P1b had a brilliant time on our trip to Finlaystone Country Park today.
Ranger Joe treated us to a fact-filled walk-and-talk trek around the woodlands, when he told us all about the plant and animal life. We even saw a mummy duck and her three chicks.
And – fresh from our Once Upon A Time learning about fantastical storytelling – we had a ball playing pirates on the ship, rescuing each other from the fort and whizzing down the slide on Harry Potter’s Knight Bus.
There was fun, fun, fun in the sun on Friday when Primary 6 led the whole school in a Potted Sports event.
Primary 1 had a ball and were right on target when they were given the chance to try out activities including skittles, boccia, soft archery and parachute games.
The best news is there will be even more on offer next Friday, in the run up to Sports Day!
Thanks Miss Toole and Primary 6 for all your hard work.
The red cape sure was a give away when Friendly Dragon left his box of surprises for us this week.
The children were eager to show off all they remembered about the plot and characters of Little Red Riding Hood when they acted it out in groups for the rest of the class using the masks they had made.
And they used their recent learning from the Eat Well To Do Well Programme to design and healthy packed lunch for Red to take to her Granny.
The story was also a great opportunity for teachers to remind the children of the dangers of talking to strangers and how to react in a worrying situation.
Oh my, helping Friendly Dragon was hard this week!
Our fire-breathing chum was asking a lot when he left us packs of sweets in his box – and expected us to decorate with, not eat, them. Eek!
This trying task helped us remember all about the story of Hansel and Gretel and its wicked witch. And, sure enough, we had a wicked time when practised equally sharing a pack of Dolly Mixtures with our shoulder partners then sticking them onto our house templates.
Primary 1 knew they were going to be learning all about Snow White when Friendly Dragon left these clues in his box this week.
They had a brilliant time building castles for the beautiful princess after learning all about the properties of 3D shapes in Maths, and there were giggles all round when they described to the Magic Mirror how their 8th Dwarf would look and act during Writing.
They even learned about shading and toning in Art when they made beautiful apples for our class apple tree, while they brought out the bling when making their jewel-encrusted mirrors.
Monty and Adriana decorate their magic mirrors“Who’s the fairest of them all?” asks ThomasDon’t bite the apple!
Our little princes and princesses have wasted no time in transforming our classroom into a magical wonderland to help Friendly Dragon save Once Upon A Time Land.
Over the past few weeks they have spent their free time printing bricks to build him a fantastic castle, which they have filled with their dressing up costumes and fairytale books to make him feel at home.
Looking every inch the fairy godmother/father in their self-made magical wands and crowns, they are working so hard to help our poor dragon, writing words in enchanted glitter, making magical unicorns and role playing our fairy stories.
Surprise surprise – guess who had come visiting again this week? Friendly Dragon!
This week he left us the clues of leaves, beans, golden eggs and a harp and our P1 clever clogs immediately knew he wanted us to read Jack and the Beanstalk.
We had a brilliant time making multi-media leaves for our class beanstalk and we even planted our beans in see-through cups so we can watch if they grow as big as Jack’s magical stalk.
Friendly Dragon left us the clues to the first fairytale we have to read – a pig mask, a wolf mask, straw, bricks and sticks.
After a bit of huffing and puffing – but no blowing down the house – we guessed that we had to look at The Three Little Pigs.
We worked really well in teams to sequence the story using picture cards.
Then we got into pairs to construct our own houses made of straw, sticks and bricks to see which were best at standing up to Ms McCann’s huffs and puffs. We were such great builders she found it really hard!
That was the often-heard cry from P1b at the start of term as we spent weeks learning about the great outdoors, its plants and animals as we read Michael  Rosen’s We’re Going On A Bear Hunt.
Wearing wellies and armed with our own binoculars, were explored our fantastic playing fields to investigate the story’s grass, river, mud, forest, snowy and cave habitats.
We even learned about rhyming words, descriptive words and sound words. Then, to top it all off, we proved to our teachers that we could sequence the story by taking part in an obstacle course during PE.
Our wee fingers are limbering up to start beautiful mark making and writing.
And we have had loads of fun getting our hand muscles strong enough to make perfect ‘froggy legs’ as we play at jigsaws, Lego, lacing, threading and using tweezers.
It was a case of ready, steady, run for us last week as we learned all about capacity.
At the first break in the gloomy weather, we raced outside to the Imaginarium for some hands-on experience in the water and sand pits to discover the meaning of ‘full’, ’empty’ and ‘half full’.
We had lots of fun racing each other to put the correct amounts in our tubs and pots and finding out which containers held ‘more’ or ‘less’. We also counted how many full yoghurt pots it took to fill a bucket – 19.
Half fullFull to the brimHalf’s enough for Hannah……and Daniel
We’ve been learning all about shapes and their properties in Maths.
Primary 1 had loads of fun making pictures out of circles, squares, rectangles and triangles. Then we channelled our inner Bob the Builder to construct castles, rockets and towers using cubes, cuboid, cylinders and pyramids.
And we showed off our new skills when we played table and ICT games to match shape names and pictures.
Dominoe matchersBuilding Rapunzel’s towerSorting 2D shapes by colour or propertiesBuilding bridgesBingoChap chapA handy manIn the zone… It must be a coneIdentifying half-buried 3D shapes on the computer
Friendly Dragon has been flapping his wings with joy recently, thanks to all our hard work.
Primary 1 have read, written, drawn, painted, acted, sung and built their way into the good books of our fire-breathing friend in order to stop Fairyland disappearing.
We have already rescued the characters from Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks, Hansel and Gretel, The 3 Little Pigs, The Gingerbread Man and Snow White. Phew!!
And P1 have loved taking Friendly Dragon home for a night to show him what they get up to at Rainbows, Anchor Boys, tennis, football and swimming.
Take a look at our photos 🙂
Getting another message via Dragon MailEleanor meets Friendly Dragon
Emily, Rohan and Ellis build a house out of straw for the 3 Little PigsCole and Daniel try bricksSome of us tried sticksMore clues! A witch’s hat and sweets … it’s Hansel and GretelWhat’s this? Clues for a treasure hunt from the Gingerbread ManOut we go!
Finally we make our way back to class – where we find a basket full of tasty Gingerbread men
