Autumn

We have been investigating and exploring the season. We collected leaves from the school playground and at home.

‘Using magnifying glasses we looked at the leaves closely to see the patterns and beautiful colours’, Ana.

We read The Leaf Man and feeling inspired we made our own leaf pictures using Autumn treasures.

‘I made a leaf hedgehog. I used acorns, a leaf and some googly eyes’, Lena.

‘I made a reindeer with using a medium sized leaf and some conkers’, Max.

We experimented with mixing paints to create Autumnal colours to paint our own leaves.

 

Literacy

Through exploring and investigating we have been developing our literacy skills. We have been learning to predict and sequence a variety of stories and have been using our talking and listening skills to discuss characters and setting.

Zoe said ‘We have been making a prediction which is a sensible guess about what will happen in the story but you can’t peek in the book first’

We have used our knowledge of phonics to develop our writing skills, you can check out some of our Spooky Spells inside the classroom. We had lots of fun mixing ingredients into our potions at Halloween.

‘My group made a potion that bubbled and bubbled. If you drank it you would turn into a little rabbit’, Zariya.

‘I liked mixing in the spiders’, Denny.

 

Numeracy

Our numeracy skills are developing quickly and through practical activities have explored the concept of addition and some of us even subtraction.

‘When you add two numbers together you get a bigger number’, Poppy

‘I like adding 10 and 10 together, it makes 20. I like doubles’, Marnie.

‘I practised addition using numicon and dominoes’, Mitchell Hatfield.

We are working to record our calculations using the correct symbols and number formation. A favourite activity for this week has been investigating weight using our loose parts and different types of scales. A few of us have managed to balance the scales.

 

Safety

We have been learning about road safety and really enjoyed our role area. These are our top tips for staying safe –

• Hold an adult’s hand
• Stop, look and listen
• Use traffic lights
• Go to the lollypop person

We really enjoyed a visit from Graham, our lollypop person. We asked him questions to find out more about his job and how he keeps us safe. Outside, we crossed the road safely with Graham’s help. Inside the classroom we had a turn of the real size lollypop, it was very heavy!

 

We enjoyed a visit from PC Traynor. He told us lots of information about his job and we asked great questions to find out more.

‘I got to try on his hat because it was my birthday’, Emily.

‘PC Traynor carries a notebook, a torch, hand cuffs and a walkie talkie’, Eilidh.

‘Miss Stead had to wear the hand cuffs’, Lily.

‘He has caught lots of bad guys’, Mitchell Hart.

 

Things to look forward to

We have begun practising for our Christmas Show by learning our lines, our song words and beginning to create a dance. Parents, look out for further information in bags about costumes as well as song words to learn at home.

This week, we are looking forward to a visit from the cookalong team to make some fairycakes.

We are visiting Giffnock library on Wednesday21st November to get a gift bag from Book Bug.

 

Awesome Achievers

This month we have been awesome yet again! Some of us have started new clubs including football and Rainbows. Through hard work and determination we have been moving up levels and groups at swimming and karate. At home, as well as in school, we are becoming more independent by dressing ourselves and taking responsibility for jobs.

 

Article 29: You have the right to education which develops your personality, respect for other’s rights and the environment.

 

We have been so busy in Primary 1 making many new friends, learning to be increasingly responsible and to follow the routines in our classroom. There is a lot to remember and we have settled in well.

We have been working really hard on our phonics and rhyming. Some of us are reading and writing short words by blending the sounds we have learned so far. We are continuing to practise writing our first and second names. The children will soon begin our reading programme and will be meeting some favourite characters like Mr Big, Miss Owens and Pickle. The children will develop skills such as prediction, sequencing events and the ability to talk about characters.

As part of our Numeracy we have been learning about 2D and 3D shapes. We went on a shape hunt to find the different shapes outside. We brought recycling materials in from home to be transformed into amazing models. We used our imagination to make rockets, robots, houses, castles and instruments. We created 2D pictures of ice cream, rockets, houses, our families and many more using circles, squares, triangles and rectangles. We can use Numicon to show different ways of making numbers and to make numberlines.

‘I wrote the numbers all the way up to 20 on post-its, I put them in the right order and I used the right Numicon to make each number underneath. It was tricky but I worked hard’, Eloise.

This term we will be focusing on number formation, developing number sense, addition and subtraction as well as many practical activities and problem solving.

In ICT we are able to log on to the computer independently. We are able to use the mouse and drawing tools to create increasingly detailed pictures.

‘I drew a picture of myself and I typed my name’, Zahra.

We are working towards being able to type a sentence to complement our drawings.

In Science we will be learning all about our senses. We will be able to identify each sense and how each sense helps us to describe the world around us. We will be conducting lots of experiments.

‘I want to know how blind people read’, Lena.

I would like to find out why some animals hear differently from humans’, Eilidh.

‘How do your eyes work?’, Max.

 

The focus of our ‘Big Picture Planning’, this term is Our Local Area. This will be planned collaboratively with the children as well as incorporating ideas from our parents at Meet the Teacher. The children’s questions and ideas for activities will shape our project while learning more about the shops, services and the people who help us in Giffnock.

‘We have made an ice cream shop in our class like Valentini’s. We have tubs, cherries, sauces and we have been taking orders for our customers.’ Zoe.

We have many enjoyed opportunities to participate in different kinds of play both indoors and out.

‘In the mud kitchen I have been working with my friends to make pancakes and soup’, Mitchell.

When learning about our school values we know we are part of the ‘Giffnock Family’ and like a jigsaw we all stick together. We have been to our first House Meetings and voted for our House Captains. In Primary 1b Charan, Lena, Emily and Eloise will be our representatives at the committees.

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