Category Archives: cooperative learning

cooperative learning, Messy play, Science

P1- My Brain – The Boss of my body

March 16, 2020 Miss Thompson Leave a comment

As part of our learning about the body, we focussed on finding out more about our brains!

We learned that it is rough, wrinkled and looks all squashed because it has to fit into our skull and the skull has the job of providing protection to our brain. If our brain was flat it would be around the size of a whole ironing board and can you imagine the size our head would need to be to hold it!

We worked together to create some plasticine brain models and spoke about the things our brain helps us control and do! We also experimented to design our own protective models to shield and keep our eggs safe to help us to explore and understand the importance of wearing a helmet when riding our bikes or scooters. Look at some of this exciting learning below.

cooperative learning, health and wellbeing, Science, teamwork

P1- Focussing on our sense of smell and taste

March 6, 2020 Miss Thompson Leave a comment

We did a few experiments earlier this week to help us to investigate and learn more about our sense of smell and taste.

We know that we use our nose to smell and that smells can be pleasant or not very nice and our sense of smell is there to help keep us safe and away from danger. We worked in groups to have a sniff of some mystery smells and then tried to guess and describe what it was. We discovered that even without or other senses to help, our sense of smell was quite accurate in determining what it was we were smelling and if it would be something we would want to be close to. The smells were chocolate, ketchup, coffee, onion, vinegar and lemon and we guess them all!

We also investigated our sense of taste and discovered that our tongues are specially designed to identify a range of different flavour groups. In this experiment we had to be good at partner working and show a responsible and respectful attitude to ensure our partner, who could not see what they were tasting, was safe and happy. We tasted 9 things and described and guessed what it was. Again, we were fantastic at this taste testing, getting all 9 identified correctly. The tastes were salt crisps, carrot, blueberries, dark chocolate, pickled onions, raisins, cheese and marshmallows!

cooperative learning, health and wellbeing, PE

P1- Designing our own fitness station

February 20, 2020 Miss Thompson Leave a comment

We have been learning all about keeping fit and healthy and have been taking part in different fitness circuits in the gym hall. We have learned about the signs our body shows when it is exercising such as a faster beating heart, sweaty, hot and red skin, fast and loud breathing and feeling tired.

This week we worked in small groups to use all of our learning to come up with our very own station to help our classmates to get fit. We had to share ideas, agree, gather our equipment and design our task. Next, we had to share it with others and give them instructions and a demonstration on what to do, how to be safe and what it would do for our bodies!

We just had time to try them all out! It was lots of fun. Here are some pictures showing our work…

cooperative learning, PE, teamwork

P1- Teamwork in the Elf Express Gym Games

December 12, 2019 Miss Thompson Leave a comment

We have been developing our ability to work together to achieve a goal and in the gym, working for Santa as little Elf teams gave us the perfect opportunity to share resources, space and roles.

We had to move our sleighs to collect presents and deliver them to the other side of the gym hall, it was lots of fun!

construction, cooperative learning, Expressive arts, Messy play

P1- Creating our Christmas Tree

December 12, 2019 Miss Thompson Leave a comment

We got messy and had lots of fun using paint, gallons of glitter and teamwork to create a Christmas tree for our classroom. We can’t wait to get decorating it with the resources on our ‘decoration station’.

cooperative learning, Mathematics

P1- Telling the Time

November 21, 2019 Miss Thompson Leave a comment

We have been learning all about time. We have focussed on-

. What we already know including hearing time spoken about throughout the day at home and school, seeing the time on clocks, watches, phones, iPads, TVs and computer and units of time including days, weeks, months, years and even hours, minutes and seconds!

.We sang songs to help us to remember the days of the week and months of the year and are working in the order of these.

.We sorted everyday activities into things we do in the morning, afternoon or evening and learned about day and night.

.We learned about the structure of an analogue clock 🕰 It has a clock face, hands which tell us different parts of the time and numbers from 1-12 with 12 always being at the very top. When the big long minute hand points here it means o’clock!

.We worked in teams to create our own clock using hula hoops, sticks, flash cards and numicon. It was challenging but lots of fun!

.We played time bingo to help us to tell o’clock times.

.We have been telling our teacher the time during the school day.

Celebrating success, cooperative learning, fine motor skills, health and wellbeing, Literacy, Play to learn, Science, teamwork

P1- A pumpkin kind of week!

October 31, 2019 Miss Thompson Leave a comment

This week we were all about pumpkins and used these as a context for learning across the curriculum, incorporating literacy, numeracy and maths, science, expressive arts and health and well-being but more importantly we had a lot of fun learning!

In teams we became scientists and took part in a pumpkin investigation using many skills including turn taking, observing, explaining, problem solving, predicting, estimating, measuring, testing and recording our thoughts and findings. We could not believe that pumpkins actually sink despite being quite heavy! This led us into doing a more in depth learning about floating and sinking later in the week.

We used the book Pumpkin Soup to link our learning this week and decided to make some soup just like Duck, Cat and Squirrel in the story. But before we could do this we needed to write some shopping lists and look at lots of different recipes books. We even went into the garden and found some lovely carrots and potatoes to use in our soup! Miss Thompson was so proud of us all and the writing we produced. It was a challenging job but we can do anything we set our mind to in P1!

Here we are enjoying our soup once and if the hard work chopping, cutting, stirring and cooking had been done.

Another pumpkin learning task we worked hard on was a S.T.E.M challenge in small cooperative groups. The challenge was to design and create a ‘pumpkin platform’ as a group. It had to be as high as we could get it but still steady and strong. Just look at some of the design ideas we had. The highest platform got the pumpkin 16 cubes high off of the floor!

Overall, we loved using pumpkins in lots of our learning and play this week!

cooperative learning, Expressive arts, fine motor skills, health and wellbeing, Literacy, Numeracy, Outdoor learning, teamwork

P1- A Leafy Start to Term 2

October 23, 2019 Miss Thompson Leave a comment

As part of our learning about the world around us and the changing seasons, lots of our learning across the curriculum this week has been themed to leaves.🍁

We learned about what happens in autumn and were interested in discovering why the leaves fall and change colour. We went out to collect leaves which we used for some different learning opportunities.

In numeracy we used leaves to sort and group, estimate and count and sequence. We even tried some leaf rubbings in the outdoor classroom and tried to choose autumnal colours.

We helped each other to make lovely leaf necklaces. It was very tricky to tie the string to the stick and to carefully poke a little hole into each leave as we added it on. We even made a nice headband for Mrs MacPhail and she was very pleased with it!

Finally through the story Leaf Man we developed our literacy and expressive art skills. We loved how all of the illustrations in the story are made from leaves and even created some of our own. They look great!

Overall, some lovely leafy learning to kick start term 2!

cooperative learning, Expressive arts, Literacy

Literacy and Exp.Arts

October 6, 2019 Miss Thompson Leave a comment

We developed our listening and reading skills by responding to questions about a story and working together in small groups to order the events into the correct sequence. We also had lots of fun writing, making and wearing our creative hat designs!

St Ninians P1