Written by P2/1:

The fire alarm went off this morning. It was loud but it wasn’t scary. It was important for us to practise in case there is a real fire. It went off just as we were about to start our number lines. When the fire alarm went off we lined up with our partners and we walked down to the field. Brooke’s shoe fell off but it was okay! Everyone in the school was on the field. We listened to Mrs Wilson and she said we all did well.

Today in primary  1  we were talking about what makes us angry and how our body reacts. We thought about what we could do to help us calm down and get rid of angry feelings. We used our peace button (belly button) to help us breathe in and out slowly, helping us to relax and keep calm.  Our plasticine faces show what happens to our mouths, eyes and eyebrows if we are angry.

We were examining different leaves from the trees around the school. We had to think about the colour, size and shape of the leaves. We then had to try and match them to the leaves on our sheet. A lot of the trees in the playground are quite young so we went on to the primary 7 balcony to look across at some of the older trees in the park to compare their size.

Today we were identifying sounds and then trying to build small words with a partner.

Forming Letters

Finding Sounds

Building Words

In primary 1 we have been thinking of different ways to make numbers for example, number 6 could be made with a 3 and a 3 or a 2 add 2 add 2.

We have been working hard at forming our numbers. We have little rhymes that help us for example, round the tree, round the tree that’s how we make a number 3. We talk about what the numbers look like, for example number 2 looks like a swan and number 1 stands up tall like a soldier. We use our number line to check that our numbers are facing the correct way.

Our sound today was “h”. Michael the puppet showed us his lovely new hat for school. Mrs Collins told us a story about Michael trying his best in the hopping race on sports day. We all went into the playground to hop with Michael! To help us remember our new sound we made some colourful hats. We had great fun cutting and sticking different types of paper.

We used our black pens to add detail to our Elmers. We then joined them together to make a parade of elephants.

This week we started looking more closely at the trees around the school. We learned two big words – deciduous and evergreen – and looked at which trees were starting to change colour and might shortly lose their leaves. We started to identify different types of trees by looking at the shape of their leaves. Our favourite leaves were from sycamore and oak trees. We also saw birch and lime trees around the school but we couldn’t find a holly tree – the children have been asked to keep an eye out when they are walking around Peebles! On Tuesday we did some bark and leaf rubbings – we were all amazed at the detail in the leaves, and also how hard we needed to press!

In phonics this week we learned the sounds for c and e and are continuing to try and blend the sounds together to make short words.  In numeracy we’re continuing to focus on formation and the language of more and less.

As part of our ongoing Skipper work, we’ve been chatting a lot about being worried. We made worried faces with our plasticine and talked about what we can do to make ourselves feel better. We also made ‘helping thinking hats’ to help us think about whether our thoughts are true and whether our thoughts are helpful.

In circle time we talked about what a good friend is and what a good friend does.

Our new sound today was “e”. Michael had eggs for breakfast and Mrs Collins helped him crack them in the pan. We listened to the story of Elmer the elephant and made our own colourful elephants by sponging brightly coloured paint.