The children are getting very good at helping to write the blog. Every Friday after brunch we talk about what we’ve learned and what we want to share with grown-ups at home. Here is what we came up with this week:

We went on a walk to see if there are any signs of spring. We saw daffodils, snowdrops, buds, crocuses, catkins, blossom, primrose and some birds nests.

We played in the classroom. We played with the numicon, at the writing table, in the flower shop, with the trains and bird watching.

We did some gardening. We were weeding. In the window we have our greenhouses with runnerbeans. Look out for the seeds germinating!

We learned the ‘th’ sound. To help us we read The Cat in the Hat and drew pictures of Thing 1 and Thing 2. We used black oil pastels to draw the Cat in the Hat and we painted a stripy background (pictures to follow next week).

This morning we had ‘a laugh with our class’ for Comic Relief. We did a quiz and told some of our favourite jokes.

What do you call a deer with no eyes? No eye deer!

What do you call a deer with no eyes and no legs? Still no eye deer!

What do you call a key that opens a banana? A monkey!

Why didn’t the skeleton go to the party? Because he had nobody to go with!

How did the cow cross the road? On his mooootorcycle!

Here are some more pictures we’ve chosen to share:

We’ve had a great time junk modelling this week. On Monday we read One Button Benny and spoke about what our own robots might be able to do. We then set to work to make our own creations! We also talked about how we were recycling and the different materials we were using.

In our writing this week we drew black pen pictures of Benny and wrote some fantastic sentences to describe him.

This week we’ve also been weeding in the garden and getting the ground ready for our spring planting. We will continue to do this on Thursday afternoons.

We’ve been playing very well in the class this week, taking turns and working together. We enjoyed playing in the water tray, making scenes in the tuff tray and of course playing with the trains!

In literacy we’ve been recapping the double sounds and continuing with our word building and talking about what a sentence needs.

In numeracy we’re continuing with subtraction, now looking at subtraction from ten and linking addition and subtraction facts.

Here are some pictures that we’ve chosen to share:

P1b will now be gardening on Thursday afternoons. Please bring a warm coat and wellies or shoes you don’t mind getting a little muddy.

Thank you,

Mrs  McGilp

What a busy week! We have had a brilliant time reading lots of stories this week, many with a dragon theme. We made dragon masks and wrote letters asking for advice as to how we can look after our class dragon who we named Flash!

We’ve also taken part in some live events with Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler and had a whole school virtual assembly. We read with the P6s and drew and animated pictures on their iPads. This morning we had lots of fun with the nursery on an outdoor character hunt – even the resident pheasants wanted to join in!

Here are some of the children’s highlights and photos we have chosen to share:

• When we went on a character hunt. We found Zog, Percy,  witch from Room on the Broom and lots more!
• I liked working with the P6s. We read their stories and drew characters on the iPads.
• When Mrs Brown read a silly story!
• Sharing our favourite books
• Making our favourite character
• The assembly with Mrs Strathearn
• Using skittles in subtraction
• Making the dragons
• Putting scales on the dragon
• Playing with the trains
• Doing music with Mrs Ingles

We’ve had a great week back, in spite of the weather!

In literacy this week we’ve learned the ‘ai’ sound and did a train picture, drawing a variety of different passengers on the train, including people, circus animals and dinosaurs! We also enjoyed reading The Snail and the Whale. In our writing this week we wrote a two part story about the snail and the whale, in the first part introducing the characters and in the second part drawing one of the many exciting locations they visited. We also did a great job making plasticine snails and had lots of fun making a long spiral for the shell!

In numeracy this week we’ve been looking at doubles and linking addition and subtraction facts. We’re also continuing our data handling, looking at tally marks and collecting our own data. We had a brilliant time asking our friends and the grown ups questions and recording the information.

Also this week we’ve lots of fun playing. We have a post office in the classroom and have been busy writing lots of letters and learning how to write addresses. We’ve also had the beebots and code-a-pillar out and have been making our own courses.

We’re continuing our soft starts in the morning, this morning painting plants and daffodils.

Here are some of the children’ s highlights and the photos we have chosen to share:

• Making snails with the plasticine
• Making the train
• Playing with the code a pillar
• Making a course for the Beebots
• Playing in the post office
• Painting the flowers
• Playing with the beebots
• Having good ideas!
• Doing numbers
• Playtime and eating snacks
• Everything!

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The children helped to write the blog this week. Here is what they had to say:

We made bird feeders to help feed the birds in the winter. We put in lard, raisins, apples, oats and cheese. We mixed it up. It felt disgusting! It was greasy! We put the mixture into a pine cone.  Please hang these up – we would love to see photos of them. We put some in the playground for the birds at school.

We did taking away from 6 and we did subtracting zero from bigger numbers. Then we did some crazy taking away including 100-1 = 99!

We went birdwatching with the P7s. We went all around the school and saw the old oak tree. We saw lots of birds. Thank you to the P7s for helping us.

We did some data handling. We looked at what our favourite animal is and made a pictogram. We learned about tally marks.

In phonics we learned the or sound.

Each day we’ve been adding to our bird collages. We used lots of different materials. We are going to put these on the wall.

Here are some photos we have chosen to share:

We’ve made a great start to our RSPB Big Schools’ Birdwatch. We’ve been finding out what the RSPB do and why we need to do the birdwatch, as well as looking more closely at the birds in the playground.

We’ve set up our birdhide where we regularly spot our visiting pheasant, lots of crows after playtime and a very pretty Pied Wagtail.

To help feed the birds in winter we made fruit kebabs. We used cheese, apples, pears, strawberries and raisins. We hope you have been able to hang these somewhere the birds can get to.

We’ve been learning about the different types of birds and how to recognise them. On Thursday we read the story of Lucky Duck and learned how birds are all slightly different – the robin has a small beak to pick up insects, the duck has webbed feet to swim with and the blackbird has a beautiful song.

We then drew our own lucky ducks and wrote a few sentences to describe him.

Also this week we learned the ‘ee’ sound. We will learn ‘or’ next week. We’re continuing to do lots of word building and looking at what a sentence needs.

In numeracy we’re all getting very good at subtraction, this week rolling dice to make our own subtraction stories.

On Thursday we had a very special afternoon as the whole school enjoyed a piece of Mrs Clyde’s lovely shortbread whilst watching the Scots celebration. We sat very well and loved seeing ourselves on screen as well all of the older children in the school.

The children wrote the blog this week. Here is what they had to say:

We have had a busy week in P1b. The week was good. We did some great learning.

Today there was a fire alarm. We were playing outside in the playground and suddenly the fire alarm came on! We all went down to the playing field. We were in a nice straight line and had to listen.

Our highlights this week:

• We learned the sh sound. We drew a shark and we wrote some sentences about the shark.
• We were learning taking away.
• We all stood up in front of the class to say our poem Choukie Hen.
• I liked passing a clap in circle time.
• I liked everything!

Here are some pictures from this week:

We’re continuing our Scots focus this week. Thank you for practising Choukie Hen at home. Several children have enjoyed reciting the poem in front of the class.

We’ve also been reading lots of Scottish stories this week, including the story of Greyfriar’s Bobby. We did a black pen picture of Bobby and some fantastic descriptive writing. On Monday we made Scottish flags with Mrs Thomson using scrunched up tissue paper. On Wednesday afternoon we learned about tartan and how different clans and families have their own colours. There is even a Kingsland tartan! We then chose our colours and weaved paper to design our own tartan. This was quite a tricky task and we worked brilliantly together, helping each other and being very encouraging.

Also this week we’ve learned the ‘ch’ sound and had fun being reading detectives and finding lots of words with ‘ch’ in them.  

In numeracy we’ve started our block on subtraction, initially looking at the concept of taking away. 

The children’s highlights this week have been:

• Drawing Greyfriar’s Bobby
• Playing with the playdough
• Junk modelling
• Playing hotels
• The letter jigsaws
• Weaving tartan
• Having courage and saying Choukie Hen
• Learning ch
• Starting take away

Here are some pictures we have chosen to share this week: