It’s a very sad day in Primary 1 today. All the boys and girls are very excited about going on holiday. Mr Cook is feeling a little sad now that he is leaving Lochardil for a little while whilst he works in Headquarters.

I’d like to thank every single one of you for making Primary 1C FABULOUS and AMAZING. I’ll miss you all very much, but don’t worry, I’ll be back to visit!!!

Have a BRILLIANT Summer Holiday!

Mr.Cook

This afternoon we loved eating our yummy pancakes, tongue-tingling fruit, and sweet maple syrup. We had an excellent afternoon celebrating all things Canadian.

We waved our Canadian flags, and even had a visit from two Canadian princesses – Princess Anne and Lady Mary.

A brilliant end to our Commonwealth topic!

Mr.Cook

P1C’s ‘The Magic Roundabout’ display is now finished! What a HUGE amount of effort everyone in the class has put in to get in finished today.

The photos don’t quite do it justice. Why don’t you pop in and see it when you’re picking your child up over the next few days?

Mr.Cook and P1C

On Friday we had Mrs Caddell’s leaving assembly. Here we are – huge smiles, before making our way down! Our last Friday as Primary 1!

Mr.Cook

Yesterday we investigated different forces through a few very fun science experiments.

In our first experiment we measured out vinegar and put it into an empty bottle. We then put some baking powder into a balloon. We put the balloon over the bottle, allowing the baking powder and vinegar to mix. As it mixed it filled the balloon with air . . .  just like magic. We talked about hot-air balloons. We found out that it was something called Carbon Dioxide that filled the balloon.

For our second experiment we opened a bottle of soda water. We added a packet of Mentos to the water. It made the water shoot out of the top of the bottle. We had to stay back, so as not to get hit by the rush of water.

Our third experiment was a blast . . . literally! Similar to the last experiment, we opened a bottle . . .  but this time it was Diet Coke. We added 10 Mentos and it went BOOM!, shooting straight up into the air.

We talked about our experiments today, and learned that it was also Carbon Dioxide. The Mentos have lots of tiny holes on them. When they fill with Diet Coke it releases tiny bubbles. These tiny bubbles shoot up to the top of the bottle, and up into the air.

This video shows a similar experiment with a few different drinks.
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A great last full week in P1C. See you all Monday,

Mr.Cook

We had to choose our favourite character from ‘The Magic Roundabout’, draw, and use words to describe them. We’ve been working on building our sentences – talking about how we start, carry it on and finish a sentence.

These are now in our yellow writing jotters and are being transferred to Mrs Peace. Our writing helped us with our art yesterday afternoon as we had to paint each of the characters. More pictures our our ‘Magic Roundabout’ display to follow . . .

Mr.Cook

We’ve added the next layer to our 50th Anniversary – ‘The Magic Roundabout’ themed – display. We mixed shaving foam with paint and dipped paper into it to get a pattern. We dabbed the excess foam with a paper towel. We cut out tree shapes.

We’ve also been creating characters and started the roundabout. All will be revealed in due course . . .

Mr.Cook

You will find this letter inside your child’s homework folder tonight!

Mr.Cook

It was great to have everyone back together in P1C after trying out P2. It sounds like you all had a great time with Mrs Peace. Mr Cook also spent the two days trying out his new job.

It’s Leo’s last weekend trip of the year this weekend. Look forward to how he gets on at Harry Y’s on Monday. He’ll be coming to live on Mr Cook’s desk next year – but will be back to visit!

Have a great weekend!

Mr.Cook

Tomorrow and Thursday we’re going to be visiting our new classroom and the new teacher that we’re going to have in P2. It’s all very exciting – but Mr Cook is left a little teary-eyed as we’re nearing the end of the year.

Please line up in your normal line tomorrow at 9am. We will come in as normal and be taken to our new home at 9.15am.

Have fun!
Mr.Cook

Over the next couple of weeks in maths we’ll be looking at money and how we use it to pay for things. To support your child you may want to:

• Show them different coins to the value of £2

• Order different coins to the value of £2

• Give them the money to pay when you’re at the shop

We want our children to experience money in a real life context. The more opportunities we can provide at home and school, the better equipped your child will be when using money.

Monday – Sports Day Round 2. Do your sun-dance on Sunday evening, as we’re hoping for sunshine!

Come with a bottle of water, and wear the colour of top which represents your house (if you have).

Ashie – Yellow

Broom – Blue

Duntelchaig – Green

Ruthven – Red

P1 – P3 Sports @ 10am

P4 – P7 Sports @ 1pm

Today we used a fabulous website called TodaysMeet to help us with our ICT (Information Communication Technologies) lesson.

We all had to choose our trickiest phonic word from Word Box 14. We then learned how to use the mouse and the keyboard to type it in. All of the information was saved, and Mr Cook showed us what the tricky words were after break.

As we’ve been learning about tally marks, we then used the information to make some graphs.

All crammed into a day in P1!

REMEMBER: SPORTS DAY MONDAY – 10am!

Mr.Cook

Just a reminder that tomorrow is Future Heroes Day. Come dressed up as what you want to be when you’re older and make a donation to the Guide Dog Society.

We look forward to seeing your outfits . . . 

After creating our back drop to our Magic Roundabout display last week, we’ve started to add the next layer.

Yesterday, we watched the following Magic Roundabout clip.

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We discussed the different colours that were used to create the flowers and the trees in the background. After this, we used similar colours and patterns to create our lettering.

Our next step is to creat larger trees and flowers to add on top of our backdrop.

Mr.Cook

This week it’s time to work on addition with a numberline.

Click the image below to play an interactive activity using numberline addition.

Mr.Cook

Your child’s profile and report should have made its way home to you today. We hope you enjoy reading a comprehensive overview of your child’s year at Lochardil.

Find the Lochardil Primary School profile and report guidance for parents/carers below:

• Profile and Report – Guidance June 2014
• ASN Profile and Report – Guidance June 2014

We’re interested in your feedback – particularly regarding our Learning Journey trial. Download the form below and hand to your child’s teacher.

• CLICK HERE – Comment Sheet June 2014

This week we’re working on Word Box 14. Here are this week’s words . . .

Mr Cook

This week we have been learning about Commonwealth Mascots. On Monday and Tuesday with Mr Cook we designed a Commonwealth Mascot for Inverness, using the theme of ‘Nessie’.

In our writing we used describing words to describe our mascot. Mr Cook was really impressed with WOW Words like gigantic, instead of big. We used our words to build our own sentences.

On Wednesday and Thursday with Mrs Skelton and Mrs Sutherland we turned our designs into ‘real’ mascots, using lots of different materials. We think they look brilliant. What do you think?

Mr.Cook

This week we have begun creating our display for the 50th Anniversary – based on The Magic Roundabout. We wanted to show the light blue and white colours the programme uses as a background, using different materials and techniques. We have done sponge printing with paint, mosaic building with card, paper and felt and pattern creating using crayon.

The next stage will be to design our titles and characters. We’ll keep you updated – watch this space.

Unfortunately, due to heavy rain over night we have had to cancel Sports Day today.

We have rescheduled for Monday 16th June 2014. Due to work scheduled to begin on our pitch next week, our Sports Day will take place on the grassed area between Morven Road and Dornie Place (behind our school field).

We thank the local residents for agreeing the use of this space to support a vital opportunity for our children.

Tomorrow is our Sports Day. We’re hoping you all do the weather dance tonight – fingers crossed for sunshine tomorrow.

Come with a bottle of water, and wear the colour of top which represents your house (if you have).

Ashie – Yellow

Broom – Blue

Duntelchaig – Green

Ruthven – Red

P1 – P3 Sports @ 10am

P4 – P7 Sports @ 1pm

Forgot to post this picture of Leo on Friday . . . oops!

The counting plate has rubbed off on Leo – isn’t he doing well?

This week, using your Numeracy Games Pack, you should be practising:

Mr Cook

Look at the progress our plants have made since the Official Park Opening. They’re almost ready to be planted in the garden . . .

Mr.Cook

After finding Leo in the reading corner last week reading a book, when we walked into the classroom today we found him busy with the chalk board and a piece of chalk. He’d written us a little message. We’re glad that Leo has been listening to Mr Cook and Mrs Sutherland when they’ve been teaching.

We wonder where we’ll find him next . . .

Mr.Cook

Today we have been learning about The Magic Roundabout. P1C are making a display in the corridor for Lochardil’s 50th Birthday. We found out that The Magic Roundabout is also having its 50th birthday this year.

We learnt about six of the main characters: Brian, Dougal, Zebedee, Dylan, Ermintrude and Florence. We used words to describe how each of the characters look.

We’re looking forward to learning more about The Magic Roundabout.

Mr Cook and P1C

Today we started learning about the Commonwealth Games. We learned that they are held in Glasgow this year and athletes will compete in 17 sports over 11 days.

Thank you to all of the mums, dads, grannies, grandads and friends who came to support the Sunflower Park Opening today. It was great to have you in for us to share the learning about our park, have a cake and a cup of tea, and help us plant our seeds. We’ll be planting them in the garden over the next few weeks.

Thank you for all of your lovely baking . . . it was yummy!
Mr.Cook

Sunflower Park opens its doors to you all tomorrow. We’re looking forward to your visit!

We have chosen Hannah this month as she has been working exceptionally hard on her word building. She is sounding out words in reading and is able to make words of her own. Well done, Hannah. We’re very proud!

This week we have been learning about measuring using non-standard units. We have been using our hands and feet to estimate and measure the length, width and height of objects, we have used different objects in the water to estimate and measure volume, and we have used the scales to estimate and measure the weight of different objects.

We celebrated Buddha day by learning about how people celebrate Buddha Day across the world. We then made Buddha pictures using crayon and gold and silver mosaic.

Our 50th Anniversary plans are well under way.

Could you assist by – helping organise one of the events, sponsoring one of our events or assisting with the set-up of the events during the week beginning 25th August 2014?

We’d love to hear from you. Email lochardilparentcouncil@gmail.com for more details!

Inspired by our name – Sunflower Park – we created a sign today. The photos don’t quite do the sign justice – so we’re looking forward to you attending our Official Park Opening on Tuesday 20th May 2014 at 1.30pm.

Let us know what you think . . .

Mr.Cook

We had a great time today at Dobbies. We got a special tour around the shop. We learnt about different herbs and how plants grow. We got to taste some yoghurt flavoured with the herbs we found. We planted some lettuce that we have taken back to the classroom.

Thank you to Fiona and Debbie at Dobbies for being great workshop leaders. We really enjoyed our cakes! We’d also like to thank Dobbies for the seeds that they donated to us for our Park Opening in two weeks.

Thank you to the mums, dads and grannies that assisted us today.

Mr.Cook and Primary 1

Today you will have received your official invite to the Sunflower Park – Official Opening. The event will be held on Tuesday 20th May 2014 at 1.30pm in our classroom.

Have a great long weekend. Enjoy your lie in on Bank Holiday Monday. See you on Tuesday,
Mr.Cook

This morning when Mr Cook was reading the newspaper he was shocked when he saw an article about our park.

The park planners had an emergency meeting when they found out that there was bullying in the park. Because we want our park to be a happy and safe place, the park planners have created 5 rules for the park. Let us know what you think . . . .

Mr.Cook

We’ve loved our Adventureland topic – but as it comes to an end – we have a few things to do before we can invite you to our opening ceremony.

One of these is to give our park a name. A little bit of homework tonight is to think of a FANTASTIC name for our park. Remember it has four areas: the duck pond, the football pitch, the flower area and the playpark.

We’re hoping to have the name of our park tomorrow!

Keep checking back for updates.
Mr.Cook

Over the last week we’ve been learning how to pivot in basket ball. We’ve learned that this is an important move to master, and we will need it when we pass the ball to our team mates.

Today we also started learning how bounce the ball. This has been quite tricky. We found that for us to have control over the ball we need to stand with our legs shoulder width apart, our knees slightly bent, and keep our eye on the ball.

We’ll continue to work on this on Wednesday – and aspire to be Mini-Michael-Jordans by the Summer!

Please remember your return slip for the Dobbies trip by Thursday. I will be in touch at the end of the week regarding parent/carer helpers.

Mr.Cook

A great first week back in Primary 1!

Today in assembly we shared the French flags that we made this week. We were learning how to use mosaic pieces to create a picture – a skill we begun to develop before Christmas.

We also shared the ‘Spring is Here’ song. Click the link below to give it a go.

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Spring is Here – CLICK HERE

Have a great weekend,
Mr.Cook

CLICK HERE Term 4 – Numeracy

CLICK HERE Early Level Numeracy Parent Handout

CLICK HERE – Term 4 Letter

Today we arrived back to some dreadful news. Somehow, over the holidays, our park had been vandalised.

We worked out that vandalism means when you draw, write or break something that is nice – making it look bad.

Luckily, we had an Emergency Park Planning Meeting. We decided that we had to have a ‘clean-up’ to get rid of the grafitti. We managed to get rid of the vandalism, but we also had to think how we can stop it from happening again.

We have made signs to stop vandals, and are making a camera to make sure there is a watchful eye over our park.

Quite the morning in P1 – Let’s see what tomorrow has in store!
Mr.Cook

After lunch today we came back to a suprise – 6 Easter Chicks had hatched in Mr Cook’s hair – thinking it was a nest!

Happy Easter!
Mr.Cook

CLICK HERE – Easter Letter

We have chosen Jack this month as he has been a great friend in the playground. He has included us in his games and makes sure that we have someone to play with. Thanks for being a kind friend, Jack.

Tomorrow is our Easter Service. We are learning a few songs. If you want to practise them at home, here are the links:

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Easter Bunny – CLICK HERE

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Christ the Lord has Risen Today – CLICK HERE

Mr.Cook

This week we are working on Wordbox 6 within our Word Building Pamphlet. We’ve been working really hard with our word-building, and are learning how to blend some tricky words.

Our words this week are:

Mr. Cook

This week at home you should be revising the Story of Numbers 0, 1, 2 and 3 using Ten Frames and concrete materials.

The website below might help . . .

CLICK HERE – Story of a Number