A massive thank you to everyone who has taken the time to complete our first parent survey of the school year. We are collating them right now and looking at ways we can improve our communication, make it possible for you to join in with school events and support you with your child’s homework.
If you haven’t yet had the chance to complete the survey we would really love to hear your thoughts. The survey is completely anonymous and can be found by clicking here: parent survey
This term, Primary 1 families were invited to take part in another Family Learning Club. The focus for this club was ‘Playing with Sounds’. This is an initiative to involve parents in playing games that will reinforce early literacy skills. Our main focus over the course of these sessions was to reinforce and further develop children’s phonological awareness.
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and play with the sounds of spoken language. It is an essential skill that is the foundation for developing reading and spelling skills. It is an aural skill so there are plenty of fun opportunities to reinforce this skill which don’t involve writing or reading.
The reason these sessions are game based is primarily to make them fun for all of you and not feel like an additional task or chore to complete. Playing games at home can increase a child’s confidence and social skills, boost their brain power and memory and develop their language skills.
Over the course of the sessions we explored the ‘Playing with Sounds’ games and you were able to take these home to continue the learning at home. We also played a number of rhyming and sounds based games to give you further opportunity to develop phonological awareness. The children particularly enjoyed the rhyming games and requested that the activities are even harder for next time! The biggest thing they all agreed on in their feedback was that they loved having their parents in school and that having you here helped them to learn. Thank you so much for coming a long and supporting these sessions.
Within the take home games there were suggestions for a ‘Chat Together’ time. I have listed some of the ideas from Chat together below so that you can continue the family learning fun even without the packs. If you weren’t able to make the Family Learning sessions, the ideas below are very simple but effective ways to reinforce your child’s phonological awareness and a fun way to boost their literacy skills. Have a try at home and let us know how you get on.
Chat together ideas
Sing nursery rhymes and songs
Miss words out from nursery rhymes and songs and wait for your child to finish the line.
Play ‘”I spy with my little eye” using initial sounds e.g. ” I spy with my little eye something beginning with p”. Change it up to make it harder, ” I spy with my little eye something ending in p”.
Play ” I hear with my little ear something that rhymes with star” e.g. car
Read rhyming books to your children – the local library will be well stocked but you will also find examples in the Bookbug bags you’ve collected over the years.
Practise sounding out 3 syllable words- use objects you can show them around the house. Build it into your routine i.e. as you wash the dishes, hold up a baking tray and ask them to count the syllables e.g ba(1)- king(2) tray (3) so three syllables.
When you are reading a story to your child, say some of the words in individual phonemes e.g. The f-o-x saw the chickens in the farmyard. Ask your child which word it was.
When you are reading stories together, ask your child where they hear certain sounds in words. Take turns to do this. If you were reading Farmer Duck, ask you child: Where do you hear the d in duck? Or ask, what sound do you hear at the start/middle/end of duck?
We loved having our parents in our class school see us perform some of the stories and songs we have been learning during our topic “A Princess Long Ago”.
We had an amazing time doing our assembly. It was great fun showing all the parents how hard P2a have worked on their topic ‘A Princess long ago.’ Thank you to everyone that managed to pop along.
We are all looking forward to showcasing our learning about Ancient Egypt in our assembly for our parents and carers tomorrow. We had a dress rehearsal today with P1 and P2 as a fantastic audience.
A big thank you to all who attended the last family learning session for this term. Another big thank you to all the staff who helped with the organisation behind the scenes and who joined in with the club on … Continue reading →
It was another fun filled week at our Family Learning Club. We were thrilled to see so many of you back and to have new faces join us. Your willingness to give everything a go and enthusiasm for the activities really gave a buzz to the whole event. Our aim for this session was to provide ideas for fun ways you can spend time as a family that will also help to develop your children’s literacy and numeracy skills. We hope you’re using your book bug and read, write, count bags regularly and having a go at some of the activities at home. I am currently planning for next week’s session using your feedback and feedback from the children. There will be a lot of new things going on as well as some of the firm favourites that you might not have experienced yet. Either way there should be enough to keep everyone entertained!
Primary 1
Primary one had another look at ‘One Button Benny’ and had a go at junk modelling their very own robot. I really enjoyed listening to them discuss what shapes they were using to make different parts of their robot and explaining what the functions of all the added gadgets and gizmos were. It was really encouraging to hear the wonderfully imaginative stories they were coming up with based on this crafting activity.
It was also great to watch them in action as mini- teachers, guiding their parents through the blending, matching, sorting and reading games that we had brought along from the classrooms to show off. They were great at explaining the rules and showing off what they’ve learned so far this year. I hope you have managed to take some ideas from these activities that you could use at home.
There was a lot of creativity and excellent role-play skills from the group that had read ‘I am Bat’. I loved seeing the effort and imagination you put into creating your bat masks but more than that I loved hearing the expression and body language used as you took turns of being Bat. Some of the ‘ferocious’ voices had me shaking! Acting a part and playing with the story should really help the children add expression to their own reading.
Primary 2
Primary two also had the opportunity for role-play this week as they crafted their own crocodile puppets. These were used to re-tell the story of ‘Open Carefully- a book with bite’. The children were great at following instructions and using the model to work out how to complete this paper craft activity. It was also a great way for them to explore a character and try out different voices and parts from the story. Again, opportunities to role-play a character can improve fluency and expression when learning to read.
Primary two also had the opportunity to join in with board games and card games. It was lovely to see the money cards from the read, write, count bags being used. Look out for lots more maths and numeracy activities coming in the following sessions. It was also great to hear the discussion happening around the rules and instructions between families. I am definitely inspired to spend some family time this weekend around the table chatting and playing games and I hope it’s something you are all looking forward to as well.
The much loved baking table was back and it looked like everyone was doing a good job of mixing icing, spreading jam and decorating biscuits. I’ve never seen such a variety of empire biscuits. I especially loved the ones that had been created to look like a character! It was great to see families working together to assemble the tools you needed, follow instructions and enjoy the end product. I’m sure there will be many opportunities at home to work together like this in the kitchen.
Primary 3
Primary three also had the opportunity to join in with board games and card games. I was impressed that everyone managed to keep their competitive spirit in check and take the losses with good grace. It’s very encouraging to see the children so engaged in such a traditional activity and using their problem solving skills to secure a win!
I was also delighted to see the amazement as children explored the Atlas, finding and sharing facts and working their way through the quiz. There is so much learning to be done from non-fiction texts like this. There are further ideas for activities using the Atlas on the Primary three reading key fobs as well as further questions to be answers.
It was Primary three’s turn for the play dough this week. The children crafted dragons after reading ‘There is no dragon in this book’. They discussed their models with their families and I was delighted to listen in as they gave detailed description of how/what/why they had made the choices they had. Some of them then went on to have a go at writing their very own dragon story.
We have two sessions left as part of this family learning club but there will be further opportunities to come in and participate in the life of the school next term. We are so grateful to everyone who has participated so far and we’re looking forward to seeing you again very soon!
Earlier in November we invited Primary 1 to Primary 3 parents to join our Family Learning Club and we were overwhelmed with the response. This initiative came about as we thought about, how to make the most of the wonderful Bookbug and Read, Write, Count packs that were being gifted to the children from the Scottish Book Trust.
On Thursday 22nd November we launched the Holy Cross Family Learning Club, which turned out to be the biggest family learning session we’ve seen at Holy Cross. We were delighted to welcome you all in and with the commitment and enthusiasm you gave to the activities. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
If you missed out on the club or were there but want a reminder of what was on offer then this is the blog space for you.
Primary 1
The Primary 1 Bookbug bag contains:
‘One Button Benny’ story book
‘I am Bat’ story book
‘Eric makes a Splash’ story book
colouring pencils
magnetic numbers
whitebaord
dry wipe pen
Each year group had a range of activities to take part in. For Primary 1 there was a comfy reading corner where we read and discussed ‘One Button Benny’ (spoiler alert- he’s a hero). Parents were given a keyfob with question openers on it to give an idea of how to guide the conversation when discussing stories.
Make time to read for enjoyment at home, find a cozy and comfy space, put away any distractions and share the reading with your child. Take it in turns to ask questions or make comments. Make full use of the pictures to find clues about the story and where it is going. Encourage them to read words that they know but read to them as well. Setting a good example or model of how to read is one of the most important steps.
Following on from the story the children had the opportunity to create their own Robot friend from Playdough and loose parts materials. They could describe their Robots abilities and appearance. This activity generated a lot of imagination, creativity and talking and listening opportunities. There are cards available that tell you how to have a go at making your own playdough and what literacy and numeracy skills you can develop at the same time. If you didn’t get one this week, let us know and we’ll make more. If they weren’t into play dough they had the chance to use paper and colouring materials to draw Benny and have a go at writing a description.
The children had to be careful not be captured by the Fitness ‘bots who were out to capture the lazy children of Earth and keep them captive…or at least that was the context for our third activity. The children were captured by Fitness’ bots and taken to a planet (large hula hoop) where they had to take part in a variety of exercises to prove they weren’t lazy and actually fit enough to return to Earth. They had to roll dice and add the results together to find out how many exercises they had to do.
Primary 2
The Primary 2 ‘Read, Write, Count’ bag contains:
‘Open Very Carefully’ story book
‘A Tale of Two Beasts’ story book
Finger Puppets
Meteor & Rockets board game
pencil
writing book
This week Primary 2 focused on ‘A Tale of Two Beasts’ . The children read the story with their parents and discussed it, taking turns to ask questions from their new keyfobs. There were activities and worksheets related to the story for children and parents to work on together.
Primary 2 enjoyed making theatres for their finger puppets out of ‘junk’. They used boxes, cartons, tubes, glue and a whole host of materials to deisgn and build these theatres. They worked with each other and with their parents and we hope you are all at home now enjoying many a performance from your finger puppet friends.
Our families also had a variety of board games to have a go with. ‘Guess Who’ was a firm favourite! We hope you’re continuing the fun at home with your Meteor and Rockets game. Board games are a great way to develop talking, listening, numeracy and problem solving skills. They’re also great for spending quality, fun time as a family.
Primary 3
The Primary 3 ‘Read, Write, Count’ bag contains:
‘Picture Atlas’ Non Fiction book
‘There’s no Dragon in this Story’ story book
Story dice
Ocean Commotion
Money bingo
pencil/notebook
The Primary 3 children had fun looking through the contents of their bags. They read ‘There’s no Dragon in this Story’ with their parents and went on to design and describe their own dragon. This gave them the opportunity to use their imagination and engage in discussion with their parents.
They also had an acitivity where they had to read and follow instructions to make icing and decorate some gingerbread men. This activity can be done in so many ways depending on your talents in the kitchen but the very simple set up that we had was very popular. Following recipes are a great way to have fun together but also to develop sequencing skills, comprehension and measuring skills. As if that’s not enough, there’s the added bonus of a tasty reward at the end.
Primary 3 also had a variety of games on offer. Many had a shot of Ocean Commotion from their Read,Write, Count packs and others enjoyed, pairs, snap and happy families (both the card game and the chance to spend time together).
You have all been so kind with the positive feedback we’ve recived and we’ve taken your suggestions on board as we start to plan the next session. We think there will be plenty more for you all to enjoy. We’ve also spoken to some of the children who took part and their feedback has also been very positive. When asked what they thought of the family learning club they’ve reported that they enjoyed junk modelling, ginger bread men, games etc. but their most very favourite part of the whole experience was having you, their parents, here at school. Thank you for bringing that joy to their day!
We are so looking forward to having you all back next week!
