All posts by Mrs Arbuckle

Rehearsing for “Sing”

We loved “Sing”and decided that if we were animals,  we would have to dance too.   We split up into groups and decided which animals we would be and which dance we would do.  Some were chest beating gorillas; some were snapping crocodiles; some were ballroom dancing hippos ( they had a decidedly  Strictly influence and would have scored 7! ) and one group were tap dancing giraffes.  There were lots of giggles as they demonstrated their dances to the music.  One child sang “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” as they danced.  It made a change from their rendition of “Lord of the Dance” the previous week! 😁😁

Our Cinema Trip

Oh the excitement!   The big day had finally arrived! We had our snacks and juice in our pockets  and we were off on the bus to see “Sing”.

We had the whole cinema to ourselves and settled down in our seats.  The film was really good and the music was great.  ( Some people even sang some of the songs on the bus home.  They know who they are.  😁)

 

 

Children at Play

Play is such a valuable part of children’s learning.  It makes learning fun for children and they also learn important social skills, such as taking turns, listening, imagination and problem solving.  We try to provide stimulating play activities for the children .  We ask them what they would like.  This week, the craft table and play doh were popular requests.

Continue reading Children at Play

Word lists and Tricky Words

So….  what are these tricky words and word lists and what do we do with them?  The answer is simple: read them!  Choose a few  a night.  We don’t expect the children to learn them all every night.   🙀

Choose any of the word lists for your child to read. They will sound out the word, using their phonics and blend the sounds together, then watch as their little faces light up as say the word!  As they get better, they will be able to look at the words and say them, without sounding them out, but this a work in progress and it all takes time. A lot of patience is required in Primary 1.  Remember not to read a list from top to bottom, as the children are clever and will soon memorise it!

The tricky words are words that the children cannot sound out.  They are, indeed, tricky words. ( The clue is in the title)  You may want to cut the cards up and  turn the cards over one at a time, or you might want to “lucky dip”and choose random words on the sheet.  ( probably best to choose just a few words) Again, it is a work in progress.  We reinforce all of these words in class every day.  Quite often a child will pipe up “that is a tricky word!”as we read a story.  Bingo!

Outdoor Maths

Sometimes, we go outdoors to learn and it is a lot of fun.  A group went out to learn some playground number games .  Rules had to be followed, turns had to be taken and a lot of patience was to be had, but we got there!

 

 

Do you have a naughty name?

One of children made us laugh as they explained that when they are a bit naughty, Mummy calls them by their ” naughty name”.  This is usually your whole name.  ( Sometimes it includes a middle name too!)   So many children knew exactly what it was!   Mrs Arbuckle is still called her naughty name by her Mummy and Daddy!

 

Asda Revisited

The second half of the class visited Asda today. It was great to do the shopping and then we all took it in turns to “beep” the item at the till. We then took the total of coins out of the till and we had to match them to big money cards.  Thank you, Asda!

ASDA Trip

Some  of us got to go to Asda this week as part of our Developing Young Workforce lessons.  We became till operators and got to work with real money.  We wore our special high viz jackets, so people didn’t think we were real workers! We had a brilliant experience.  Some of our boys and girls will go next week.