During Lockdown two of the stories we listened to were, “The Invisible String” and “While We Can’t Hug.” In the first week back at school we revisited the stories and thought about how we could greet each other in the morning and who we were still joined to by our invisible strings even though we were back at school.
Robyn was working hard at home last week and made a super snack shop! What would you buy? Well done Robyn!
Like many of our pupils Henry has been busy helping with lambing. On busy days more than 40 buckets of water are needed to make up milk for pet lambs. And this must be done twice a day! So can you do some maths…2 x 40 = ?
We’ve been doing Russia and Russian dolls. We’ve looked on the globe, at the flag, learned the history and drawn the dolls. It’s been fun!
Artwork by Elise!
P1-3 had a great session learning about stop motion animation with John McGill.
First they used Pivot Stickfigure software to make a stick man on the screen move.
They then moved on to use ZU3D software and a webcam to capture multiple images of a figure they had made from OGO BUILD BITS and they were able to play back their videos.
Children also learned how animators use characters with an internal skeleton that supports intricate movements, as little movements are essential for fluid animations.
As part of this term’s tourism topic we are looking at maps and directions. P1/2/3 pupils enjoyed exploring maps including street maps of Dumfries, Ordinance Survey maps and maps of Scotland and The United Kingdom. Pupils also created their own village, and then town, using parcel tape and toys from around the room. They were able to explain what buildings a town might have that a village doesn’t and also say why that might be. For example they put hotels in the town as they said more people visit towns. The roads were used for simple direction work such as forward, left and right and finally a compass was added so that P3 could work on using north, south, east and west for locating things. Pupils also used a “Treasure Chest” grid to give and follow directions as well as taking Beebot around a map. (Beebot is a simple programmable toy.)
Looking at Lockerbie on Google Maps allowed pupils to identify how land was used for example for houses and businesses, for transport (roads, railways and car parks) and for leisure activities (eg gardens and parks.)
Pupils have thoroughly enjoyed it all, but finding things they know on Google Maps has delighted them, as has the fact that you can look at other countries. So if there is time at home to do more of this it would be very valuable. You could Google your own house, a place you have visited or just somewhere that interests your child.
Exploring Ordinance Survey Maps
Village Roads
Village Populated
Busy Farm
Bustling Town
Hotel
Rooftop Sunbathing
Compass Added
Treasure Chest Game
On the first day of advent in school P1/2/3 listened to the Nativity story and discussed how they count down to Christmas with their Advent Calendars. We then explored other ways people mark advent and then made our own Advent Wreath complete with the five candles. Once we were finished we lit the first candle, the Candle of Hope. We learned that as they look at the light of this candle Christians celebrate the hope they have in Jesus Christ. Christians believe they can have hope because God is faithful and will keep the promises he made to mankind.
As part of our, “Sun, Moon and Earth” topic we have learned that the tilt of the Earth causes the seasons so we went on a walk to see signs of the changing seasons. The children had requested that we go to the Bluebell Woods sometime but because it is autumn we didn’t find any Bluebells! We did find lots of signs of autumn though, plus a few summer flowers and we picked apples from the school apple tree on the way back. We also tried measuring the fatness of trees with people’s arms!
As part of our “Earth, Moon and Sun” topic we have been learning about time. We have looked at years, seasons, months, days and telling the time using digital and analogue clocks. This week we made a giant clock in the playground and used it to help tell the time. P3 pupils are learning to tell the time in five minute intervals (both minutes past and minutes to) so were jumping around the numbers counting in fives.
P1 had fun exploring the first 5 Numicon shapes, using the feely bag to find and match them. Then they found things around the room to match the Numicon Shape. Lots of great maths language took place as they chatted about the activity. (Apologies for the poor quality of number 2! However if I missed it out it might have looked as if we got the sequence wrong!)
