EYC and Class Blogs November 2020

Early Years Centre

We have been exploring Autumn by observing the changes in our local environment and even went on an Autumn scavenger hunt around the village. We have been focussing a lot on the beautiful colours we see at this time of year, throughout the EYC. We also had lots of fun celebrating Halloween.

Mrs Chesterman, Miss Millarvie

 

P1-3

Halloween

Halloween was a really important time for us in the class, so Miss Burton made sure to give us lots of Halloween themed activities. We had great fun with our Halloween maths games, writing spooky stories, making Halloween decorations, creating magic wands and artwork, and then having a ball at our Halloween party. Don’t we just look fantastic in our costumes?

IDL – Biodiversity

During our biodiversity topic we did lots of exploring in our garden area. We identified different bugs that live on the school grounds and the different signs of Autumn. We have decided to put ourselves forward for the ECO Committee at school and as part of that we carried out an Environmental Review of the school. We found lots of good practice and then identified areas for us to develop. We are now going to work on creating an action plan and putting it into place. We told Miss Burton that we wanted to move our topic onto learning about different animals and gave her lots of questions that we wanted to find out about. We are going to find out the answer to questions like: Can wolves eat berries? What do reindeer eat? What is the difference between a turtle and a tortoise?

Numeracy and Mathematics

We have been focusing on addition in maths. Each group has a different focus within addition, whether it is to 10, 20, 100 or above and we have been taking part in activities based on this learning. We love Hit the Button and are all getting much faster at solving problems. We have also been learning different strategies we can use to help us solve addition, this could be through putting the big number in our head and adding on, using our Rekenrek or making friendly numbers. We are about to move onto larger numbers and subtraction

Literacy and English

In writing last term we learned more about sentences and how to write short paragraphs using the Slow Writing process. Here we would write sentences based on different criteria and using a picture as inspiration. It linked well with our sentence mentor task and is making us better at writing sentences. This term we have moved onto looking at non-fiction. We are exploring the difference between fiction and non-fiction books and how we can use non-fiction books to help us find out more information about topics.

Play Based

This term we have been lucky as our new resources have begun arriving for our play-based area. We love the new home area equipment, like our Doctor’s kit, babies, highchair and cleaning centre. We are learning to take turns with these resources as we all want to have a go! There has been lots of building taking place this term and one of our favourite things to build with is the magnetic shapes. We love working together to make huge rockets or making our own robots with secret compartments. Our farm arrived with our families, animals, and transport. We have great fun making up stories of what is happening on the farm. We are still deciding on the best name for the farm but now we are going with Barr Primary Farm. Our people who help us figures gave us a challenge to make somewhere for them to work. We worked together as a team to build them somewhere to work which even had a garage to park all their vehicles. Still one of our favourite things to do during play-based time is to draw. At Halloween we made decorations for the classroom and Miss Burton has collected an Art Gallery’s worth of pictures we have made for her; it always makes her smile.

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Daily Fitness

With us now being able to have fitness indoors we have been really enjoying our Go Noodle time again. We love to have our daily fitness and have missed our Go Noodle routines. It didn’t take us long to get back into the swing of things.

Miss Burton

 

P4-7

Outdoor Learning

At pupil request, we have timetabled that on a Thursday afternoon each week we will embrace the outdoor classroom and get outside for our learning. On November 5th we ventured up the Barr trails a stroll and participated in a scavenger hunt – all of our instructions were in French, in order for us to revise our colours and positional language. The pupils thoroughly enjoyed their stomp with Reilly informing me he had clocked up 15000 steps!

Energy & the Environment

We participated in a poster design competition in term 1 for the Energy Agency lockdown calendar. I am delighted to inform you that we had two successful class winners – Reilly Blanchard P5 and Rosie Denham P7. These pupils will have their poster featured in the 2021 calendar and are both invited to attend an online awards ceremony in December with the Provost for South Ayrshire.

Our Inter-Disciplinary Learning for Term 2 is ‘Energy & the Environment’. We have begun with a focus on ‘climate change’ and are linking this to the UNICEF campaign ‘Outright’. We have started a new class novel called ‘Wilderness Wars’ by Scottish author and teacher Barbara Henderson. We are exploring renewable & non-renewable energy sources and electricity in Science.

Halloween – What a SCREAM!

A real highlight of term 2 so far has to be our Halloween party! We did not let COVID-19 dampen our spooky spirits. Mrs McBirnie set a daily ‘Halloween’ maths or literacy challenge every day with a prize up for grabs. We learnt Halloween vocabulary in French and even created spooky mansions in art. On Friday, we had a class ‘pumpkin drive’ which got a particularly enthusiastic response and finished the day with our other party activities.

 

School highlights so far – P4-7

• I loved our class novel ‘Charlie changes into a chicken’ especially the writing task when we could choose our own animal that Charlie changed into.
• Dixie is my highlight – he is my friend, he helps us and he is really funny.
• I like maths because it helps me when I’m working on the farm. Decimals and division are my favourite.
• I like sharing my playtime with the little ones. It’s nice to see them and it is fun!
• I really enjoy ‘Beat That’ in maths because there are lots of different sums and you need to work fast.
• I love lunchtime because the whole class eats and plays together now.
• I love outdoor learning because it’s great getting out in the fresh air and being around nature even if we are doing work at the same time.
• I like writing because you get to be really imaginative. I have lots of story ideas and find it really relaxing.
• I like art because you can be creative and just let your imagination free. My favourite pieces so far have been my poppies poster, ‘The Scream’ and the exploding heads.
• I enjoy P.E as I like being active in body and mind.
• I like reading as when you have a good book you just can’t put it down.
• I enjoy learning my times tables and I’m getting really good at them.
• Most of all, I like Mrs McBirnie because she is so funny and kind (no pupil was paid for this comment!).
• I really like ALL of my classmates and I love our school as well.

Mrs McBirnie

 

EYC and Class blogs November

Barr PS and EYC Newsletter

November 2020

ACE

I am delighted to say that the ACE days pupils missed last session have been rearranged. All the children will get the chance to hone their cycling skills, both within and outwith our school grounds, over a range of ramps and obstacles. Through this input, pupils will gain either level 1 or level 2 of the Go Mountain Biking programme. Mrs McRae will send information out to you soon.

 

Assembly

Through the wonders of technology, we held our first virtual whole school Assembly last week. The children shared their learning across the school and EYC; we discussed relevant updates and awarded certificates to pupils who have consistently displayed our school values. Looking ahead to Christmas, my hope is to build on this experience and present a Nativity which parents will be able to access too.

 

News

You may have already heard that Mrs McRae is leaving us and moving on to a new post within the NHS. Her last day with us will be the 11th November and I am sure you join me in thanking her for her dedication and commitment to our school community over the years. We wish her well for the future. I am delighted to tell you that Sharon Trotter will be our new clerical assistant but, as yet, she doesn’t have a start date.  Mrs McBirnie’s children recently entered the Energy Agency lockdown calendar competition and we are pleased to tell you that Reilly and Rosie were winners. They will receive their prize at an online award ceremony in December.

 

Learning Journals

It is so hard to convey just how much learning happens every day within the nursery and classrooms, which is why we are implementing Learning Journals. As you know from the information previously sent out, Learning Journals will give you a window into what is happening in your child’s group or class. Staff will post observations containing a comment, photos or a video detailing how the children interact with their friends, with planned activities and achieve success. With the details you have supplied, whether at work, at home, on your phone or laptop, you will be able to access your child’s profile safely. You will also be able to leave comments and upload photos directly from your own device, if you wish. Staff will start using them from the end of next week, so look out for notifications and enjoy looking through your child’s learning.

 

Remote learning

Remote learning is the term being used to describe when learners and teachers are not physically present together in the traditional classroom environment. Government guidance states that the main elements of remote learning can include:
• providing learners with physical resources where needed such as learning materials, textbooks and digital devices.
• providing live learning and teaching sessions with children and young people, for example through Glow (either by communicating through the chat function or through live video links with learners).
• providing access to recorded learning sessions and tasks.
• setting learners tasks for completion and submission to / discussion with practitioners.
• using the opportunity for ‘live sessions’ (as above) to check in, discuss and engage in person with learners following a learning task, but not to deliver lessons or content.
• engaging regularly with learners through email or an agreed platform.

Going forward, should children require to self-isolate due to Public Health advice, the options below are what we will offer. A survey will soon come out asking you to choose your option in advance, based on your individual circumstances.

Option 1
• A printed pack of work, which will include independent activities relating to literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing.
• Check in phone calls from the class teacher.
• Completed work handed in and discussed on return to school.

Option 2
• Independent literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing tasks to be completed via Glow.
• Microsoft Teams chat function used for check in and work feedback.

Option 3
• Live learning and teaching sessions via Teams – twice daily, specifically timetabled.
• Follow up independent tasks to be completed.

Option 4
• Access to online-recorded learning and teaching sessions to be viewed at any time.
• Follow up independent tasks to be completed.
• Microsoft Teams chat function used for check in and work feedback.

 

Social Media

Please keep an eye on the school website and Twitter account to find out more about what is happening in our school and EYC.

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/sa/barrpsandeyc/

@BarrPrimary

 

Active Schools

The Active Schools team have been delivering a weekly input at Barr Primary school on a Thursday, working with all pupils every week. Their activities have included Active Play based learning, outdoor learning and a number of leadership programmes. Aaron (project assistant) has been heavily involved on a weekly basis developing positive relationships with all children. Last term, he took the P1-3 class up to the MUGA at the park for an afternoon of activity – really challenging them to improve their agility, balance and coordination. Connor (Active Schools Coordinator) has been involved in leadership delivery, creating junior coaches and our very own Sports Council.  The Sports Council most recently took part in SportScotland’s #SportHour on Twitter, answering questions and getting amazing feedback!

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Upcoming Events NOVEMBER 16th – Cool to Be Kind Week ACE day 18th – ACE day 20th – World Children’s Day ACE day (not EYC) 24th – Parent/Teacher phone calls 26th – Hot Chocolate with the HT   DECEMBER 16th –  Cinderella live stream 18th – Pupil group 21st – Christmas Parties Hot Chocolate with the HT 23rd – School closes at 2.30pm

Mrs Murphy – HT newsletter November