Welcome back to everyone and I hope you all had a wonderful October break.

Primary 1 are back on the learning train! We have a busy and fun filled term ahead. We have started the term with some spooky Halloween activities and look forward to celebrating our first Christmas as part of the Mount Carmel school community.

Literacy

This term we will continue to practise our letter formation and pencil control skills to ensure we can write the letters we have been learning.

Now that we know some of the sounds the letters of the alphabet make, we will be “blending” these together to make words. These words will help us with our reading and writing tasks.

We are very excited that we are becoming “readers” in Primary 1 and will soon be bringing home our first texts with words in them. We will be answering questions about the stories we read in class, to check our comprehension skills.

During writing activities, we will be trying to use descriptive language to describe a range of items. Some of us will try to write using the sounds we have been learning.

Numeracy

Now that we have explored the numbers to 10 fully, identifying quantities which are “more” and “less”, we will be focusing on the concept of addition. We will begin by combining two quantities and understanding that when you do this, the quantity gets bigger. This will lead us on to learning the addition facts, where we learn the different ways to “make” our numbers. These number stories (or facts) are the building blocks to which all of our calculations are built upon, so we will spend a lot of time on these, ensuring they are well embedded before moving on.

Numbers are tricky to write, so number formation will continue to be reinforced in class and through homework tasks.

Through our topic we will be exploring Position and Movement by using directions and positional language.

Health & Wellbeing

We will continue to welcome our PATHS puppets to help us talk about our emotions and friendships. We have been talking about the kinds of things friends do together and have discussed what makes a good friend.

We have been exploring our emotions and sharing our experiences and we will be looking at ways to help us manage our feelings.

We will also be talking about ways to keep ourselves safe when indoors and outdoors.

During PE sessions we will be continuing with ball skills before moving onto our first block of gymnastics. In preparation for our Christmas parties, we will also be taking part in social dancing.

Topic

Our topic this term is “Maps and Mapping”. We will initially be exploring our community and identifying buildings, roads, grassy areas with a view to creating our own maps. Through play we will create a range of maps for our cars and small world toys.

We will also be using our knowledge of direction and positional language to direct our friends to specific destinations.

RE

During RE we will continue to give thanks for God’s love.

We will also explore the Bible story of ‘Creation’, developing our awareness of the natural wonders of the world around us, in particular the seasons of Autumn and Winter.

As the term progresses, we will celebrate advent together, preparing for the birth of Jesus by showing love and kindness to those around us as much as we possibly can. We will be exploring the story of the nativity through songs, role play and craft activities.

Expressive Arts

The seasonal themes of Autumn, Winter and Christmas will be the focus of our drama, music and art activities this term.

A very exciting and busy time ahead. Now that we are getting into the colder weather, could zipping/fastening up please be practised at home so we can be cosy in the playground.

Thank you,

Mrs Duff