Welcome to Primary 1!
P.E.
16.12.24 – Week 8- We had great fun with Mrs Gray in gym today practicing lots of skills and developing our core strength. We walked along roof tops to deliver presents and even pulled Santa’s sleigh!
Christmas Craft Afternoon!
12.12.24- What a fantastic time we had with all our relatives for our fun Christmas Craft!! The children simply had a wonderful time creating their decorations and card with all the mums, dads, grannies, grandpas and aunties! A HUGE thank you for coming along to join us and for all the lovely positive comments! Well done to Seren for winning the hand knitted elf and to Theo for hoovering at 3pm!
As usual here are more photos in a slideshow!
Free Play
11.12.24 – Week 7 – In free play this week we have been linking many of our activities to Christmas! The children have been creative using the loose parts and props in many areas. They have been collaborating to make Santa’s sleigh with Kapla blocks and large construction plus there has been lots of stable and elf house building. We even had some reindeer guiding Santa’s sleigh! Mrs Fitzsimmons couldn’t resist playing too!
Christmas Craft Afternoon
We look forward to welcoming parents and relatives to class on Thursday 12th for some Christmas craft fun!! Please come to reception at 1.20pm and we will aim to begin by 1.30pm.
Drama
2.12.24 – We collaborated in groups to retell the story of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and perform it to the class. Mrs Fitzsimmons thought we were fantastic at taking on the character roles from the story, using different voices, using the props and confidently performing to the class. Meta Skills we demonstrated in this task were communicating, collaborating, leading, initiative and integrity. Our Oscars are in the post!!
More photos!! We do like our photos in P1!
Weekly Round Up
6.12.24 -This week we have been very busy playing in Santa’s Hub in the open area! We answer the phone when Santa calls and serve tasty treats at the food stand. We have also been working hard on our reading, writing, sounds, construction and ICT skills. We used the tools in Paint and our fine motor control skills on the laptops to draw a bear.
Letter from the North Pole!
2.12.24 – Week 6 – On Monday we received a letter from Bernard, Chief Elf at Santa’s workshop in the North Pole!! We were very excited! He wants our help in compiling the ‘Nice’ list for Santa this year and as you can imagine we were very keen to help. He sent us an Elf Surveillance camera, a behaviour board, his friend Eric and of course a magic door for our classroom so he can visit on his tea break every night!!
Science and Outdoor Learning
29.11.24 – Week 5 -As part of our work on forces and how things move we worked in groups to create ramps. Through play we investigated how a force can make an object speed up and slow down. There was lots of discussion about how to make the car and ball move faster and lots of adapting and experimenting going on! Mrs Fitzsimmons heard lots of ‘let’s try this’ and ‘lets change that and try again’. As time went there was much creativity with groups making car washes for the end or obstacles to be hit, tunnels and ‘jumps’ within ramps. Many Meta Skills used were including communicating, collaborating, leading, curiosity, critical thinking, initiative and creativity!!
More photos!
Health and more!
We are always very busy in P1! This week we also talked about the Rights of the Child Article 7 and made our name from loose parts to demonstrate this. We have also been hard at work reading and writing cvc words, recording addition sums within 5, we started reading our first ORT books, practiced our drawing skills on the laptops and we continue to enjoy playing in our open area. We also had a visit from an author! Phew! (more author photos on school blog page)
Numeracy
27.11.24- We have been learning about length with Miss Kirkpatrick and measured lots of items with non standard units and recorded our results.
Technology and ICT
22.11.24 – Week 4 -We enjoy playing games on the i-pads and computers independently to practice our skills and this week we began working on the laptops using Paint. We had some super helpers from P6/7 who guided us and showed us how to log on.
We also made a balloon powered car and had a race to see which one would go the furthest! We used our problem solving skills to make the wheels and attach them to the base. Meta Skills we used were communicating, collaborating, leading, sense making, focusing and integrity! Wow! Mrs Fitzsimmons meanwhile had to use her balloon blowing skills! (She has a lot of puff!) We had to make adjustments to some of our cars to make them move more effectively just like engineers!
Art, Story Writing and Problem Solving!
21.11.24 – This week we wrote a description of Dave the Minion with 3 sentences. Dave was a bit naughty to begin with but he quietened down when we were writing as we really needed to focus! We also worked in a pair in number for a problem solving activity ‘dressing the bear’ having to find different colour combinations and we learned about ‘shape’ in art to draw some colourful teddy bears.
Science
19.11.24 – As part of our topic on forces and how things move we set up some domino runs! We used lots of Meta Skills including collaborating, communicating, curiosity, leading, creativity and initiative! As we became involved in the task we became most creative using lots of other materials and we had great fun!!
Listening and Talking
15.11.24 – Week 3 – On Friday the children all brought in a favourite toy which they presented to the class. Mrs Fitzsimmons was extremely impressed with how confident everyone was, how clearly they spoke, how well they described their toy and what a quality audience they were! There was also a lot of fun demonstrations which we all loved! Meta Skills we used were communicating, curiosity, focusing and integrity.
Once again Mrs Fitzsimmons took so many photos! Here are more in a slideshow.
Children in Need!
15.11.24 – Thank you very much for donating to Children in Need and supporting the Janice Jamieson Foundation. There are many more photos on the School Blog page!
Snapshot of our work!
14.11.24 – As usual we have had a very busy week with lots of fun learning. We learned about and sorted items by ‘push’ and ‘pull’, made items from playdough by using push/pull and other actions, practiced our alphabet, printed poppy pictures, played various games to practice our numeracy skills and enjoyed creating structures with the large construction!
Remembrance Day
11.11.24 – P1 were very respectful today and held their 2 minutes silence at 11am with the whole school.
Science
7.11.24 – Week 2 – This term in Science we will be learning about ‘Forces’ and ‘Electricity’. We are also investigating and learning to describe ‘what makes things go’ and so we began by playing with a wide range of toys! We had great fun working out how each one worked so much so that Mrs Fitzsimmons took a lot of photos!! Some of the Meta Skills we used were curiosity, sense-making, collaborating and communicating. Next we will be learning a little bit about energy and what toys and appliances produce e.g. heat, light, sound.
P.E.
7.11.24 – For the past 2 weeks in gym we have been working on our underarm and overarm throwing. We were very focused listening and watching Mrs Gray when demonstrating and we enjoyed throwing the javelins like rockets!
5.11.24 – This week the children have been given a set of words to blend at home (Word Box 1) and also the last sound booklet which brings us to the end of the alphabet. Please read the accompanying note with each one to help support your child at home. Please could Sound Booklet 2 (ending with the letter ‘w’ be returned this Friday.) Thank you very much!
Welcome Back to Term 2!
Literacy – Writing
Week 1 – This term we will be using the Stephen Graham writing approach to write descriptions. This week we began with a description of Bailey (Mrs Fitzsimmons’ dog!) We wrote an introductory sentence and then a colour sentence. We discussed the Success Criteria and had to not only use a capital letter and full stop but also think about finger spacing and forming our letters correctly. Bailey was very impressed with our efforts!
Halloween Fun!
This week we discussed signs of Autumn and made some cute hedgehogs as well as choosing from lots of Halloween activities in the open area and class! We also had some super helpers from P6/7 who joined us for some crafts. We are particularly good at collaborating and helping each other in the open area.
Road Safety
30.10.24 – This week we learned about road safety with Mrs Widdowson as we went out to practice crossing at the traffic lights and further up the road where there are no lights. We learned about ‘Stop, Look and Listen’ and finding a safe place to cross. We are going to share this information next time we are out and about with our relatives! The Meta Skills we utilised most were focusing, integrity and sense-making.
Week 8
11.10.24 – P1 have had a really great first term and worked extremely hard as well as having lots of fun! Mrs Fitzsimmons is very proud of you all! Have a super holiday and I look forward to seeing you all next term!
Numeracy
We worked in groups and pairs to do some sorting this week. Initially we sorted by colour and then we had to think of another way to sort our items. We sorted by size, shape, types of animals and insects and there was lots of discussion as we explained our findings to each other. We then went on to create our own posters collaborating with a partner demonstrating our knowledge learned.
We also interviewed one of our janitors, Mrs Widdowson in relation to learning about people who help us and about the wider world of work.
Free Play in the Social Area
This week we have really been enjoying role playing in our Opticians! We have been busy taking phone calls and making appointments, performing eye tests, measuring customers eyes and trying on various pairs of glasses. Our hard working optician can even be seen having her lunch break! We have been using many Meta Skills including communication, curiosity, integrity and collaborating.
7.10.24 – Today we had a visit from PC Blacklock and PC McCormack in relation to our work on people who help us in school as we widened our discussion to the local community. We enjoyed learning about the role of the police and a bit of dressing up! We will be ready to say ‘hello’ next time we see them in the town!
Week 7
Science – Outdoor Learning
4.10.24 – As part of our work on the Senses we worked with a partner to collect a variety of different objects in our playground we could describe by touch. We managed to find many objects which we then discussed and shared back in class. We used the Meta Skills collaborating, communicating and curiosity.
Free Play
This week we have been exploring and playing musical instruments, creating our own emergencies in the small world area and making marvellous creations combining the bricks and blocks in the construction area! Also well done to Lauchie, Connor and Fraser for receiving Values postcards this week.
30.9.24 – Outdoor Numeracy
On Monday we had an outdoor numeracy session with DG Outdoor Woodland Learning (DG OWL). We took part in several activities in our groups including ordering sticks according to length, making symmetrical pictures, measuring a snake we built and making a pizza for a badger! We used many Meta Skills including collaborating, communicating, curiosity and creativity. We had fun and would also like to thank the parents who came along to support us.
Week 6
24.9.24 – Maths Week Scotland
We took part in an online lesson ‘Once Upon a Maths Story’ recognising maths all around us. We collaborated with P6/7 who also helped us complete our little Maths Story booklets. We then discussed the Meta Skills we had been utilising with the help of P6/7. We had great fun working together!
Science and Outdoor Learning
We have been discussing the senses as part of our work about the body. Ask your child to tell you about each of the 5 senses. We worked in groups to sort pictures according to our senses, played corners and watched a video about the ear by Mr Fitzsimmons. We also went outside to use our senses and record our findings working with a partner. We enjoyed using the magnifying glasses to really look closely at objects.
29.9.24 – A round up of our other activities! These included working with Miss Kirkpatrick as she teaches us every Wednesday for number. We are just completing work on ‘pattern’ and getting ready to begin ‘weight’. We can be seen on the carpet for ‘think, pair, share’ during story time, learning our new letters, beginning to blend these letters to make cvc words, working out missing numbers and using the number fans for before/after/in between and enjoying Cosmic Yoga.
Week 5
We are developing our independence in P1 and every morning we self register and then complete our own entry on the WOW tracker.
18.9.24 – Health and Science – We have been learning about parts of the body and the skeleton. We had a visit from Fred the skeleton and even had a dance and sang some songs with him! We also learned about the importance of hand hygiene and a handwashing routine.
In Literacy we learned the sounds ‘m’, ‘r’ and ‘e’ which nearly brings us to the end of the homework booklet we have at home. Mrs Fitzsimmons will be sending a letter home next week with details about returning this. We also made our own Fairtrade logo in the open area and continued to enjoy our Block Play. Mrs Fitzsimmons has been very impressed with our constructions and the stories behind them demonstrating the Meta Skills collaborating, communicating, initiative and creativity!
16.9.24 – PE. We have been working on many skills during our gym lessons with Mrs Gray including the parachute and hula hoops. We were also fortunate the sun was shining to be outside. We also exit each lesson saying what we have enjoyed and become better at.
Week 4
15.9.24 – Open area and more! Here is a snapshot of our activities in the open area and working together. Well done to Mila and Allie for receiving Values postcards this week!
Literacy. This week we have learned the sounds ‘i’ and ‘s’. We made an Inky Mouse and did lots of handwriting practice! We also sequenced a story and began our work on descriptions. We are using the Stephen Graham approach and this week we described ‘The Tiger who came to Tea’ and chose to describe the ‘colour’, ‘texture’ and what the tiger was ‘doing’. Mrs Fitzsimmons typed up our ideas which you can read.
11.9.24 – Numeracy and Outdoor Learning. The children have been learning to identify 2D shapes with Miss Kirkpatrick and this week were looking at creating repeating patterns. This included working together outside using different materials to make their own repeating patterns.
Week 3
8.9.24 – This week we have been very busy playing, sharing and co-operating in the open area and practicing many skills including fine motor and scissor control. We learned the letters ‘t’ and ‘n’ and so these pages should now be completed at home in our sounds book. We also worked in pairs on our numeracy task boards to support our mental maths and also did some collecting and counting of objects outside. We have discussed our Class Charter and decided which articles we would like to focus on which include; Article 28 The Right to Learn and Article 31 The Right to Play and Relax.
Well done to Mary who was the first recipient of our new School Values postcard for showing kindness!
Week 2!
This week we enjoyed gym with our specialist Mrs Gray who will take us for gym every Monday. Mrs Fitzsimmons will be taking us to the gym on a Thursday. Please come dressed for PE on both of these days. Please refer to the class newsletter that was sent out this week regarding gym and several other pieces of information.
This week we have been learning more about school routines, working with others, sharing our work and being a good listener. We began learning our sounds and made an apple puppet and painted a penguin. We have been working hard on our fine motor skills with various activities across the curriculum. We have read lots of stories including ‘The Colour Monster’ and created our own monsters using lots of different materials.
After a busy week we finished off with some yoga and relaxed!!
Our first week
23.8.24 – We had a very busy first few days in P1 and enjoyed playing in our open area with all our friends!
