It is great to see the vegetables and flowers shooting up now after the Easter Holidays. The children have done a great job of looking after them so far.
Polycrub Progress
Tag Archives: core
Easter Egg Fun
The Children enjoyed listening to the Easter Story today and watching a short animation about it. After discussing the reason we roll eggs at Easter time they got to work painting and designing their own egg ready for rolling later in the day.
It was p1 versus p2 in the Egg Rolling competition. The egg that travelled furthest after two shots and had no cracks was Ollie’s.
After lunch the children enjoyed an Easter Egg Hunt in the School grounds. It’s great to be back at school.
Planting in the Polycrub
The children have been out a few times getting the polycrub started for the growing season. So far they have planted tatties, radishes, sunflowers, parsley and some flowers.
If anyone has any spare pots, compost, seeds or plants they would like to donate to the school polycrub that would be fantastic.
I shall keep you updated with the progress. Just a lot of soil and digging at the moment!
Pancake Day
The children learned how to make pancakes for Pancake Day. They measured, sieved, poured, cracked and mixed all the ingredients themselves. They learned the names of the utensils and how important it is to read a recipe correctly.
They watched for the bubbles in the mixture to know when to flip the pancake over and cook the other side.
They had great fun having a go at flipping a pancake in a pan.
The best bit was choosing their toppings and eating them at snacktime.
The primary 2’s wrote out the recipe so they can make them at home. This is Ollie’s beautiful writing.
The Class Airport
The children have really enjoyed creating an aeroplane and airport to play in this week. They have been talking about all the different jobs and have been really good at taking turns and playing together in this area.
They love being the pilot and co-pilot and its good to have cabin crew ready to help passengers with safety and snacks. They have made tickets and passports to take on their flights with them.
Air traffic control have been guiding the plane safely and they are taking the security very seriously. They have been asking the passengers lots of great questions to see where they are going on holiday and what they have packed in their suitcases.
Nesting and Girlsta Jarl Squad Visit
The children have been building up to this visit. They have made shields, axes and helmets for their own class squad and have been practicing marching and singing in class. Some of them made this amazing galley boat with the loose parts and have enjoyed Viking related play options in class.
They looked and sounded fantastic when they all grouped together for this photo.
They were really excited about doing their quiz which they had prepared for the Jarl. They drew big posters of things linked to the Jarls real life and then had fun choosing random things to draw for the answers to questions.
We managed a quick rehearsal before the Vikings arrived.
We didn’t manage to get many photos during the visit. I shall add more if I get any.
Hopscotch Words
It was great to take advantage of the beautiful morning and get outside for some literacy fun. The primary 1’s had great fun playing hopscotch with words and writing with chalk on the tarmac.
Gym with Mr Kirkness
The children were so excited when they saw the set up in the gym hall today. This term they are exploring balance, rotation, travelling, jumping and flight in different gymnastics contexts. They are using a variety of different apparatus and floor situations to build confidence, resilience and improve their skills.
So many skills are being developed during their PE lessons, including creativity, communication, core stability and strength and collaboration etc. They learn to take risks safely and build confidence to try new things.
Back to School
The children were delighted to be back at school this week. They are always excited to see what is new in the classroom but mostly they are excited to see their friends.
The train set is always a huge hit in the classroom. The children work together to build some really good layouts and play together so well with the trains
As part of their numeracy work the primary 1’s have been learning about Ordinal Numbers. They did this with the primary 2’s lined up and then they had their own little tub of objects to set out in an order of their choice. They practiced using the words 1st, 2nd, 3rd …….10th to say the positions of the items in their lines.
This term the IDL topic is titled ‘Here, There and Everywhere’. The children worked in groups to discuss and plan what they would like to learn about this term. Their drawing show lots of fantastic ideas and they are very excited about leading their learning through this topic.
Icy Spelling
The children loved practicing their spelling words in the snow last week.
It is great to see the interactions between the children. Seeing how they support, encourage and help each other is just lovely.
Swimming Lessons
The classes have really enjoyed their lessons at Scalloway pool this term. Mr Kirkness was impressed with their listening and effort and both classes have made lots of progress with confidence and skills.
Each week the classes take turns at going in the pool so while the p2 group are in I teach the p1’s at the poolside and vice versa. It is quite a productive time and the children are kept very busy with maths and literacy activities.
A huge thankyou to all the parents who volunteered to come along each Tuesday. I am very grateful for all your help.
Shapes
The children have had great fun using different materials and resources to create symmetrical designs. They have been using mirrors to check for symmetry indoors and outside and also painted wonderful symmetrical abstract designs.
They have also been learning about the 2D shapes and practised counting sides and corners. They designed their own pictures using different shapes.
We are very lucky at Whiteness to have so many fantastic resources for the children to use…..some modern technology mixed with some very old puzzles.
The Primary 2’s have been learning about which shapes can tile and which ones can’t. they found examples in and around the school and might find examples at home too. They investigated tiling using the different shapes they had been learning about.
The children have also been learning about 3D shapes and using their knowledge of 2D shapes they can describe the faces they can see. They have been learning about flat and curved faces as well as counting the vertices on the different shapes. They loved using the ‘feely box’ to describe and guess the shapes.
Again we found lots of examples of 3D shapes in the school and outdoors.
They used shapes to build models and the p1’s practiced sorting shapes into ones that could roll or not roll and ones that could stack or not stack.
Go Furt Fridays
Most Friday mornings in Term One have been spent outdoors in our Loose Parts Zone. This gives the children opportunities to develop so many skills like co-operation, problem solving, teamwork, collaboration, etc.
Each time we go out there are different ideas, children go into different groups, different friendships develop, they get more confident using the materials available and allow their imaginations and creativity to take over.
The parent council provided us with some new resources, including half round guttering pipes and some very sturdy stands to support the pipes at different levels. This has led to some amazing problem solving and water courses in the playground.
The tree area is great for the children to learn about taking risks but being safe. They love building Dens and climbing in the trees.
On these mornings we usually have our snack outdoors which has been lovely while the weather has been good this term.
And we get to play too………
Our Towns
The children started building houses in the junk modelling area and got really into it, making floors, rooms, furniture etc. They began including ‘mini-me’s into the houses too.
From this they decided to make a big town with roads between the houses.
They then began to create other buildings and areas in their town. There was a park, hospital, school etc.
The toy cars were brought out so they then built garages and even a multi-story car park.
They worked in pairs to draw plans of their towns and include all the buildings they thought should be included. It was great to see the primary 2’s labelling parts of their plans and writing names on their buildings.
The children have also been learning about different aspects of safety, including crossing the road. They did some role play in the games hall and had turns at being the lollipop person.
They then re-played crossing the road safely in their ‘town’, using the toy cars and mini-me characters.
Beginning Phonics in primary 1
The children learn phonic sounds and practice letter formations every day. They listen to a story and a song linked to the sound they are learning and play some games on the big whiteboard.
They then spend some time practicing the formations, in sand, on whiteboards, on infinity pads or with chalk, spaghetti or in shaving foam.
The children made tea and enjoyed investigating teabags and chatting about things beginning with ‘t’. They were also outside for a ‘t’ search which was great fun. their favourite game on the whiteboard is popping the ‘ t’ balloons as they appear on the screen.
The children loved investigating the effects of mixing ink and water when they were practicing the ‘i’ sound.
The children like matching the letters to the pictures initial sounds on the big whiteboard.
Taing Beach
The children walked down to Taing Beach on Friday and had fun exploring in the ebb.
They found lots of shells, whelks, crabs and even a sea cucumber. It was so great seeing how curious and excited the children were about their finds.
Our Own Paddling Pool
Friday was a really warm day and the children have been learning about sun safety. They got onto discussing drinking plenty of water and staying cool. This got onto the subject of paddling pools and outdoor hot tubs. The class decided they would have a go at making their own paddling pool as we were heading outdoors.
They worked together to roll tyres into position to make a big circle. They then helped to get the tarpaulins over the top and pegged them down.
Once the tyres were in position and the tarpaulins on the top the children worked together to fill their pool with water. They used lots of different containers to fetch water from the water trays at the other end of the play area as the hose only reaches so far.
Once there was enough water it didn’t take long to get wellies and socks off and get in for a little paddle. The chairs made it a very comfortable place to sit and cool off. The children were so happy and excited with what they had built together.
There was a ‘changing room’ created for the children to dry their feet and get their socks and boots back on.
Feathery Four
The primary 2’s are so good at helping the primary 1’s in the class. They worked together to draw and cut different sized circles to go on the peacocks tail feathers.
Feathery Four is a character in a story that helps with the number 4 formation.
When I Grow Up….
Children are often asked what they would like to be when they grow up. These ideas often change as they get older, but for now these paintings show what job they would like to do.
They were so good at painting in the classroom. Really great listening and careful work.
They have been enjoying role playing a few different jobs through play in the classroom and outdoors. A lot of different jobs in the hospital area, builders in the blocks, sand and Kapla and a spot of fishing in the water tray are just a few examples.
As the term goes on we will be discussing more jobs and having some parents in to tell us about their work.
more polycrub produce
The beetroot is amazing this year. The children pulled it up and it has been picked and put in jars. They will get a taste after the holidays.
The carrots – not so amazing. They didn’t get the attention they needed and didn’t get thinned out as the seeds had been sown too close together. The children enjoyed laughing at how small they were but did manage to crunch a few of the bigger ones.
All the children got a sunflower and tomato plant to take home and there were plenty for some of the other classes too. More peas have been eaten and the other plants are getting cleared out before the end of term.
The children thought that next year they would like to have a plant sale and raise money to get some new trowels and tools for the polycrub.
