Category Archives: Health and Wellbeing

Taing Beach Exploring

The children had a great morning at the beach and they loved searching in the seaweed and amongst the rocks for crabs and shells.

 

Carina made this wonderful pattern with lots of similar sized whelks which she had collected on the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

We stayed at the beach for snack which is always a treat.

 

We do live in the most beautiful place with fantastic opportunities for learning outdoors.

 

Polycrub Produce

Today was an exciting day as we pulled up the first vegetables ready in the polycrub. These radishes will be used by the cooks in school. Carina loved taking them in and giving them a wash before delivering them to the canteen.

The children are very good at looking after the plants with daily watering, transplanting seedlings and re-potting plants.

Lambs for Show and Tell

We had a special Show and Tell this week from Jack. His mum brought along three caddie lambs for the children to meet.

This was such a good experience for the children as many of them haven’t really been  close to lambs before. They had a go at feeding them with a bottle and loved getting cuddles and stroking them. They named them Rosie, Sally and Annie.

Freyja also brought in her caddie lambs for Show and Tell. The children were very amused to see them wearing nappies. They had great fun cuddling them and playing chasies up and down the hill. Freyja could tell us a lot about how to look after them.

Strom Beach

We are so lucky to have wonderful places to walk to from our school.

There is always plenty to chat about, investigate and be curious about on our walks.

Once we got to the beach it was time for snack! It is always quite exciting having food outdoors with friends.

the sun came out for us and there was plenty of interesting finds on the beach.

The longer we stayed the more curious and creative the children became. Some of the children began re-routing the water flowing across the beach and building dams and new channels.

Polycrub planting

We finally made it out to the polycrub to start planting. The soil was really dry so a lot of watering was needed and then the bairns planted carrots, onions and tatties as well as their own little pot with a sunflower seed.

Mother’s Day

The children were really focused and wanted to make their Mothers Day presents really special for all the lovely mums out there.

They looked amazing and the children were really proud of them.

Willum and River had the job of filling up the cups- I think the mums in their houses have done well!

They wrote their names on tags and wrapped their gifts. I hope they all made it home safely.

 

Learning Out in the Snow

Opportunities for using loose part to create dens. Great for developing problem solving and teamwork skills.

Collecting the melting snow from icicles dripping from the roof. Great science and STEM opportunities outdoors.

Some of the melting ice was collected in a different way!

 

 

Deciding which containers are best for different purposes. Evie’s snowman needed three different sized containers.

Opportunities to develop creativity, confidence and take risks- so many skills being developed.

Collaboration, choice and commitment in play develops so many social skills and friendships. It can also be exhausting!

 

Testing to see which snowball goes fastest- big or small? Does lifting the guttering higher or lower? So many opportunities for conversation, developing vocabulary and communication skills outdoors.

 

 

Checking out footprints and the different patterns boots make in the snow.

 

 

 

 

Viking Warriors

The children love learning about the Vikings and have been enjoying role play opportunities in the classroom. It is great to see them all getting on so well together using what they have been learning in their play. Below is a snapshot of Wednesday afternoon’s adventures.

The galley is now finished and they have been taking turns and sailing around the world discovering new places to settle.

Sometimes,  just their imaginations are enough. They set out chairs and rowed their longship – even before it was built.

Once in their new lands the children have been learning how Vikings trade items to get what they need. Their are jewels, gems, furs, food and  jewellery to swap, using the scales and balances to work out different amounts.

They would also need to cook over an open fire in the middle of the longhouse using foods available.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These viking warriors are getting ready for another attack.

 

The children are enjoying using the Viking longships in the water tray to set battle scenes and talk about their topic.

 

 

Dancing

There have been a few sessions of traditional dance this term. The class have been learning the Grand Old Duke of York. The Circassian Circle, The Grand March and the Boston Two Step.

Lots of great listening to follow instructions and keep time to the music.

They also had a session dancing with their Buddies. The Primary 2’s got P6 buddies for the dances. It was so much fun.

Then we had a whole school dance which included the Early Years children and school staff.

Our Big Dino Build

The children started by selecting suitable boxes/junk to make their model dinosaur. They worked in pairs so there was a lot of discussion and collaboration to find the parts and join them together.

We spoke about how to make their model strong by creating different types of joins in using PVA and sellotape.

The next stage was seriously messy. They used papier mache to cover the dinosaur, focusing on the joins and making sure the newspaper strips went from one part of the model onto an adjoining part.

Once the models had two coats of papier mache it was time to choose colours for their dinosaur.

Once the paint was dry the children thought about the detail they wanted to add- eyes, teeth, claws etc.

The primary 2’s have been working on adjectives in their literacy work so this was a great opportunity to apply that learning to describing their dinosaur.

The writing was read out in class for the others to guess which model the description matched.

Their is now a little Dinosaur Exhibition set up in the school for the other classes and staff to visit to see the models and the writing.

A Burns Supper

Today we were learning a little bit about Robert Burns and how people celebrate Burns Night.  The children prepared tatties and neaps to go with the haggis. They were very careful with the peelers and knives listening well to instructions.

They all got to have some of the Burns Supper they had cooked. A few loved it, some liked it and quite a lot of children did not like it at all but had a try.

Snow day activities

Snow Day Activities

Maths

Primary 1
  • Practise counting out loud to 20, then as far as 30.
  • Count footprints in the snow!
  • Have a go at the game below- just as far as 1-30 level.

Helicopter Counting

Primary 2
  • Practise Adding out in the snow- throw 2 snowballs, then 5 more – How many was that? Put 15 stones for a snowman’s mouth and two for his eyes? how many stones altogether? etc.
  • have a go at the Robot Addition game below- try all 3 levels.

Robot Addition

Literacy

Primary 1
  • listen to the song below. Practise the actions.
  • Think of words with ‘ee’ sound and words with ‘or’ sound.
  • write ee and or words in the snow in the snow
Primary 2

In class we were going to do some work on adjectives today so see how many words you can think of to describe………

  1. the snow
  2. how you feel about being off school

Write these down on a piece of paper or email them to me at DianeForsyth@shetland.gov.uk

HWB

Go outside and play! I can’t wait to hear about your snowy day adventures. Below are some suggestions for what else you could do…..

  • Become a detective and search for animal footprints in the snow.
  • Create a picture to show what you like best about wintertime.
  • Go for a walk with a grown-up and take a camera to capture some lovely winter photographs.
  • Build a sledge for a small toy using household materials.

Buddying

Every week the Primary 1’s meet up with their buddies in Primary 7. This is always exciting and the bairns really look forward to it. They do lots of fun things together inside and outside during this time. Below are just some of the things they have been enjoying doing together.

Parachute games

Robots with Rectangles

Plasticine Creations and Presentations

Puppets and Puppet Shows

Name Collages

New Years Resolutions

The class recycled old Christmas cards to make these stars to hang in the classroom.

On the back they wrote their New Years Resolutions. It was lovely to hear what the children would like to get better at and their wishes/promises for 2023.

Here are a couple of ideas of the kind of things they were thinking about.

Our Christmas Concert

We only managed a few rehearsals in school before the snow came and we had to close. The children were so good at listening and following instructions. They made their own props and practised songs as often as possible.

The children did so well remembering their lines and singing their songs on the big stage. It was a great experience for them performing in front of such a big audience.

Children In Need Day

We had a really fun day on Friday and the children( and staff) loved coming to school in their pyjamas.

 

This wasn’t a fundraiser this year but the children watched short video clips and we spoke about Children In Need in class.

I only managed to get one photo during the day and it was of little Pudsey coming into his newly built house by Carina and Carrie.