Welcome, all parents and carers, to Primary 1/2’s class blog! We can’t believe it’s October already – we’ve been busy learning so many new things. We have settled into our new routine and classwork brilliantly. There have been lots of new challenges, but we are all working together to learn and develop each day. Primary 1/2 have been so looking forward to our infant nativity and we can’t wait to share it with you!

 

Numeracy

We started the year revising addition and subtraction. We learned how to use number lines, cubes and pictures to help us complete tricky calculations. We loved playing lots of games to help us develop our fluency with number bonds to 10 – we managed to use what we had learned to help us solve calculations faster.

“We have been writing numbers.” – Joshua B

“We have been learning how to take-away by using a number line.” – Reuben G

In November, we will begin investigating doubling and halving. We will talk about the words ‘equal groups’. Can you ask your child what they think it means?

We have started to use our ‘Floor Book’. This is a big pad that we make notes on. Everyone gets a chance to write in the floor book. We use this to help us remember how to complete calculations. We are excited to see the pages getting filled up as we learn more and more.

We are so enthusiastic during our numeracy lessons – let’s see what we get up to next term.

 

Literacy

We have been working so hard in our literacy lessons; we have risen to the challenge of new work and were very proud to show you our jotter and worksheets work during the Parent/Carer Evening.

In reading, we have spent lots of time discussing our stories and completing written tasks about them. We are getting very good at predicting what might happen in a story book, and are even able to justify our predictions by explaining which clue from the front/back cover helped us create our prediction. We have also been looking at skimming and scanning – this helps us find important information so that we can develop our vocabulary and deepen our understanding of the order of events in our story books.

“We have been learning new common words.” – Cameron C

“We have been learning to do nice, neat letters in handwriting.” – Carmen W

In phonics and spelling, we have continued to use the strategies we learned in Primary 1. We are now looking at joined phonemes and have been using what we learned last year to support us. We also use our common word wall to help us with tricky words when we do our writing.

“Phonics is the best!” – Lexi McK

In our taught writing lessons, we have been looking at recounts and descriptions. We have worked really hard to write events in order and have a go at common words on our own. We are getting very good at writing on the line and presenting our work neatly. First, we described a book character, ‘Mrs Brown’. Next, we described someone we all know well… Can you ask your child who we have been describing recently? (Hint: She is a very important lady at our school who does the job of Headteacher!)

“Writing is really good because it makes me feel happy.” – Jessica D

“I would like to do more writing jobs like writing about what we like to do.” – Lilly B

 

PE

We have been splitting our PE timetable between using the gym hall and the outdoor quadrangle:

In indoor PE (Monday) we have been developing our fitness skills using lots of games and stations to increase our heart rates. We also talked about what we can do to make us fit and healthy when we are not in school.

In outdoor PE (Tuesday) we have been playing playground games to develop our listening skills and have worked together as a team towards a shared goal.

“You get to run lots and play games with friends.” – Emma C

“I really like playing toilet tig!” – Kye C

As we approach Christmas, we are trying, where possible, to complete fitness videos in our classroom.

 

STEM

Primary 1/2 worked with Ms Smail to complete some STEM learning. We know that STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. STEM is an important thing to learn about for jobs when we are older. Sadly, Ms Smail had to leave our school at the October break – we miss her very much. We are so lucky to do STEM with Mrs Lafferty, now! We have been learning about classifying living and non-living things. We know that things need to breathe, eat and have offspring to be living. We liked learning about the life of frogs, very much!

“We make stuff in STEM.” – Alana S

“We learned about living things and non-living things.” – Reuben G

 

Other Areas

Ms Craig has been giving us music lessons! We learned what ‘body percussion’ is, as well as learning about different musical instruments and musical notes. We are so clever!

“We learned about different sounds that instruments make.” – Euan B

We have been learning about The Foodbank for our class topic. We have been able to discuss our ‘wants vs needs’ in relation to food, and have learned what a foodbank is. We have even visited the Neilsland Primary School foodbank to check the dates on food and make sure the correct items are on the correct shelves. Ms Craig is so proud of how thoughtful and compassionate the children have been during this topic.

“We learned about food, and toilet paper – that is in a foodbank.” – Ebony E

“We went with Miss Aitken to see what was in date and out of date in our foodbank.” – Amelia S

We are about to begin our next topic, Scottish Seaside Towns. We are going to learn about life in the more remote parts of our country and see what is the same and what is different about how they live, vs how we live. We can’t wait to start learning!

Thank you for reading our first class blog – we look forward to updating you again in at the end of Term 2!