Tag Archives: child led

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.

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. ☺️

 

Sewing and Electricity

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Some children asked to do sewing, they learned how to thread the needles and to join 2 pieces of felt together and add ribbons. There have been a mixture of creations from jelly fish, to snails to dinosaurs.

We’ve been exploring circuits in our play provision. Learning to create a circuit which powers a light. 💡

‘it needs a battery to make it work, like electricity in our switches!’
‘I managed to add a switch too so I can turn my light on and off!’

 

Outdoor Learning – Posting Letters

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Primary 1 have been learning about the post, we had a visit from a postman and last week we wrote ourselves a letter about the visit. We addressed our envelopes and spoke about the postcode, house names/numbers and the location our post would be going.

Today we walked to Sound Service to buy stamps, on the way pupils pointed out different environmental print and other interesting places/things:

Pupils were excited to get into the bus stop and look at the bus timetable, we spoke about the time the bus would be coming and how to get the bus to stop. We got to use the traffic lights for the first time today too.

‘Look that sign means 20 in your car, you can’t go faster!’

‘That is new houses being built… that sign says only workers and you have to wear a hat… that word says i…n… in.’

‘There is a Shetland pony, and is the baby one called a ‘foal’?

Pupils asked the shop worker for 15 stamps, they chose 2nd class stamps and then on the way back we stopped to look at frozen nature. We enjoyed holding the frozen leaves while they melted and crushing them near our ear to hear the noises they make.

Look out in the post for your child’s letter – hope you enjoy reading it together.

 

Outdoor Learning – Term 2 Week 2

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Pupil Voice:

‘This is the bonfire, wir needing some more rocks to go aroond it.’

‘We are need a fire lighter… we dunna have one lets use two sticks and rub them together’.

‘We can grab onto this with both hands and left our feet up and swing across to the other side’.

‘I am like a koala in the tree, hanging down from my arms and legs’.

Lots of role play in the wildlife area today, bonfire and den making as well as creating games in the trees. When it rained we hid in the den of trees and read the story ‘Where the wild things are’ then we revised our phonics sounds and blended some sounds to read words.

Outdoor Learning

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Primary 1A really enjoyed their first experience of outdoor learning in the wildlife area.

We are focusing on enjoying risky play safely, pupils enjoyed tree climbing, den building and scavenging. We are learning to dress appropriately for outdoor education which includes water proofs, high vis and welly boots. They decided on some key priorities: wear the right clothes, stay safe with your hands and feet, be kind to growing things, have fun and explore!

Pupil quotes about outdoor learning: 

‘I love the smell of the grass and the trees’, ‘I loved climbing the tree, I felt like an explorer’ ‘being outside makes me feel happy inside!’.