Willowbank School, KilmarnockSuccessful learners
This week we have been learning all about the letter “u”. We made lovely unicorns and all made an umbrella. We also explored underwater and underground. We glued the umbrella to the page and the blew the paint down to be the rain using our own straws. We glued a “u” onto brown paper and then used our pencil to draw ants and worms around the “u” in the soil. We also played a game throwing the cardboard “u”s and trying to get them in the pole. We had lots of fun.
Effective Contributors/ Successful learners
Today was Red Nose Day. We all dressed down and some of us wore red. We tried on red noses and tasted different red foods. We circled either the happy or sad face to show if we liked or disliked an item. We matched pictures of all the special red noses for this year – it was lots of fun. We also had lots of fun and interactions with our friends in the soft play today – giving lots of eye contact and smiles.
This week was Science Week and we did lots of different experiments in class. We had lots of messy play and added water to cornflour to make gloop. It felt strange but we really enjoyed touching it with our hands. We did the pepper experiment. We put soap on our hand and watch the pepper move away from our finger. We did rain cloud in a cup and watched as the blue food colouring went through the cloud and went into the cup. We also explored the bubble rocket in the playground stomping and making it go high in the sky and the bubbles float away.
Today is World Book Day and our chosen class book was “The Hungry Caterpillar” – the ladies even dressed up as characters from the book.
We read the story and did lots of activities throughout the day. We made caterpillars using our finger prints and counted the correct number to put on each one. We sorted healthy and unhealthy foods. We posted the food the caterpillar ate though the mouth of our big caterpillar and we also did some painting with a potato masher. It was lots of fun.
Last week to finish off LGBT month we had Purple Friday. Our LGBT book was “The Family Book” by Todd Parr. we spoke about our own families and enjoyed the colourful pictures in the book. On Friday we did lots of purple activities – we decorated a purple octopus with cheerios and made a colourful rainbow with hand prints. We also tried lots of different purple foods and food in purple packaging. We circled the pictures of the foods we liked.
Hi everyone, I hope you are all well. This month is LGBT month, and we would have been reading a book all about different families. This book is called “The Family Book” by Todd Parr. Click the link to hear the story being read on YouTube.
Literacy
Rainbow hop
Let’s continue the rainbow theme. Make giant letters in different colours and place them on the floor. You could start with (s a t p i n), someone at home can help, then they can shout out a letter and you have to run and jump onto the correct letter. You could even do it with the letters of your name and then find each letter in the correct order to spell your name.
Numeracy
Shapes are all around us and we had been exploring different shapes in the classroom. Look around the house and see what shapes you can find. You can also play this Shape game .In the game you need to feed the monsters the correct shapes.
Health and Wellbeing
Make a pizza
Make your own pizza at home. Try using a wrap, pitta bread or pizza base. Spread the sauce over the base, then add your toppings – there are lots of things you could add to your pizza. Why not have a go and create an LGBT rainbow pizza. Is your pizza round or square? Did you enjoy your pizza?
Chinese New Year
This week is also Chinese New Year. You could try different Chinese foods at home such as noodles, prawn crackers and prawn toast. Email me and let me know what you liked.
This year is the year of the Ox. I was born in the year of the Goat. Use this website to find out which animal you are and more information about Chinese New Year.
You could make a colourful lantern by folding a piece of paper in half making some slits not quite to the end of the paper, decorate then twist into a cylinder shape and secure with glue or staples and add a strip of paper to the top to create a handle. You could place a battery-operated tea light in the bottom and see the light shine through.
Our theme this term was Scottish Castles and we had lots of lovely activities to do. Here are some lovely activities that you can do at home. Have you ever been a walk to the Dean Castle? If you have the chance go and have a look – it having a lot of work being completed just now.
Literacy
Have a look on the internet to see if you can find any Scottish castles. This can be locally such as Culzean or Dean Castle to well-known castles such as Stirling castle or Edinburgh castle. You could then put some flour or rice in a tray and use your finger to try and mark make to draw a castle. You could even make some wavy lines as sometimes castles had a moat (some water) around it to protect it from the enemy. Do you have any books about castles or knights? If you do you can read them and look at the pictures with a family member. Can you spot in shields in the book?
Numeracy
Get a parent to help cut out some different shapes – circles, squares, triangles and rectangles. Then arrange these shapes to make a castle picture. Take a photo and sent it to me and I can share with your friends next week.
Health and wellbeing
Try having a taste of some Scottish food. It could be having a sip of Irn Bru. It could be trying some shortbread or tablet. You could try the traditional meal of haggis, neeps and tatties. You could also try some oatcakes and cheese. Why not try some square sausage and tattie scone. You can use a thumbs up or down to share if you liked it or didn’t like it. Or you could use this sheet. Scottish food tasting
My favourite is oatcakes and cheese. What is your favourite?
Science
Go on a walk and explore your senses. Attached is a sheet you could print or make your own to take with you. Senses walk
Remember to stop and listen – what can you hear? Stop and look – what can you see? Stop and smell – what can you smell? When walking, are you walking on different surfaces? The smooth surface of a pavement, the bumpy feeling of uneven grass. Is it slippy due to ice?
This year was a little different to our usual. We dressed up in costumes and did our nativity story in class. We all got to choose a character and put it on in front of our big stable on our board. We listened to the story and followed some instructions moving to the correct place at the correct time. We did lots of other Christmas activities in class to that will added together to create a video for our parents to view.Literacy
Learn about Scotland and living on an island by watching Katie Morag on iPlayer – what episode did you watch? Did you enjoy it?
Have a look at this clip where Katie Morag is playing pooh sticks. Have you played pooh sticks before? Did you like it? When you are on a walk you could have a go and play pooh sticks too. Video – Katie Morag – pooh sticks
Now have some fun doing the Shooglie Wooglie. This a clip from Scottish Book Trust doing the Scottish version of the Hokey Cokey. Have fun and hopefully you learn some Scottish words for different body parts.
Numeracy
Our theme this term is Scottish castles can you use kitchen roll tubes to create castles. Places a different number on each castle you make. Then you can play a game, placing the correct number of straws or pencils inside the numbered castle – you could even add flags to the top of each straw/pencil. Have fun. 
You could also get help from someone in your family to draw a castle with a number on it and place the correct number of toys on top on the castle drawing. You could also create a number line. Draw a castle with battlements then use a toy character to count to 10 and back again moving him along the battlements.
Health and Wellbeing
Put on your own mini Highland games in your house.
Toss the caber – use a cardboard tube for this.
Hammer throw – use a cushion and see who can throw it the furthest.
Catch the Haggis – use a bean bag or a sponge or even an orange. How many times can you catch it before it drops?
Art
Have a look online at different tartan designs. Then have a go of making your own tartan. This can be made drawing lines with pencils, pens or crayons. You could even get messy and use paint. Or you could cut or tear paper into strips creating you own design by sticking them to a piece of paper.
Literacy
Look in your lockdown packs at all the “s” sheets. This was one of the first sounds we learnt. These can be completed during literacy time this week. For the blog activity I would like you to go on a sound hunt. Find things that begin with “s” in your house. It could be a sock for example. You could even make some literacy stew – get a big pot and place some items inside the pot, have some fun mix the items using a wooden spoon. If you have some magnetic or play letters you can add them too. Pull each item out does it begin with the letter “s” (or you can chose a letter) if it does put it in one pile of it doesn’t put it into another pile. How many items came out of the stew that began with the chosen letter? Did you have fun?
I found a spoon, sock, story, stamps and a soldier in my house. What did you find?
Numeracy -Number work
This week is all about numbers. Get a grown up to write numbers to 10 on paper – you can help too. Then place the correct number of items on each of the pages – you could even use pegs and peg the correct number of pegs to the page just like we do in class with out giant numbers.
Health and Wellbeing – make a sandwich
This week your challenge is to help make a sandwich. You can choose a filling that you will like. Lay out all the ingredients you will need and remember to wash your hands before you start. Focus on spreading – making sure to be safe when using a knife.
What type of sandwich did you make? Did you eat it all?
Science – floating and sinking
This week have fun experimenting with floating and sinking. Fill the sink of a basin with water and place different objects in the water to see if the object floats at the top on the water or sinks to the bottom. You can even make a predictions sheet and have members of your family guess. Will it sink or float? The conduct the experiment and see who was correct.
Have fun and don’t forget to send pictures to kayleigh.hill@eastayrshire.org.uk. I can then post pictures to share with your friends.
