This week we were so lucky with the weather when we went to the woodland with Miss Hutcheson.

In RME we have been learning about Festivals of Light – this week we have learned about Diwali. We have made Rangoli Patterns and Mendhi, created a building and decorated it with candles and lots of colour for Diwali. Our Drawing Club book for this week was “The Best Diwali Ever”, we designed our perfect festival outfit and drew pictures of our houses decorated for the celebrations.

In Maths we have been conducting surveys and learning how to use tally marks to record information.

I hope everyone has a restful weekend and look forward to another great week of learning.

We had a fabulous day out at the Science Centre this week. Thank you so much to our parent helpers who came along.

We were very excited to go on the bus…

When we arrived at the Science Centre, we went straight to the Pod for our workshop. The Science Centre teachers were very impressed with our knowledge of our senses.

We had a safety talk …

And then we went outside to the Urban Meadow to see what we could feel, hear, see and smell – we were told in the safety talk not to taste anything!

It was really hard work, so we were glad to stop for our snack.

The rest of the day was spent exploring the Science Malls.

We had the best day and we will continue with the workshop learning back in class as the Science Centre have kindly provided us with lots of lesson ideas.

This week in P1a we have been working on our number formation.

Learning about camouflage and creating camouflaged creatures.

We played colour bingo in French

Welcomed our grown ups in for Pop in and Play.

Our Drawing Club book this week was The Hairy Toe. We used the metal loose parts to create traps for the monster.

We were estimating and ordering numbers using the Dienes materials.

And we explored the classroom play areas.

I hope everyone has a fabulous October break – remember we are off to the Science Centre on the first day back!

This week we have been working on our number skills and linking into the Maths in Motion theme of Maths Week Scotland. We were ordering numbers to 20 and beyond and then we completed a task to choose three numbers, order them from smallest to largest and create a movement sequence to match our numbers.

We have also been investigating length using standard and non standard units of measurement. We compared our shoe sizes and placed ourselves in order from smallest shoe to biggest shoe.

In our Wasps v Spiders Topic work we have been comparing Wasps and Bees, creating insects using pastels and tile printing.

Outdoors, we still managed to develop our skills while sheltering from the rain and then the sun came our in time for us to investigate  magnetism.

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We look forward to welcoming you all next Tuesday afternoon to Pop in and Play.

This week in P1a we started learning and using our sounds. We have been busy practising our letter formation in a range of ways, finding words that start with and contain our new sounds and beginning to blend our sounds together to make words.

Our Numeracy focus this week was subitising, we were learning how to look for patterns in random amounts to help us estimate and recognise the number of items.

Our Maths focus was Pattern, we looked for patterns outdoors and created increasingly complex patterns using the Loose Parts.

Our Topic at the moment is Spiders vs Wasps which came about after a heated playground discussion.

We created spiders to link with our Incy Wincy Spider Growth Mindset lesson and then we were did some research to answer our questions about wasps. This linked in nicely with our pattern and 2D shape learning and so we have been creating hexagon wasp nests.

The weather has been so lovely this week and so I thought it would be nice to share some photos of our outdoor learning.

                                                                          We were standing on the white line and passing the balloon along. The team that got the balloon all along the line first won.  Then we used the ball, it was much easier.

You had to catch the balloon in the cone – we worked together.

We painted with lots of Autumn Colours and leaves.

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We played Snakes and Ladders, you rolled the dice and then counted along.

Thank you to everyone who managed along for the Meet the Teacher and Coffee & Chat events – it was lovely to speak to you all.

This week, we continued our literacy focus on Phonological Awareness and we used our syllable detection skills in a range of activities.

In Numeracy & Maths we have been clap counting to 20 and beyond, forwards and backwards and skip  counting in 5’s and 10’s. We have been using the concrete materials (glass beads, buttons and number strings) to build amounts. Our focus on shape continues and we were sorting and classifying shapes in the tuff spot and completed a shape hunt.

Having spoken to so many parents this week about the areas and how we develop learning in play, I thought it might be useful to share some pictures of the variety of play opportunities in the classroom.

Fabulous story telling in the Role Play

Problem solving and negotiating in the Construction Area

Comparing sizes, figuring out how to fill the area with animals and discussing which animals can’t be put in a field together in Small World

Story telling with the Dolls House furniture.

Adding water to the sand pit so that it sticks together to create a volcano – the children noticed that when they filled the containers with wet sand it was much heavier.

Mark making in the writing area – very busy diaries!

Block play was extended with the introduction of the wooden marble run.

Using our counting skills outdoors.

Helping prepare the garden for Autumn.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

We have had such a busy first couple of weeks in Primary 1 – all of the children have settled in so well and should be so proud of themselves.

Our focus has been on settling into the routines of school life.  We have been exploring the classroom areas and making new friends.

In literacy, we have started Drawing Club, we created our own Colour Monsters and we drew pictures and of a safe place to store the emotions jars. We have been “writing” our first Helicopter Stories and acting them out with our classmates.

In maths we have been demonstrating our number knowledge through a range of numeracy activities.

Miss Hutcheson took us outdoors to explore the P1 garden.

In our first PE slot in the hall, we explored the space, learned how to keep safe in the PE Hall and then had fun with the hoops.

I look forward to welcoming everyone next Wednesday for our Open Evening.