Our very own Lucy was so happy to be picked to hold the Lucy Doll during our author visit. Chris Duke told us all about the inspiration for his book Lucy’s Blue Day and then read us the story.  We are now champions at handling our emotions and knowing that it’s ok to feel blue sometimes.

We have started to build Castle Crookfur. We’ve made shields, researched our family names and have been looking at features of castles which we have then used to design our own castles.

In PE we have been working on our balances and counter balances. Next we will use our counter balances and our rolls to create sequences.

In Maths we continue to work on our sorting and counting skills. Using our Addition and Subtraction skills, our subitising and our number bond knowledge we have been problem solving.

Each child was sent home today with their folder of work.  I would really appreciate if you could take the time over the weekend to have a look through the folder and discuss with your child all of their fabulous learning from this term. They are very proud of everything they have achieved, as am I.

Folders should be returned on Monday with all of the workbooks and jotters inside. Worksheets can be kept at home.

Thanks

This week, we have been really enjoying learning about different features of castles. We have looked at pictures of different castles from around the world, designed our own castles and have been building a variety of different styles of castle.

There has been some fabulous learning about friction  –

“We’re moving the bricks to build the castle” “It’s much harder to move it with lots of bricks on top”.

The Knights have been having jousting battles in the tuff spot!

Mr McDonald has been teaching us about measure.

We continue to write stories based one the fabulous David Walliams books we have been reading.

“I’ve made Star Wars”

We’ve even had a chance to build the Burj Khalifa!

This week we welcomed Mr McDonald into our classroom. He has helped us to learn both outdoors and in the classroom. We have been showing him the routines of our school day (and firing water at him across the playground!)

Mrs Dougall learned this week that it is almost impossible to take photos of moving water, but if you look very closely at the photos, you can just see it.

In literacy, we have been writing a book review and using our new sounds to discover new words. We are enjoying writing independently in our play writing jotters.

After a lot of discussion in class, we have decided that we would like to find out about Life in a Castle for our next topic. We all enjoy role playing castle games outside and building castles with the bricks inside and now we are going to learn more about the people who would live in a castle.

In maths we have been using number lines to help with addition and subtraction, making human size number lines and hopping like bunnies.

We enjoy using the PCs in the classroom to help us develop our maths skills. 

I hope everyone has a fabulous mid term break. I’m looking forward to everyone coming back refreshed and ready for more learning and fun.

We have had some very exciting visitors this week. On Monday, a final year Pharmacy student came in to talk about safety and medicines and then on Wednesday, our new student teacher Mr McDonald came to meet the class. Mr McDonald will be with us for six weeks and is very much looking forward to working with the children.

We are really starting to make the new classroom environment our own. The walls are now covered with the children’s artwork and photographs and the children were delighted today when we managed to make space to incorporate a construction area into our classroom. Watch out for all the pictures of amazing structures to come!

We continue to learn about 2D and 3D Shape with Miss Adair, with lots of practical activities manipulating shapes to learn about their properties.

In Skills Academy, we have been working with Mrs Rattray and the Digital Leaders

In literacy, we continue to use our sounds to create and recognise words. We have been writing stories based on our class reading books. At the moment we are reading the picture books of David Walliams and are particularly enjoying the rich vocabulary, so if any of the children have been suddenly using words like “atrocious” or “ginormous” this is where it’s coming from.

In P1D we love to get outdoors and learn. This week, we were using chalk and wicker to make a snow storm. 

We were exploring 3D shapes outdoors, making patterns using bricks and seeing if we could make a log roll around the guttering.

In literacy, we continue to learn our sounds and use them to create words and sentences in lots of different and fun ways.

In maths, we are investigaing shape with Miss Adair and learning about number and time with Mrs Dougall.

We also remember to take time to chill out with our friends.

Finally, we would like to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year.

We are still very busy making our new room our own. This week , we have changed the sand area and it is now a desert. The children sorted through a huge bag of animals and were able to identify all of the animals and sort them, finding the correct ones for their desert, and putting the others aside for later.

In PE we have been working on our gymnastics skills. This week, tuck rolls and log rolls (or sausage rolls as some of the children called them).

In maths we have continued to learn about symmetry and we made symmetry block pictures. We have made great use of the desktop PC’s and games  to reinforce our number work and we have been hopping along number lines to improve our addition skills.

I Skills Academy, Mr Rattray showed us how to code using the BeeBots

And we have been making sentences with all of the new words we are now learning to read.

I am so proud of how well the class work together and support one another. Go 1D!

I’m so proud of how the children have adapted to their new classroom space. They all arrived on Monday, ready to investigate their new area and keen to learn.

We have been investigating symmetry in Maths.

We even had a competition to see which team could create the best symmetrical picture.

We’ve been using the Numicon to investigate number.

We have been revising all of the new sounds that we were learning last term and using them to make words.

We’ve been writing stories about New Year promises, acting out our own Helicopter Stories

And finally, I wanted to share a few pictures from this week’s outdoor learning. I took lots of photos, and when we were talking about them in class, discovered that –

The baddies were making poisoned soup

to kill the Queen of the Castle

meanwhile, a jail was being built.

The baddies were arrested and put in the jail. And we all lived happily ever after! It might have been pouring, but we were still having fun and learning.

We have been very busy getting organised to move to our new learning area. Today the children got to spend the whole afternoon exploring their new space.

Today we moved our trays and tomorrow we will swap pegs with the children of P1B.  We have checked where we exit the building in an emergency, which toilets we can now access from class and where we will line up. We are all very excited.

“I like building” – Rose

“I made a fire engine” – Keir.

“I like it here” – Harley

“I liked the house corner. I was phoning Abby” – Abi

“I liked the house corner, there are lots of things to learn” – Abby

“We were playing in the sand and building things. I like the sand, it has animals in it” – Benjamin, Jude and Magnus.

“I like the book corner” – Lucy

Finally, as Henry will be heading off to report back to Santa, I just want to wish everyone a fabulous festive break and I look froward to everyone coming back fresh and excited to learn in January.

What a fantastic day we had yesterday at our Christmas Party. We all looked fabulous in our party gear and Santa was so impressed with our lovely manners.

Here are a few pictures of us having fun.

After a really busy few weeks of rehearsing, we presented our Nativity, Whoops-a-Daisy Angel to two packed audiences this week. I am beyond proud of the children. They learned their songs, dances and words, no one took stage fright and I think everyone would agree that their performance was outstanding!

We have continued to investigate money using real coins and the money fans.

We have been creating pictograms.

Although we are no longer bringing home our homework bags, we are still working with  our reading books in class.

“We’re making robots, just like the children in our book”

We’ve been investigating through play.

“I wonder if this is longer or shorter than a metre?” 

“We’ve made Christmas Biscuits”

“We are making Christmas Cards”

And finally, Henry has been very busy this week too!