All posts by Miss Dunn

Say Those Stories!

January 30, 2017 Miss Dunn

The circles and squares group have been revisiting their stories of numbers all last week.

It’s really important we explore and remember our stories of numbers with rapid recall as these form the foundations for addition and subtraction concepts we explore in First Level.

Have a look at some fun ways to explore these at home:

Basketball Bounce:

Bounce a basketball to each other. On each bounce of the ball say a story of a given number. Keep going until all stories have been said.

Speed Trial:

Roll a die. Time your child to see how quickly they can record all the stories of that number. Set a personal best and try to beat this.

Twintastic:

Say a story of a number. Challenge your child to state the twin of this story. E.g. 5 + 3 = 8 is a twin of 3 + 5 =8.

Expressive Arts, Literacy and English

Scots Poetry

January 30, 2017 Miss Dunn

As per a request from Primary 1 the words to the Scots poem Ma Wee Rid Motor can be found below.

We have a feeling you will be able to say it off by heart very soon!

In my wee rid motor,
I can gang for miles,
Up and doon the gairden,
Through the lobby whiles.

Mony a bigger motor
Gangs tae toons afaur.
Nane can gang whaur I gang
In my wee rid caur

Joint Faith School's Campus

Faith Schools’ Joint Campus Transition Project

January 30, 2017 Miss Dunn

As part of our planned transition activties with the pupils of St Cadoc’s we investigated Scot’s language in January and shared this information via PowerPoint with each other.

We read familiar tales in Scots language, sung old Scots songs and looked at images of places in Scotland that speak Scots language today.

As we are leaning animal words in Ivrit we decided to teach our fellow P1s animal words in Scots (which just so happened to got in with our favourite tale Whit the Clockleddy Heard).

We made a powerpoint showing the following words:

dug – dog

grumphie – pig

cuddy – horse

coo – cow

yowe – sheep

The children from St Cadoc’s shared their research into famous Scottish poems with us, including the poem ‘The Wee Rid Caur’.

We loved finding our what the children in St Cadoc’s have been learning and sharing our knowledge and experience with them.

“We were both learning about Scots language at the same time so we will both know the same things when we move to the new school.” – Katie

“It was nice to see that we can learn with other P1s even though we are not in their actual real classroom. That was new.” – Jasper

Literacy and English, Social Studies

Burns Day 2017

January 30, 2017 Miss Dunn

Last week we celebrated the life and works of a very famous Scottish Poet: Robert Burns.

We watched the clip below to listen for information about Robert Burns and used our note taking skills to record what we learned in our jotters.

We were inspired by Robert Burns and had a go at writing and saying our own rhymes and songs. Mrs Waterson was very impressed at our ability to identify and generate our own rhyming families, we think we did Rabbie proud!

Expressive Arts

Artist Study Week 2

January 30, 2017 Miss Dunn

In Week 2 of our Artist Study we have been exploring the French artist Claude Monet. He was a painter who used materials to imply a picture rather than draw it exactly as we would see it.

We discovered these interesting facts about Monet:

You can tell he was born and lived a long time ago because the photos of him have no colour in them – Jamin
He liked to paint pictures of nature and not really people. We know these are called landscapes. – Nina
We draw a picture by colouring in the lines. Monet used lots of little brush marks together to make his picture and no lines. – Zac

Take a look at the paintings we were most inspired by below:

Some of us preferred Monet’s pieces to Kandinsky’s because they were clearly paintings of objects we know. Miss Dunn told us this was because Kandinsky was an Abstract artist.

Try and investigate what this word means at home!

Expressive Arts

What an Arty Bunch.

January 11, 2017 Miss Dunn

Primary 1 are a class full of budding artists! We have shown a keen interest in art and design this term and as a result we have turned our easel area into an artist exploration area.

Each week we will learn about a new artist and explore using their styles, subjects and techniques at our easel.

Today we learned all about an artist called Kandinsky.

Some of the facts we learned were:

Kandinsky was born and lived a long time ago – Lucy MacInnes
Kandinsky was a Russian artist – Phoebe
Kandinsky was also a musician who made music – Jamin
Kandinsky used bright colours and shapes to make his pictures – Noah

Some of us liked Kandinsky’s work and some of us did not. We discussed the fact this was OK as we all have our own likes and dislikes.

Check the blog at the end of the week for some examples of our work.

Literacy and English, Sciences, Social Studies

Weather Warnings!

January 11, 2017 Miss Dunn

Many of us have been hearing the words weather warnings on the news and weather reports. We decided to investigate this further on our Social Studies and Science time this afternoon.

We explored different types of extreme weather, from floods to tornadoes. Many of us knew lots of facts about different types of weather. Look at some of these below:

Katie: “I know that tornadoes happen in countries like America. They don’t really happen here in our country. They are like spinning wind that is very dangerous. ”

Ian: “A drought is when it is so so hot that you need your sunglasses and no rain comes. It can be over 34 degrees! Then all the plants and vegetables don’t grown because they need rainwater.”

We used clips from BBC Newsround to investigate the extreme weather happening across Europe just now. Many countries who are usually hot countries are experiencing heavy snowfall. We discussed how a country could be prepared or not prepared for such weather.

Following on from our discussion about snow Miss Dunn showed us magic snow we can use in the classroom. It was not cold and did not melt in your hand nut looked just like snow. We followed the instructions to make it and practised writing our names in it.

We even wrote our own weather forecasts with Miss Lindsay for the rest of the week. We predicted deep, deep snow!

Uncategorized

Warm Welcome Back

January 9, 2017 Miss Dunn

A warm welcome back to all of our Primary 1 children and parents. We have enjoyed sharing tales of our exciting holiday adventures over the past few days and have written about some in our news jotters.

We would also like to mention a warm welcome to Miss Rachael Lindsay a new member of staff in Calderwood Lodge. Miss Lindsay is a new class teacher at Calderwood Lodge and will be supporting the learning and teaching across the infant department this term. Primary 1 look forwards to working with Miss Lindsay in Literacy and Numeracy during Team Teaching sessions. Feel free to come and chat to Miss Lindsay at dismissal time at the end of the day.

Events

Chanukah Sameach!

December 23, 2016 Miss Dunn

Primary 1 have been enjoying lots of Chanukah celebrations. Our Chanukah party was a great success with lots of dancing, games and even party food in our classroom!