Block Three (April – June)

The children are continuing to make good progress in their learning as they enter the final block of Primary 1a. They continue to develop new skills as they build on their knowledge and understanding and are showing maturity and confidence as they do this. We are all very proud of what we have achieved so far in Primary 1a!

Literacy

We continue to reinforce the 42 Jolly Phonics sounds by practising these each day and learn 2-3 new tricky words each week. We blend sounds together orally to make words, but also try to write these after we say them. We are now learning about words with alternative spellings for sounds, such as ie, y, igh, i – e and ai, ay, a – e.

Opportunities for writing are available in all areas of play. We carry out guided writing activities on a Tuesday morning and independent writing on a Thursday. Guided writing activities allow us to work together to build sentences, whilst remembering our sounds and the rules of sentence structure.

When writing independently, we use our sounds cards to help us write unfamiliar words and strive to remember sentence structure – capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. We use our senses to help us to write whenever we can and most of us are now using adjectives in our sentences too. Some of us have started to use connecting words, such as ‘and’ and ‘because’ to join short sentences together. All of these features help to make our writing even more interesting!

Reading books continue to be given out on a Monday and we practise reading three times a week in class. Sight vocabulary is practised alongside the books and an activity relating to the book is often completed as a homework task. Children should continue to practise reading books and sight vocabulary at home as often as possible in order to reinforce the learning that takes place in class.

Some useful literacy websites/apps that we use in class are:

Doorway online (good for practising letter and number formation)

Jolly Phonics app

Teach Your Monster to Read

Topmarks

 

Numeracy

In number, we are now working within 20 (and beyond orally). We are focusing on number formation, and learning about number words, counting, ordering and sequencing. We have a focus on vocabulary of before and after, less than and more than. We completed our learning of addition and have moved on to subtraction. Maths topics in Block 3 include measure (capacity), information handling (graphs), money (subtraction from 10p/£10) and time (o’clock and half past). We will also learn about symmetry and position and movement as well as revisiting 2D and 3D shapes.

We continue with mental maths – counting forwards and backwards from different starting points, counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, double numbers and addition within 10.

Some maths websites that we use in class are:

Sumdog

Cool Maths Games

Topmarks

Doorway Online

 

Health and Wellbeing/RME

Mrs Daly continues to give Health and Wellbeing and RME inputs to the class on a Tuesday afternoon and we have our gym afternoon on a Monday. This term we are focusing on bat and ball games, athletics and summer/outdoor games. We continue to have a strong focus on the school values – Safe, Ready and Respectful and regularly use our Recognition Board in class. Certificates are given out on Friday for Starry Star Writer, Inspiring Individual and Hot Chocolate Friday.

Topic

Our class topic for Block 3 is ‘In the Garden’. Books we will read which relate to this topic include, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, ‘The Snail and the Whale’, ‘What the Ladybird Heard’, ‘Superworm’, ‘The Scarecrow’s Wedding’ and ‘Betsy Buglove Saves the Bees’. Using these books as a stimulus, the children will learn about minibeasts and life cycles as well as healthy foods, morals and friendships. Fife Council’s Workshop for Literacy approach will allow for new learning to take place through the use of these books. For example, we will make ‘Wanted’ posters for the robbers in ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ and invitations for ‘The Scarecrow’s Wedding’. This approach also helps to reinforce learning that has already taken place in literacy, such as rhyme, sequencing, comprehension and alternative sounds. Primary 1 are keen to set up a Garden Centre in the role play area and a summer garden in the reading area to tie in with this topic!