday 3.00pm – 3.15pm. Please come in to school and see all the hard work your child has been doing.

The school is holding a Beetle Drive on Thursday 31st May at 7.00pm to 8.30pm. Tickets are available from the school – adults – £1.00, children – 50p. Refreshments are included. Please come along and support Longhaugh Primary School.

P1b Assembly

May 18, 2012 Mrs Lynch 1 Comment

Hello there and a welcome return to Longhaugh Primary’s P1 blog!

We have continued to revisit and revise all our sounds. We have had phonics stations in our classrooms and we have moved around all the activities varying our learning experiences.

In number this week we have continued to revise addition. We used Jack’s magic beans again but this time we were given 10 beans. We worked in pairs and wrote out addition sums on giant sheets of paper.

We were also given new number lines this week. Not just any ordinary number line but one with our heads on it! We have been learning to put the larger number first when we are adding. We keep the bigger number in our head then add on the smaller number to get the answer. This number line helps us to remember to do this as we move “our head” to the big number on our number line. Our “head” keeps that number there so we can then add on the smaller number. Ingenious!

We planted some more seeds this week. This time it was sunflower seeds. We are hoping that our seeds grow into healthy plants then we can move them into bigger pots and take them home. We think our sunflowers will grow to be taller than us?

Our school garden was needing a good tidy up as the weeds have been growing due to all the rain we’ve had. We took it in turns to pull out all the weeds and make sure the garden was looking beautiful.

As we planted sunfowers this week we decided to paint our own sunflowers. We used the flat of the brush to make the petal shape and rotated the paper so we could paint in a circle. We also mixed colours to show the graduation of the colours of the petals. Don’t they look nice?

This week it was the turn of P1b to showcase all their hard work to the school and their families in their assembly. They talked about all the sounds they had learned and the different ways they had learned them. We sang the songs of some of their favourite sounds and they showed us the correct way to write them.Now that they know all the sounds, they told us they can now write words and short sentences. A lot of hard work had gone into their assembly and we all enjoyed it very much. Well done P1b!

Notices for parents:

Open Doors – Every Thursday 3.00pm – 3.15pm. Please come in to school and see all the hard work your child has been doing.

The school will be closed to pupils on Friday 25th May 2012 for staff in-service training.

P1c Assembly

May 11, 2012 Mrs Lynch 1 Comment

We have been revising all our sounds this week and using those sounds to make CVC words in our workbooks and write short sentences in our thinking books.

We had a re-cap on addition this week. Our teacher hid eggs around the room. She said, “the Giant has one egg, can you find four eggs, how many do you have altogether?” Once we had found the correct amount of eggs we wrote our sum on a piece of paper. We then had to do the same again, but this time look for Jack’s beans! This was a fun way of reminding ourselves of addition.

This week in our topic we discussed our favourite foods. We had to decide whether we liked sausages, pizza, chicken or spaghetti bolognaise best. Once we had all made our decision we recorded our answers on a tick sheet. We then transferred all our answers to record them on a bar graph.

We then thought to ourselves…..what would the Giant like to eat? So we got a giant plate and lots of different colours of paper and we got to work with our scissors and made the giant a meal. Some of us made him pizza, some of us made him sausages and some of us thought he might like noodles. We think he would enjoy all our meals!

P1c had their class assembly this week. All the other pupils and teachers came to watch and we invited all our parents/carers. Our assembly was about all the number work we have been learning since starting school. We talked about counting from 0 to 10 and back again and counting in 10’s from 0 all the way to 100. We also did some addition sums. We talked about telling the time on analogue and digital clocks and we also sang the Days of the Week Song and 10 Green Bottles. Everyone seemed to enjoy it very much and told us what a good job we had done!

Well done P1c!

Notices for parents:

Open Doors – Every Thursday 3.00pm – 3.15pm. Please come in to school and see all the hard work your child has been doing.

Jack and the Beanstalk…….continued

May 4, 2012 Mrs Lynch 1 Comment

We have done a lot of work on our Jack and the Beanstalk topic this week. Our teachers gave us giant copies of extracts from the story and we had to do a skimming activity. This meant we had to look over the story and find specific sounds and common words. This was a tricky job and we needed to concentrate very hard. We worked with a partner to find the sounds and common words and circled them with coloured pencils.

Something strange happened this week! A giant envelope was delivered to each of the classes. Inside the envelope was a giant footprint. We had to think where it had come from? Who it belonged to? Why was there only one? We knew by looking at it that it was much bigger than our feet so we decided that it must belong to the giant!

We all drew around our own foot and compared the size of our foot to that of the giant’s footprint. We decided that we would have to make another footprint and we discussed how we were going to measure the footprint so we could make our one the same size. We decided we would use cubes.

Now that we had the giant’s feet we thought it would be a splendid idea to make the giant himself! We worked in teams. Some of us made the body. Some of us made the legs. Some of us scrunched up newspaper and stuffed it into tights to make the arms, and some of us put cotton wool into latex gloves to make the hands.

Our teachers helped us to wrap large sheets around the bricks to cover up the legs and body.

We then all got a sheet of paper and drew the giant’s face. We had to decide whether our giant was a sad giant, or an angry giant, a happy giant or a worried giant. Once we had drawn and coloured in our faces, we displayed them and took a vote on which face was our favourite. We then recorded our votes on a bar graph and the one with the most votes was put on our giant.

We also did a bean experiment. We planted beans into soil and also put some beans into glass jars. We know that our beans will need, light, water and warmth to grow. So we decided to experiment and not give some of the beans any water but put them in a sunny spot so they would have light. We gave the other beans water but put them in a dark cupboard so they didn’t get any light. We are wondering if they will grow…..we’ll keep you posted on the results.

Well we have certainly been very busy working away on all our Jack and the Beanstalk activities, I’m sure you will agree!

Notices for parents:

Open Doors – Every Thursday 3.00pm – 3.15pm. Please come in to school and see all the hard work your child has been doing.

The school will be closed on Monday 7th of May.