Tag Archives: friendships

Go Furt Fridays

The children get a focused loose parts and outdoor play session on Friday mornings. The water trays with pipes, half pipes, containers and connecting parts are always popular. The skills the children demonstrate here are fantastic.

They also learn how to climb and play safely in the trees together.

Imaginative play outdoors creates so many opportunities for developing social skills. it is particularly important for developing and establishing new friendships amongst the children.

First Day

What a busy and fantastic first day you the children have had. Here are some activities captured on camera today for you to see.

……….building, problem solving, co-operation

…….fine motor skills, focus and concentration, patterns

Counting, number bonds , creating Penguin One for number formations,

outdoor fun, collaboration, mark making, following instructions

Imaginary play, dinosaurs, curiosity, interactions, communication

Routines, structure and lots of listening

The children also had a music lesson today and the activities in the photos just show some of what the children were doing during their first day of school this session. They are a busy bunch.

 

 

Bucket Fillers

After reading the Story ‘Have You Filled A Bucket Today’ the children created this display.

They spoke about how everyone has an invisible bucket which can be filled up or emptied by the words and actions of others.

They practiced filling each others buckets in school by being kind, giving compliments, good manners, showing respect etc.

Around their posters they added words and drawings of examples of how to fill and empty peoples buckets.

World Book Day

The children have had a great day today. They are so excited by books and reading, whichĀ  fantastic.Ā  They were keen to share their favourite books they had brought from home.

They looked so lovely in their costumes and pyjamas at school today.

They enjoyed World Book Day activities in the classroom.

The afternoon was really special as the whole school came together and shared books in a paired reading session.Ā  There are photos on the School Blog.

The adults had a lot of fun too!

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 childrenĀ  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.

 

measuring length

The children have been having fun learning about length. The Primary 1’s created these flowers and talked about longer, shorter, taller, tallest, smaller etc. Lots of great discussions and vocabulary used.

They used their ‘magic sticks’ to compare the size of objects outdoors.

All the childrenĀ  used different body parts to measure objects eg. ‘heel to toe’ steps, and handspans. They loved doing this and got good at estimating their answers before actually measuring to check.

The Primary 2’s used different units to measure objects in the classroom and outdoors. They then went on to learn about metres and half metres.

They worked in pairs to create a snake which was exactly 1 metre long.

The primary 1’s showed their buddies how to measure objects using their sticks and the p7’s recorded the answers.

They have had fun using the playdough to make long and short worms.

 

 

Go Furt Fridays

Go Furt means get outdoors………It was a chilly 3 or 4 degrees on Friday morning but the children were still keen to get outside to build shelters and play together.

We will be heading out every Friday to make the most of our wonderful outdoor space at Whiteness. There is a shed full of loose parts which the children use to develop so many important skills including problem solving, cooperation, teamwork, etc.

It is fantastic seeing them having so much fun together and there imaginations are just the best!

World Book Day

It was great to see the children dressed up as all different characters or wearing their pyjamas to school last week.

It was also wonderful to see how enthusiastic they were about stories and books.

During Buddying time they got to share some of their favourite books with their buddies and draw some favourite characters together.

Christmas Party and Christmas Dinner

The bairns had great fun at our class party on Wednesday afternoon. Lots of charging around, noise and excitement! Flashing lights and party food made it just a great way to end term two.

Last week the children had Christmas dinner at school. The cooks at Whiteness are amazing and the children really enjoyed it, especially the pigs in blankets.

Busy Bodies

Through role play the children have learned a lot about how to look after their bodies and what it would be like to beĀ  a patient or a nurse/doctor in a hospital.

The children learned about their bones and loved having Bob the Skeleton in the classroom for a visit.

They created wonderful skeleton pictures using art straws and had to think carefully about where there were joints.

They also had a torso in which had removable organs. It was like a puzzle to get everything to fit in and a great way to learn about some of the different parts inside their bodies.

They learned a little bit about their heart and lungs and completed some exercise challenges to see how this effected the different parts of their bodies.

The children worked in groups to create these amazing posters spending time learning about the different things they need to do to look after their bodies.

There are so many aspects of their school day which lend themselves to the Busy Body topic this term. working in the Polycrub, growing their own food, snacktime and lunchtime are also perfect opportunities to discuss healthy food and a balanced diet and outdoor play really provides lots of exercise and fresh air.

 

Buddying

The Primary 1’s look forward to meeting up with their buddies every week. The p7’s plan a variety of fantastic fun activities to do together and recently completed this collage based on the Hungry Caterpillar story.

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.