All posts by Mrs Sjoberg

Lego Marble Runs – STEM

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P2A were using their communication and critical thinking meta-skills to plan and build marble runs with a partner. They evolved quickly and included: mazes, dead ends, slides, flumes, tunnels, bridges.

We have been focusing on communicating as a group. Learning to use eye contact, turn take and share ideas. Our weekly STEM challenges are great for practising these skills.

Pupil Voice: ‘Look this is a false end so then you have to go back and through the tunnel to get to the end.’
‘We were using our communication Cate meta-skill by sharing our ideas with each other and he used eye contact when speaking to me!’

Outdoor Learning – Positional Language

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Primary 2 we’re using their knowledge of positional language words (on, under, next to, to the left) in the wildlife area. We took turns suggesting positional language and had to show it with our bodies.
We were using our focusing meta-skills to focus our attention to show positional language using the natural resources.
Pupil voice ‘Look I am on a tree!’ ‘I am on the right of the wall.’ ‘I am under the branch.’
‘look I am on the puddle but only for like a second and then I am in it!’
Our next steps are to use our positional language knowledge to instruct others where to go by writing directions.

Reading Detectives

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We were using our ‘Collaborating Cora’ meta-skill today, working as a group to take turns within a group to complete a task.
We used our reading books and became detectives today we were looking for:

– Common words, words which include diagraphs and words including the letter ‘t’.

Pupil Voice:

‘I found ‘are’ on page 4 if you look next to the word Dad you will see it.’
‘My group found lots of ‘oa’ diagraph words ‘toad, load goat!’

Outdoor Learning

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We spent a lovely afternoon at the stoney beach our favourite place. Our intended learning was to revisit road safety, beach risky play particularly rock climbing and the sea depth.

We found some interesting treasures and we enjoyed a windy beach explore. Pupils were using descriptive words to describe rocks and shell patterns.

Pupil voice

‘I think being outside makes me in a happy mood’

‘This rock is stripy but in a circle kind of stripe’

’I found two fossils can you believe it, I know what kind of creature is in here!’

‘The sea is wild waves today, I wonder if the poor fish feel sea sick!’

‘I found a cave and when I put my hand on, I felt a creature inside it!’

Continue reading Outdoor Learning →

IDL through Play

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A lovely example of children taking their learning into their play. After our topic lesson learning about the Lerwick Town Hall yesterday. I noticed today learners had applied their knowledge of the shapes and structure of the Town Hall and they used the loose parts, magnetic tiles and wooden dolls do recreate the Town Hall. As we spoke learners shared the following knowledge and understanding that they had learned from our topic lesson the day before:

‘Look this is where the clock tower is and it rings every hour and half past!’
‘here is where you can get married with the stain window glass’

Learners asked for this to go in the class block play floor book. They also shared that they were using their collaboration meta skills.

STEM – IDL Town Hall Models

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Our topic is Lerwick, pupils asked to learn about the buildings in Lerwick. Today we spoke about the Town Hall, its uses and how/when it was build and made models using pasta and playdoh. We were focusing on the meta-skill of collaborating and added our learning to our IDL working wall. Pupil comments:

‘if we make a square then it will make it stronger when we add walls’

‘you hold this part and I will hold this side and she can get the roof on, the roof is a triangle!’

‘My parents got married at the town hall upstairs!’

Meta-skill Link – listening to and valuing other people’s opinions and developing language of collaborative learning.

 

 

 

Bigton Farm and St Ninians

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What better way to spend the first international day of play than to be outdoors exploring all day. We started our day at Bigton Farm where Amy showed us farm life, we fed pigs and were up close with many animals. We then spent time at St Ninians beach before eating lunch at Dunrossness school and heading to the park on the way home. We are so grateful to our hosts at the Dunrossness school and Bigton Farm for bringing learning to life for Primary 1.

 

Morning in the life of a Primary 1

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We always start our day with at least 45 minutes of uninterrupted free play today we had over 70 minutes as the class were so engaged in their play. Children lead their learning in their play and as adults we join in to further their learning or when invited to share in their play. Following on from floating and sinking activities earlier in the week, pupils wanted to use junk modelling to create boats and asked for water to test if they float.  Others created a fantastic block play and loose parts farm which they asked to include in our floor book.

We spent some time revising our tricky words in the messiest manner possible and visited the new school garden to enjoy reading with our friends. Learners were able to recognise their tricky words in real story books and were using their phonics knowledge to read independently.
We then sang our alphabet song and pupils practised writing capital letters in alphabetical order on whiteboards. Then we ate snack and had fun speaking about our best parts of Primary 1. ☺️