This week we are learning how to write the letter ‘W’ correctly. We noticed this morning that it is similar to two vs put together. Part of tonight’s homework is the ‘W’ formation booklet.

See you tomorrow,
Mr.Cook

Happy Mother’s Day! We hope you love your card and your ladybird, Mum!

I hope it was kept a suprise until this morning. See you tomorrow!
Mr.Cook

After another week, working away as Park Planners – our park is looking fabulous. We’ll need to try and write some more descriptions for our park next week – and see what adventures our park takes us on . . .

Have a lovely weekend – hopefully Mums, you’ll enjoy our surprise for Mother’s Day!
Mr.Cook

This week we are working on Wordbox 5 within our Word Building Pamphlet. It is great revision for your child’s sounds, and develops one strategy to reading – blending. We have been working on this in class this week. Some of us are now blending words with 5 sounds – WOW!

Our words this week are:

Mr.Cook

This week at home you should be using the ten frames to develop your understanding of number.

There are lots of suggestions in the pamphlet. It can be found below:

CLICK HERE Early Level Numeracy Parent Handout

Mr.Cook

This week our letter formation is the letter ‘V’ which makes the vvvvv sound when it talks. We did lots of different V-activities this morning. Our V-jigsaw and V-pasta formation pictures were just two of them. You have your V formation page in your homework booklet to do tonight. 🙂

Mr Cook

We all got our sports clothes on for Sports Relief today. We loved getting to do the Sports Relief Dance in the playground at break time. It was so funny watching Mr Cook run at lunchtime.

Have a great weekend,
Mr.Cook

P3FS have entered Hobbycraft’s Easter Bonnet Competition on behalf of Lochardil. They’ve done a fantastic job.

It’s YOUR turn to take part now. Get down to Hobbycraft and vote Lochardil as your winner. Voting takes place over the next two weeks!

Over the last week, when growing our beans, we realised a few things:

The beans grew – or our new word germinated – better in the dark than they did in the light.

The organge juice and the vinegar killed the beans.

Both the water and the soda water made the beans grow.

We want to now find out WHICH is better – soda water, or plain tap water. We will put both of these into the dark. Hopefully our beans will germinate and we can plant them in the garden.

Mr.Cook

It was a busy afternoon in the Park Planning Office. Making signs and labels, booking appointments, telephoning builders and writing lists were just some of the activities we got up to.

Here’s hoping Adventureland is just spectacular!
Mr.Cook

Our cress has been growing by the window-sill for over a week now. Today we added a few finishing touches to make our cress look like a funky-dude with spiked hair.

I hope you make some yummy cress sandwiches!
Mr.Cook

Our cress has shot-up over the weekend, and is almost ready to be taken home. Today in writing we learned how to write a list of instructions – writing what we did in order to grow cress.

Roll on the cress sandwiches . . .
Mr.Cook

We learned about St. Patrick’s Day. We created these fantastic handprint pictures which make a four leaf clover . . . very clever, we hear you say!

Mr.Cook

We have been learning about the names of different 2D shapes. We’ve also been learning how to describe them – giving their number of sides, corners and faces. It’s quite tricky when we describe them when we can’t see them using the ‘Feely Bag’. We’ll continue to work on that. We’ve started looking for shapes in our everyday environment. Check out what we’ve found in the playground:

Have a great weekend,
Mr.Cook

Today’s experiment was all about water. We wanted to find out how plants use water. We’ve used celery and food colouring to try and find out. We’ll check the progress tomorrow.

Good news . . . our cress is growing!

Mr Cook

Our task from Theresa this week is to find out ‘What makes plants grow?’. We’ve decided that we’re putting plants and flowers in our park – but we’re not quite sure how we’re growing them.

So far this week we have done two experiments. The first is about growing cress. We’re trying to work out where the cress will grow best – the light or the dark?

The second is about the different liquids that make plants grow. What will make the beans grow best . . . water, soda-water, orange juice or vinegar?

Be sure to pop back and find out our results!
Mr.Cook

Now we’ve said good bye to Urquhart Castle, after our fantastic visit yesterday, it is time to say hello to our Park Planning Office. We’ll be using this office quite a bit over the next few weeks as we continue to create our park for our Adventureland topic. This week we’re learning about plants – we’ll be back with an update about that shortly!

Mr.Cook

Today P1C, P1M and P3FS spent the day at Urquhart Castle – learning about weapons and armour that the knights used to use, visiting the castle ruins and searching for our friend Nessie. We even fed Nessie some of her favourite shortbread, but she must have been too shy today.

We’d like to thank Di and her team at Urquhart Castle for assisting us with our trip. We’d also like to thank all of our helpers who volunteered. The weather was gorgeous. The weather dance Mr Cook did this morning definitely paid off . . .

Mr.Cook, Mrs McArthur and Miss Shimmield

This week we had another letter from our friend Theresa Green. She asked us to create ourselves as Park Planners – making sure that we chose a new name, the right clothes and the tools for the job. You can see our park planners below.

As we’re going to the castle on Monday – it’s time to say good bye to our very own Urquhart Castle, and hello to our Park Planning office.

Remember your packed lunch for Monday . . .

Mr.Cook

We have chosen Mackenzie this month due to the fantastic ideas that he’s made for our Adventureland topic. He’s worked hard developing his teamwork skills. Well done Mackenzie!

Mr Cook and P1C

Yesterday, P3FS came down to visit our class to share the magnificent stories they’d written.

We loved hearing about the adventures of the Princes, Princesses, Witches and Vampires.

We’re really looking forward to going to Urquhart Castle with P3FS and our neighbours P1M on Monday.
Mr.Cook

Today is one of Mr Cook’s favourite days in the whole year . . . Pancake Day!!! Because we don’t have a cooker, we couldn’t make real pancakes, but we improvised and made playdough pancakes instead. It was really exciting!

We practised warming up our fingers at the dough disco!

I hope you all have pancakes for your tea – I certainly will be!

Mr.Cook

I cannot believe that we’re into our second week after the half-term break. It’s now full-steam ahead to Easter, with many exciting adventures in-between.

Uquhart Castle Visit
A reminder – we’re visiting Urquhart Castle next week, Monday 10^th March 2014. Please ensure your child has a pack-lunch, water and suitable clothing for the excursion. This will be a fantastic end to our topic!

New Topic – Adventureland
Our Storypath topic – Adventureland – is now under way. We were very excited receiving the letter from our community member, Theresa Green, last week – and have already started creating our park. Encourage your child to share what they’ve been learning in the topic with you at home. Check out our class blog for photographs and developments.

Our Park Dedication will take place after the Easter break . . . I’ll be in touch with more information nearer the time.

PE – Remainder of Term 3
PE will continue to take place on a Monday and a Wednesday. Until Easter we will be developing our Balance skills.

Showing
Your child, if they wish, can choose something to bring along and talk about with the class on the following date during their ‘Showing Time’:

World Book Day
This Thursday, 6^th March, we’re celebrating World Book Day. The dress-up theme is ‘Fairytales and Rhymes’. Mr Cook’s got his costume ready, and can’t wait to see what you all dress up as . . .

Fairtrade Fortnight
Lochardil are supporting Fairtrade Fortnight. We have a box at reception that we’re collecting food labels with the Fairtrade Logo on them. Have a look at home and see if you have any Fairtrade Food Logos lurking around on packaging and send in with your child.

 Numeracy Games for the rest of the term are as follows:

Look forward to another busy few weeks,
Mr.Cook

We’ve been busy starting to build our park this week. On Tuesday we started planning and mapping out our ground, and yesterday we started laying the ground work. Next week we’ll start designing our characters – The Park Planners – to put ourselves in role for the remainder of the topic.

Have a great weekend,
Mr.Cook

This morning when the post arrived we were delivered a letter from a local resident, Theresa Green. As you can see she’s heard that we’re a group of hardworking superstars who work excellently in a team. She asked us if we’d like to build a park in our local area.

We were so excited to get the letter. We worked as a class to create a letter of reply. Jayden J told us that ‘accept means saying yes’. Charlotte and Emma reminded us that we worked well as a team when we built the castle and Nessie for our classroom. Poppy had a fabulous suggestion saying that we want to make Theresa proud. We all signed our names. Because she only lives along the road, Mrs Fraser delivered our reply after break time.

After lunchtime Mrs Smith delivered a letter that she received during the afternoon post. We found out that Theresa has asked us to create the park on a field close to Lochardil. We went to investigate the areas next to the school from the school fence. Mia suggested it was important to go and visit where we are building, before creating our plan.

After visiting the site we came back to the class to begin our plan. Mackenzie told us it was important that we had a plan or we wouldn’t know what to do. We worked together to create four different areas for our park. We’re going to have a play park, a duck pond a field and a flower garden.

During the rest of the week we will create our ground plan for Theresa to send off by Friday.

Thank you Anna from P6/7 for our park suggestion on our last blog. If you have any other suggestions for our park, please comment.

Mr.Cook and Primary 1

It sounds like everyone had a fantastic February break. It was great being back together today. We’ve now got new work-stations . . .  it was fun working with new people today.

You might be wondering why I’ve uploaded a photograph of a blank wall. Well this is going to be the display area for Adventureland.

We’re starting to design our park tomorrow. If you or your child think of any ideas at home that we can add to our park, please comment on this blog post and let us know. We’ll continue to update you on our Park Planning progress.

See you tomorrow,

Mr.Cook

We’ve reached another holiday after a six week mini-term.

In the Loch
Our topic ‘In the Loch’ is coming to an end. The finale of our topic will be our visit to Urquhart Castle. Our castle in the classroom will remain standing for a few weeks after the February break before it’s transformed into an office for our new topic.

New Topic – Adventureland
After the February break we will be starting a new topic ‘Adventureland’ which will investigate the role of parks in our community and what makes a park a good place for people to visit.

Your child will become a park planner to learn how plants grow, the kinds of play and recreational activities appropriate for a park and how to work with others to solve problems.

Children will also be developing literacy skills as they talk, write and read about their experiences.

The teaching approach I will be using is called Storypath. This approach is built on the key principle that learning, to be meaningful, has to be memorable, and that we can use children’s enthusiasm for story making to teach important content and skills.

Active learning, cooperation, critical thinking, and reflection are essential skills of the process. As the Storypath develops, children will gain a sense of ownership for their learning as they tackle the problems presented. As events unfold, ask your child to share with you what is happening in the Storypath.

You may find that they will want to learn more about particular topics at home by discussing the parks they have visited with you or the kinds of features they would like in a park.

I hope you will discuss these experiences with your child. At the conclusion of the unit, we will dedicate the park; I hope you can visit our classroom for that event. More details will follow after the February break.

Literacy
In your homework folder you will find a booklet of words which you can use when building words with your child. You should use the sounds in your child’s phonic pouch; however I encourage you to get your child to write the word out also.

Numeracy
Continue to play the activities from the Numeracy Home Pack. For revision over the February break:

Download the ‘Supporting your child with word building and blending’ booklet below:

CLICK HERE – Word Building Booklet

See you back on Monday 24th February at 9am – have a fantastic week off!

Mr.Cook

Since our last update, we’ve had two more join the Fabulous Five gang . . . this means we’re all 5!!! Hooray!!

Our 5 wall will now be taken down to make room for our next topic . . .

Just a reminder . . .

In the run up to, and over the February break, please play and revise the following activities from your Numeracy Home Pack.

Thanks for the support,
Mr.Cook

This week, as it is National Storytelling Week, we have been learning how to tell fairytales. But not just your average faiytale – no – that would be too easy for P1. We took the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and we changed the characters to Nessie and the Three Whales.

We changed the forest to the sea, the house to a cave, the porridge to salmon soup, the chairs to rocks and the beds to slabs of rock with seaweed on top.

We planned out our story together. We then performed our story. Mr Cook told the main story and we all joined in when Nessie or the Whales were talking.

We then created actions to go with each of the parts of the story.

If you want to listen to our story, click the link below:

Nessie and the Three Whales – CLICK HERE

Have a great weekend,
Mr.Cook

We have chosen Finlay as our Pupil of the Month as he has worked really hard to learn his numbers to ten. His writing has also improved, remembering to underwrite on the line – with finger spaces!

Well done Finlay – Keep up the great work!
Mr Cook and P1C

Yesterday we continued to learn about Chinese New Year and made these fantastic Chinese Lanterns.

Check out this video – we loved watching it yesterday.

Red Lantern Dance – CLICK HERE!

The Nursery – P3 Nativity, ‘Hew Ewe!’, can now be viewed by clicking the links below. A letter came home with Nursery – P3 children today, informing them of the password for the video. If you would like to view the video, and do not have the password, please contact jcook133@highlandschools.org.uk.

Due to copyright law, unfortunately we will not be able to produce copies of this in DVD format.

Hey Ewe Morning Production – CLICK HERE

Hey Ewe Afternoon Production – CLICK HERE

It was great getting to discuss your child’s progress with you at the Pupil Progress Updates last night and today.

As I discussed at the appointment the Maths Homework Booklets will no longer come home, these are now replaced with the Numeracy Home Pack I gave you at your child’s Pupil Progress Update. Inside your pack you will find the guidelines which explain each of the mathematical processes along with the resources to play each of the games. All you need to provide is the time 2-3 occasions per week to play the games . . . and a few pasta pieces or pebbles for the counting.

You can access the pamphlet by clicking the link below. As I said, if you’ve got any questions – do not hesitate to pop in or get in touch.

CLICK HERE – Early Level Numeracy Handout

The children love this interactive Five/Ten Frame game. It can be a little temperamental in Internet Explorer – Google Chrome or Safari are best for opening it.

Five/Ten Frame Game – CLICK HERE!

Thank you for your continued support,
Mr.Cook

Yesterday we started learning about Chinese New Year. We learned that anybody born this year belongs to the year of the horse. We found out that some of the people in the class are rats and others are oxen . . . well except Mr Cook . . . he’s a dragon!

We loved watching a dragon dance yesterday, so I’ve popped one on here for you to watch.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/iAz-kjYgQV8" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

Dragon Dance – CLICK HERE!

See you tomorrow,
Mr Cook

Following our Pupil Progress Updates this week, click the link below to answer a few questions about the experience.

CLICK HERE for Online Survey

The anonymous survey will be open for comment until Monday 10th February 2014

Thank you for taking time to complete to provide us with your valued feedback.

This week we are learning how to write the letter ‘l’. We learned how to write both the capital and the ‘little l’ as we like to call it. We had some exciting tasks. One of them was finding all of the ‘l’ objects in the porridge. Luckily it wasn’t cooked, so it wasn’t soggy.

We made these pasta pictures with the letter ‘l’. We think that they look really funky on the classroom door. Mr Cook has had to use pins because they’re a little bit heavier than most of our other pictures!

See you tomorrow,
Mr.Cook

In the month of January, we said Happy 5th Birthday to three more of our class. Only two more birthdays to go until we’re ALL five! Well, not Mr Cook – he is a little bit older . . .

Have a good weekend,
Mr.Cook

This week we have been learning how to use marbling and materials to create these FANTASTIC Loch Ness Monster pictures. They’ve really brightened up our washing line.

This week we have been learning about how water can change.

We learned that when it is cold, water turns to ice.
We learned that when it is more than O degrees, ice turns to water.
We learned that when water is really hot, like when you put it in the kettle, it turns to steam.

We had lots of fun doing our water activities.

Today we started learning how to write the letter ‘t’ properly. We thought of lots of different things that started with ‘t’ – tiger, teacher, tunnel, tide, tap, table, tray and tiles. We used lots of litle tiles as one of our ‘t’ activites this morning.

We learned that there are two different ways that we can write t. Once of them has the line all the way through, and the other only has a half line. We practised both of these today.

Mr Cook will be out of class the next few days. Mrs Sutherland will be in on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Mr.Cook

This week in maths we have been looking at pattern and positional language. We have created our jigsaws of Nessie, showing where the pieces need to go in relation to another piece. Are they under? Next to? Inbetween?

For a first attempt I think they look super.

Have a great weekend,
Mr.Cook

This week we have been working on lots of different activities to help us form the letter ‘i’. One of the activities was a tissue paper mosaic. We liked them so much that we decided to put them on our door.

We’ve found that finding words beginning with ‘i’ is a bit tricky. I wonder what words you can think of at home . . .

Mr Cook

Yesterday we learned about the creatures – Sea Kelpies. Some people think that they live in the water in Scotland. They’re like a horse with flippers.

We learned how to use watercolour paints to make these Sea Kelpies. Mr Cook thinks they would be worth a lot of money in an art gallery.

Click the pictures to make them bigger!

Have a fantastic weekend,

Mr.Cook

As part of our topic, one of our aims is to have a Castle role-play corner. When Mr Cook found out that P3FS were doing castles as their topic, he kindly asked Miss Shimmield and Mrs Fraser if their class would be able to help up build our castle.

On Tuesday we started our construction, using a mixture of black and white paint with PVA glue to make the brick work.

We’ll continue to work with P3FS next Monday and Tuesday. We’ll put up more photos once it is built!

Mr Cook

This week we learned about the Hindu festival – Makar Sankranti.

We found out that in India, many boys, girls and grown-ups buy or make brightly coloured kites to fly in celebration of the festival.

Our kites have definitely brightened up our display board. We hope you get blown away by our wonderful work . . .

Mr Cook

We have finally finished our Nessie to go into Loch Ness in our Castle Corner.

Mr Cook and Mrs Paul helped us put it together and pinned it up after school. We think it looks super.

Nessie is now always watching us whilst we’re doing our work.

We begin our castle building with P3FS tomorrow afternoon. This is REALLY exciting.

See you tomorrow,
Mr.Cook

We chose Lily this month as she shared her prior learning of ‘The Christmas Story’ with the class, which helped when we were rehearsing for The Nativity. Lily has also worked hard to master her underwriting. Keep up the great work, Lily!

Thank you for the boxes that started to come in today. We begin to work with P3FS next week to build our castle. Any shoeboxes would be appreciated as they’re a great size. All boxes to be in for Monday.

Thank you!
Mr.Cook

Since our last Birthday Blog we’ve had 11 more 5th Birthdays in our class in November and December. Only 5 more until we have a FULL class of 5 year olds.

Mrs Sutherland will be in tomorrow, so I will see you all on Friday.

Mr.Cook