P3.10 Blog 2023/24 – Page 8

Numicon

Numicon is a multi-sensory way of learning, it helps your child to see connections between numbers by seeing and feeling.

The holes in the Numicon Shapes represent the numbers 1 to 10. When they are arranged in order, as in the picture below, children can easily see connections between numbers, such as ‘one more’ or ‘one less’.

In class, we were using our Numicon sets to look at numbers before (1 less than), and numbers after (1 more than). Later on, your child will be able to see more complex mathematical ideas, like how two fours make eight, three twos make six, add and subtract visually and so on.

Numicon1

Numicon2

Mearns Masters: Coding

We are now on week 3 of Mearns Masters and we have made some amazing progress! Click on the videos below to see what we can do now 😊

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Loomin’ Marvellous

As we develop our fine motor skills for writing, it is important to remember, little hands need lots of practise. Other activities like using large tweezers, chopsticks, screwdrivers, scissors etc can all help the muscles and muscle memory required for pencil control.

This week we put out the fabric loom which, after a slow start, has grown in popularity! The pupils have been weaving pieces of material in and out the vertical threads to create beautiful coloured patterns and designs. We are now running out of material. If anyone has any spare scraps of fabric gathering dust at home, please send it in, we would be very grateful.

Health & Wellbeing

As part of our current h & wb topic, we are working through a series of lessons based on the Disney film ‘Inside Out’.

Through this, we have been exploring the different emotions we feel and ways we can recognise different emotions in others. We are becoming more confident at contributing during circle time discussions and have been showing good listening skills towards our peers.

Happy Monday!

Mearns Masters

This afternoon we began our 6 week block of Mearns Masters exploring ‘Coding’. Today our focus was firstly following instructions. For this, we created paper aeroplanes! We knew if we did not do this in the correct sequence the aeroplanes would not look or function the way they should. After this, Mrs Stephenson showed us the controls on a ‘beebot’ and what to do to make it go. It was lots of fun trying these out ourselves although we are finding coding the turns a little tricky. This is something we will explore further next week 🙂 We also had the opportunity to play the ‘beebot’ game on the iPad. It was great to have an afternoon full of fun technology!

Jolly Phonics

Today we learned the new sound ‘i’. We practised forming the letter correctly, identified pictures of objects beginning with ‘i’ and were introduced to blending sounds. We now know four sounds, ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘t’ and ‘i’. This week we will also learn the sounds ‘p’ and ‘n’.

Numeracy & Maths

We are continuing to focus on practising number formation up to the number 10 this week along with challenging our counting skills. We enjoyed using the play-dough today to form different numbers.

We are hoping it won’t be much longer before photograph permissions are confirmed and we can begin sharing pictures with you all. If you haven’t already done so, please return consent forms as soon as possible.

Google Classroom

Welcome parents/carers!

It has been a busy first full week in P1.4. Pupils are becoming more familiar with their new surroundings and settling well to the routines of P1. You’ve probably noticed sleepier children returning home to you!

We are very keen to start using Google classroom as our way to communicate information, weekly homework diaries as well as links to new posts on our class blog. The weekly homework diary will be posted on Google Classroom every Monday.

On Monday 30th you will be issued your child’s Google classroom/Glow user name and password as well as a help sheet for support. You will find this in their homework folder. (Please ensure homework folders are returned by Friday each week)

We advise all parents to download the Google Classroom app to their phone. We have found this the easiest way to receive notifications and upload any photos of pupil homework, when required.

In order to spread the message to parents, we would be grateful if this message could be shared on any class WhatsApp groups.

Please bear with us next week while we ensure everyone is able to log into Google Classroom. If you are having any technical difficulties, please call the school office who will notify our ICT coordinator, who will be able to help!

Many thanks for all your patience.

Mrs Hamilton

Class of 2028!

Hello and welcome to Primary 1.4’s class blog. Here we will keep you up to date with what we are doing in school to ensure you feel part of your child’s learning journey at Mearns Primary School. My name is Mrs Stephenson and I am P1.4’s teacher on a Monday, Tuesday and alternate Wednesdays. Mrs Hamilton is P1.4’s teacher alternate Wednesdays, Thursday and Friday.

Today was a great first day and I was so impressed with how well the class settled. Our main aim this week is to get to know the children, support them in building relationships with one another and familiarise the class with our routines. I was amazed with the fantastic listening skills, their excellent efforts during tidy up times and the respect shown for adults and each other.

Above are just a few of our popular areas from today. These photographs were taken after our tidy up time, a great example of how well the children looked after their new space! At the moment, we are unable to share photographs of members of the class until permissions are confirmed.

During our story time we thought about how we were feeling and what we were enjoying. Before hometime I was delighted to see lots of thumbs up when asking the children to share how they felt about their day.

This afternoon the children also printed their hands, a perfect keepsake from their first day of school. These will be sent home on Friday 🙂

More information will be available in the coming weeks regarding learning in primary 1 and homework. If you have any questions in the meantime, please get in touch with our school office who will pass any queries onto us.

Thank you,

Mrs Stephenson