For our Scots topic P1a and P1b are learning the poem ‘Choukie Hen’ by JK Annand. Please practise this poem at home.

The words are:

We’re also singing the Scots nursery rhyme Three Craws. We will practise in class but please also sing this at home if you have time:

It’s lovely to be back and we’ve had a busy week getting back into our routines. On Monday we were excited to share our news and we talked about Hogmanay and New Year resolutions. We all set a target – from practising writing our numbers to getting better at jumping!

In literacy this week we’ve learned the ‘oo’ sound and talked about how sometimes it is long, e.g. moon, and sometimes it is short, e.g. wood. We read Room on the Broom and on Thursday did a black pen picture of a witch and wrote some great descriptive sentences.

In numeracy we’re consolidating our number bonds to 10. We’ve been using numicon, cubes, beads and ten frames to help with this. We’re also finishing our work on time and looking at digital and analogue clocks.

We have started our Scots topic, looking where Scotland is on the map and then looking closer at Scotland itself. We have set up a role play Tourist Information Office in the classroom where the children have been going to book trips to Loch Ness, Edinburgh and some lovely castles!

On Wednesday we looked at the work of Scottish artist Steven Brown and all drew our own Highland Coos. We used oil pastels to layer the different colours.

The school is a little cooler than before the holidays due to keeping it well ventilated. Please ensure your child has a jumper/cardigan that they can put on if they need to.

Here are some of the children’s highlights this week:

• Drawing a coo
• Junk modelling
• Learning the oo sound
• Drawing the witch
• Playing in the playground with my friends
• Reading Scots books
• Playing in the tourist information office
• Coming to school
• Learning Scottish words
• Seeing my friends again

A huge thank you from us all for our fantastic Christmas hampers. They are very thoughtful and a lovely surprise!

Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and we look forward to returning in January.

Best wishes and stay safe,

Mrs Collins, Mrs McGilp and the P1 team🎄

What a busy and exciting week!

Monday started with a very exciting visit from Santa, who had parked his reindeer on the roof! We were very excited to speak to Santa and were delighted to receive some new jigsaw puzzles for our classroom.

Also this week we’ve been writing Christmas sentences and cards, finishing our Christmas crafts and even wrapping up presents. We’ve also been enjoying the christmas stories and jokes in our advent each day.

We’ve been continuing with our addition and stories of 10, using numicon and the cuisenaire rods to help us.

We had a lovely Christmas lunch on Tuesday, a very big thank you to the lunch ladies for looking after us. We then had a good dance in the classroom afterwards!

On Wednesday we were very excited to work with the P7s again. We all wrapped up and went outside to listen to the P7s fantastic stories. Thank you P7 for sharing them with us.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a restful break and we look forward to seeing you all in January!

We’ve had an exciting week in P1b! We have been busy with Christmas crafts as well as opening our advent each day where there is a joke and then a picturebook to unwrap. We’re also continuing with our literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. 

In literacy we’ve been practising our phonics, word building and writing Christmas cards. We’ve also been reading in our groups and sharing our stories with a partner. We will start collecting reading folders in on Monday and next week won’t be sending home any new reading books.

In numeracy we’re continuing with our number stories to 10, using numicon, cubes and loose parts to help us. We’re also continuing to look at time and what  o’clock means.

The highlight of the week for most however was the party! We joined P1a and had great fun dancing and playing party games. We enjoyed our snacks back in the classroom and listening to Christmas music on the smartboard. Thank you to the parent council for our little party bag too.

Here are a few photographs from this week:

We’ve had a busy week in P1b starting to think more about Christmas.

We’ve been practising our Christmas song – Ssshhh don’t wake the baby! – and were very excited to go on stage this morning where we were recorded by Mrs Belleville.

In literacy this week we have learned the x sound. We looked at x-rays of different animals and had to guess what it was! We’ve also been doing lots of word building and writing. We are continuing to do lots of fine motor tasks with plasticine, playdoh and tweezers.

In numeracy we’re continuing with addition and have been focusing on number bonds to 8.

Also this week we’ve started to look at time and initially looking at day and night. We drew a picture of ourselves at 8 o’clock in the morning. Some were eating breakfast, some waving goodbye as we set off for school  and others relaxing and watching the television!

We’ve also had lots of fun playing this week. Our role play has taken on a Christmas theme and we’ve been working well taking turns to play games like snakes and ladders.

Here are a few pictures from this week:

For our COP26 inspired Book Week, Primary 1 thought about how our environment is affecting animals. We wrote a story about a hedgehog and all of the dangers they face. We then asked ELC-P7 to help us illustrate it. We hope you enjoy it.

Weather permitting, this week the P1s will be planting trees with the P7s and Mrs Istephan.

Please can the children bring wellies and a warm coat Thursday 9th and Tuesday 14th (no planting on Tuesday 7th as planned due to the forecast).

The saplings have been donated by the Woodland Trust. The P7s will be teaching the P1s how to plant a tree and we will watch this video:

We’ve had a very busy and fun start to December. The children helped to write the blog this week. Here are their highlights:

• Reading Christmas stories – for our advent we have a joke and unwrap a new Christmas story each day
• Painting and seeing how crayon resist the watercolour paint
• Learning the stories of six
• Learning the y sound
• Drawing Christmas trees on SketchesSchool on the iPads
• Making plasticine snowmen
• Coming to school and seeing all my friends and having a fun day!

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

We’ve had a busy week in P1b returning to our usual routine after Book Week last week.

Last Friday we were all excited to take our book bags home. We hope you enjoyed sharing the stories. We voted in class which was our favourite and Inch and Grub was the resounding winner!

This week we’ve learned two new sounds – w and v. We’ve been lots of writing – building words and starting to write short sentences.  We’ve also been reading each day. Thank you for reading and practising the key words at home. In class we had great fun playing a memory game with the key words.

In numeracy we’ve been continuing our focus on addition and this week incomplete addition or ‘danger sums’ e.g. 2 + _ = 3. This is a little more challenging and we are using lots of concrete materials to help us.

In our outdoor learning we went on a scavenger hunt looking for different animal habitats in the school grounds. We spotted holes in the ground and the trees and thought of the different animals that might live in them.

Also this week, we’ve been using oil pastels to add colour to our frogs that we drew last week. We took our time and talked about how oil pastels are different to other materials and how we can layer the different colours.

We have also had a rearrange of our classroom this week and have some lovely new toys. We had lots of discussions about being respectful to property and how we all need to look after our class. One of these new toys was a Code-a-pillar. Like the Beebot, we programme the Code-a-pillar to follow a simple set of instructions. We had great fun at the end of the day yesterday racing the Beebot and the Code-a-pillar!

Enjoy the long weekend and see you on Tuesday.