Hello,

Thank you all for taking time out of your evenings to talk to me last week! I am glad to hear that the children are talking to you about what we have been up to.

This is just a short update about what we have been learning about these last few weeks of term.  I cannot believe that Term 1 is over already, it feels like it has flown by!

Primary 1 – Literacy
Primary 1 have been working very hard learning their new sounds. We now know: s, a, t, p, i , n ,m ,d, g, o ,c and k. We are doing really well and we practise saying and writing our sounds every day. We are starting to put our sounds together and blend our sounds to make words. For example, p-o-t says ‘pot’. We are getting more and more confident every day and trying to recognise some words in our reading books.
When we are reading we are using our predicting and visualising strategies to help us understand our story.
We are continuing to practise writing our names daily, trying to use pre-cursive letter formation. We are getting better!
We have also been writing about Autumn. We thought about what we could hear and see in the Autumn time and wrote about this. We have also wrote an imaginative story about a trip to the safari using our class book as a stimulus. 

Primary 1- Numeracy
We are continuing to work on our numbers to 10. We are getting more and more confident counting forwards and backwards. We are trying to be as confident counting backwards as we are counting forwards. We have been working on counting quantities to 10 and matching them to the appropriate number. We are continuing to develop our number recognition and number  formation.  Primary 1 have been helping me with my numbers to 10 as well, sometimes I miss a number and they have to listen carefully and tell me which number I have forgotten. Thanks boys and girls!
We have also been learning about some 2D Shapes and looking for these in our class environment. We can name some 2D shapes and are learning about the properties of these shapes.

Primary 2 Literacy
Primary 2 have been working really hard on their reading and it is paying off! We are getting much more confident and fluent in our reading. We are using our predicting and visualising strategies to help us develop our comprehension. We are using our phonics to decode new and unknown words. Primary 2 know that they must practise reading their books every single day. They can read themselves or read to a partner and talk about the story. 
Primary 2 have also been working hard on CVCC/CCVC words and using these in our sentences. We have been using our phonics to help up sound out these words and this is great practise as we move forward with our phonics. 
We are continuing to develop our writing and try to make our sentences even better by using connectives and WOW words to add extra details. Primary 2 wrote excellent stories about the safari animals from our class book using ‘because’ as a connective and using WOW words to describe the animals. 
We are always trying to remember to take care with our presentation and our handwriting. Primary 2 are encouraged to check their work before it goes in to the marking tray to make sure sentences have capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. 

Primary 2 Numeracy
Primary 2 have been counting to 100. We are counting in 10s on and off the decade. We are also getting much more confident with 2-digit place value, looking at the tens and the units. Primary 2 are continuing to develop their recall speed when working with number to 50 to recognise numbers before and after/ 2 before and 2 after. We are continuing to work on addition and subtraction within 20. 
Primary 2 have also been learning about 2D Shapes, naming shapes and looking at the different properties. We have been learning about hexagons, pentagons, ovals, square, rectangle and triangles.
Finally, Primary 2 have been working on reading time on an analogue clock to read o’clock and half past. 

Whole class – IDL
Primary 1/2 have been reading a book called ‘The Ugly Five’ by Julia Donaldson. We have really enjoyed it. We have been learning about the different kinds of animals that are in the book, their habitats, what they eat, what they look like. We have also been learning about the Big 5 on an African Safari. Our book has inspired some excellent writing, art work and team work. Primary 1 and 2 worked together to write a fact file about an animal from the safari. We have had lots of opportunities to read this story and everytime we look at something new; wow words, animals, rhyming words or the illustrations. It has been a great mini-topic.

 

I do have more pictures to upload, however, only some of them are showing the image on the blog and other are coming up with a blank box. I will work on this!

If you have any questions or queries about homework or classwork please email me at gw16mccabehannah@glow.sch.uk.

Enjoy your October break! 
Miss McCabe