For Expressive Arts we have recently been focusing on Drawing. We have discussed the different types of lines that we can draw such as straight, wavy, curved or zig zag and also discussed that lines can be different lengths. We have been developing our pencil control by ensuring our lines are neat.

We started off by just demonstrating our skills. We then used these skills to design a t-shirt using lines to make our t-shirt unique to us.

We then created self-portraits and thought about all the different types of lines we would need to use to draw ourselves. We did this very carefully and even used the mirrors in class to ensure our self-portraits were as accurate as we could make them.

As part of Road Safety Week our Junior Road Safety Officers visited our class to speak to us about road safety. We went down to the cycle track on a very wet Thursday afternoon and practised cross the road under the guidance of the JRSOs.

We also played a game of ‘Spot the Dangers’ by exploring a picture of a busy street and then designed our own posters with the aim of sharing the message ‘Let’s Talk about Speed.’

We have started practising for our Nativity and have heard all of the songs. We have lots still to do and have started discussing parts with an aim to share lines with everyone next week 🙂

It has been an extremely busy but exciting week in P1B.

We started off the week by learning about Diwali. Some children in our class celebrated Diwali last weekend and it was lovely to hear their experiences and how they celebrated it with their families. We created our own mehndi designs on hand templates and watched some short films which showed how families prepare for and celebrate Diwali.

We then made our own Rangoli patterns in our playground with chalk. We hope you enjoyed the beautiful colours at home time on Monday!

   

   

   

   

    

On Tuesday we visited Mearns Library to mark Book Week Scotland. We were introduced to the books we were gifted in our bags and enjoyed listening to some of the stories being read by the Librarian. Thank you to Freddie McL’s mummy who joined us on the trip.

On Tuesday afternoon we were delighted to be joined by our P6 Buddies. We read Supertato together and then designed our own potato using a variety of materials. Our potatoes were amazing and we were so proud to bring them home.

On Thursday we spoke about bullying. We discussed what bullying actually is and how we can stop bullying from happening to us or to someone else in our school. We then read the story ‘Simon Sock’ where Simon realised he is an odd sock. Simon wants to find the other sock which matches him however when he does find it, he realised that they aren’t quite the same and instead made friends with a banana. We created our own odd socks and discussed how it is ok to be different and not be the same as everyone else.

   

On top of all of this we have started learning the songs for our Nativity in December!

 

We have recently started Gymnastics and have so far enjoyed learning about balancing, jumping and rolling. We have also discussed how to keep ourselves and each other safe on the apparatus we have used so far.

Over the past couple of weeks we have been practising balancing, jumping and rolling and this week we put them together to make a short routine.

We learned five different shapes we can make with our bodies and we turned these shapes into balances on the benches.

I like making the shapes with my body, my favourite was a star.

I balanced on one leg.

We had a go at four different types of rolls across the mats. The Teddy Bear roll and the Side roll were the trickiest.

My favourite part was the log roll, I was like a sausage.

I liked the tuck roll, I had to keep my chin tucked in.

I liked doing the teddy bear roll, it was good exercise.

We then moved across the benches, displayed a balanced and then safely jumped off the benches in a shape of our choice. We finished our routine with a roll of our choice.

I tip-toed across the bench.

I liked balancing on the benches.

We had an amazing time at the Science Centre on Tuesday. We had time to explore each of the areas and take part in a workshop called Science Safari although I think most of us agree the bus journey was the most exciting part!

During the workshop we had to think about our senses and also search through the garden area looking for things that were soft, tickly and hard. We also spent time searching for minibeasts and other interesting items in the garden. We completed our workshop by making music. We used the instruments to make the sounds of nature such as the wind and the rain.

Thank you so much to our parents helpers who came along, the experience was made so much more enjoyable by you 🙂

Here are some comments that we shared with each other after the trip and lots of photos to show how wonderful our day was!

‘I liked playing at the Science Centre, the hamster wheel was my favourite part.’

‘I liked the bubbles, they went up and they were flat.’

‘I liked watching the balls move.’

‘The running track was my favourite. There was a timed and I tried to see how fast I was in the timer.’

‘I liked watching the fishes blow up in the air.’

‘The floor with the shapes that made the music was my favourite part.’

‘I liked it when we were on the bus. I enjoyed watching out the window.’

‘My favourite part was building the bones and making a skeleton.’

    

   

   

    

    

   

   

   

   

    

   

   

    

Superworm is super long. Superworm is super-strong. Watch him wiggle! See him squirm! Hip, hip, hooray for SUPERWORM!

We have been reading Superworm and completed STEM activities based on the story. We have loved reciting the above poem in the story which is written by Julia Donaldson.

We wanted to create our own Superworms so ventured into the woodland to find our own sticks.

    

It was fun finding my own stick.

I wanted to find a big stick.

We then used our creative powers and turned our ordinary, brown sticks into amazing Superworms.

I liked making my Superworm because I liked putting the diamonds on.

I put some jewels onto my Superworm to make a necklace.

I liked putting the stickers on to my Superworm.

We discussed what a habitat is and then shared what we think Superworm’s habitat should be like. We looked at pictures from the book along with pictures of real habitats for worms. Using this information, we designed our own habitat for our own Superworms.

A habitat is an animal’s house.

I liked drawing Superworm.

Superworm likes soil, grass and flowers.

Thank you to all of our grown ups who came to our Pop In and Play. We were so excited to have you in our classroom and show you the areas we love to explore and some of the learning we have been doing recently.

I enjoyed exploring in the home corner with Mummy.

I liked showing my Mum the Bee-Bots.

My Mummy helped write my name using some letters.

I played tea party with my Mummy.

When I played with Mummy her sticks broke in the maze and I fixed it.

I liked making the lines with my Dad.

I made a maze for the Bee-Bot with my Mum and then I went outside.

 

This week we have been celebrating Maths Week Scotland. The theme for this was Maths in Motion. We have been discussing this each day and enjoyed watching the teachers compete with each other in the step count challenge. 

Each day we completed some exercises to the beat of our counting. We managed to count all the way to 100.

We were moving and counting.

We were exercising and counting to 100.

Without even realising we were using Maths to help the cars move faster and slower in the Construction Area. This prompted a discussion and linked in with the learning we have been completing with Miss Hutchison.

I was trying to zoom the cars over some more cars and then they were going up and down over the bumps. It landed on it’s wheels and tyres.

I was jumping the cars and my car goes down the ramp and then my car jumped over four cars.

Some slowed down and some didn’t.

The cars go faster if the ramp is higher and go slow if the ramp is lower.

The cars went super fast.

The car went up in the air over some cars.

We have been thinking about Position and Direction and how we can use our knowledge to move the Bee-Bots around the spots on our carpet. We had to give the Bee-Bot a clear set of instructions and think about the way we wanted the Bee-Bot to turn.

We were thinking about our position and our direction.

My left hand makes the letter ‘L’ to help me remember.

We had to press the right buttons and then ask it to go.

We had to give Bee-Bot a clear set of instructions.

The cross button told Bee-Bot to forget.

    

Alongside Maths Week Scotland we have been thinking about number. We have been practising our number formation and also using our knowledge of numbers to find the missing number. We have to think about the number before and after the missing number to help us do this.

 

 

 

In Literacy and English we have been developing our writing skills through drawing. We discuss a sentence and then draw a picture of the sentence by adding as much detail as we can to the picture. We are beginning to have a go at writing some words on our own and this will progress onto forming our own sentence. There has also been lots of letter formation practise to support our handwriting.

Here we are writing a simple sentence about what we do in school.

I enjoyed drawing my picture

I enjoyed writing about what I do at school.

In school I tidy up before home time.

My favourite part is doing the drawing.

I wrote about playing with the blocks in school.

I’m writing about playing with the cars.

I like playing with the blocks in school.

I wrote about playing with the cars.

We have been learning new sounds and so far have learned S, A, T, I, P and N. We have different items in the creative area to help support our understanding of the sound. We have also been using ‘s’cissors to cut a ‘s’tar and ‘p’ainting ‘p’enguins.

I made a mermaid on my t-shirt.

We were learning ‘t’ ‘t’ ‘t’.

I enjoyed colouring the ice-cream in.

We are learning the ‘i’ sound.

To help us remember the sounds we learned, we were tasked with sorting the pictures and the letters into the correct circles. There were some tricky ones in there to try and catch us out.

   

I am moving the table to the letter ‘t’.

I was moving the ice-cream.

I was putting the letters in the right letter.

We also take part in lots of active activities. We are trying to rub the ‘t’s of the ‘t’able with the ‘t’oothbrush.

We had fun using the magnifying glasses to search for letters in the books. 

We were searching for ‘p’ in the book.

I was using the magnifying glass to search for the letters.

To help us learn the ‘n’ sound we were challenged to make a ‘n’est using a variety of different materials.

We were making birds nests.

I was changing my nest and then the bird was sick.

I made a nest for a lizard. I put some grass in it and I put lots of detail on there.

 

We have been enjoying Spinderella and have enjoyed the story about a friendly spider who wants to learn to count. We have been practising counting to 20, just like Spinderella does in the story and in PE we spoke about splitting our class into teams with the same number of children in each time.

I liked the counting of the football teams in the story.

Spinderella is friendly spider.

I liked the Hairy Godmother in the story because she was kind.

We used wool and a paper plate to weave a spider web. We found it quite tricky and had to learn to keep the wool tight to allow us to weave the next part.

I found the weaving quite easy. I enjoyed weaving the web.

I found making the web hard. It was hard to get the wool through the gaps.

We tied the wool around the plate to make the web.

It was tricky to wrap the wool around the plate.

We made our own Spinderella using black paint and our hand prints. The paint was very squidgy and most of us loved the feeling of it on our hands.

    

I liked making the spider from my hand print.

The paint was so slimy on my hands. It was like my slime at home.

It felt soft and cold on my hands.

We gave our ‘Spinderellas’ some eyes and glued her onto our webs.

   

I was proud of my web and my Spinderella.

It was gluey and squishy trying to get my spider onto the web.

I liked the look of my spider web.

We created a map of Primary 1 which looked similar to the map in the story. Before using the map we learned about position and direction. We discussed forwards, backwards and turning and had a go at learning right and left. This helped us to follow instructions and move in the right direction.

We then explored the map and were challenged to move Spinderella from one part of Primary 1 to another. We even managed to move Spinderella to the door we enter in the morning and to the school office.

I liked the using the map but it was pretty tricky trying to find the door we come in.

I liked moving the spider around the map.

I liked moving Spinderella around the other classes on the map.

I took the spider to the toilet on the map, it was fun!

 

 

 

We have had a wonderful week in the sunshine and whilst it has been very warm that hasn’t stopped us learning and having fun.

With Miss Hutchison we are developing our throwing and catching skills. We practised this with a balloon which was tricky. We worked with a partner and tried to get the balloon in the cone/box to develop our accuracy.

We were practising throwing and catching with the balloon.

We found it easy to get the balloon in the cone.

It wasn’t easy for me, it kept bouncing out for me.

It wasn’t easy because it keeps bouncing away from the cone.

It was fun. I got it in the cone some of the times.

It was soooo hard getting it in the cone. We only got it in one time.

I was getting it into the box three times.

On Wednesday we went to the woodland area with Miss Hutchison to search for natural items that we could paint with. We chose sticks, leaves, berries and even apples. We used autumnal colours to create our paintings and enjoyed using a variety of different brushes to create different textures.

We were gathering all the stuff to paint with.

We were picking fruits and vegetables to paint with.

I picked some leaves and berries.

I picked an apple and I painted it.

I painted my leaf and put it on the paper and it made a leaf shape on the paper.

I was making a blood picture.

We used green, orange, red and yellow paint.

I was painting a flower.

I made an apple tree.

I enjoyed painting with the leaf.

I was painting with my leaf I got but first I was painting with a green sponge with red, orange, brown, yellow and green.

I made a board with a brush.

We then enjoyed some time to explore the P1 garden.

We were rolling our cars down. We were racing to the bottom and whoever gets to go first wins.

There are two layers were the cars go down.

I was a witch and the King was trying to get me.

I was a pirate and I was trying to catch the King and then he said I have to do everything he wanted me too.

 

 

 

 

This week we have been reading The Colour Monster together. The story has helped us to understand different emotions and discuss different feelings and emotions we might experience. We have been sharing our emotions each day and why we might be feeling that way.

We have read the story together as a whole class and some of us have also been enjoying it on our own or with a friend.

Here are some of the comments the children shared about their learning on The Colour Monster.

“I learned about The Colour Monster and he was feeling sad. “

“I saw the The Colour Monster stomping his feet when he was angry. “

“I saw a happy Colour Monster in real life. He was yellow.”

“The Colour Monster felt loved at the end of the story. “

“The Colour Monster felt sad because he was alone.”

We created our own monsters. We had fun choosing how we wanted our monsters to be. Some had 10 eyes and 7 legs, some had wiggly arms and some even had wings and crowns. We also used lots of different shapes to create our monsters. We then discussed how our monster was feeling.

“My Colour Monster was loved. It is pink.”

“My Colour Monster is black. He was feeling scared.”

“My Colour Monster was loved because I love my family.”

We thought of a time that we felt a certain emotion; happiness, anger, calm, sadness, fear or confusion and drew a picture of this time in a jar.

“Mine was happy because I was surfing.”

“In my jar I was sad because I didn’t want to come into school.”

“Mine was calm because when I was in Tenerife I was so calm.”

To encourage us to share our feelings we enjoyed Circle Time on Friday by sharing a time that we felt happy and a time that we felt scared. Mrs Agnew is scared of spiders and some of us have promised to help her if there is a spider in the class!

“We were passing the monkey round the circle and if you had the monkey it was your turn to talk.”

“We were talking about times we felt happy and scared.”