Good morning Primary 1s.
We are missing you loads and hope that you and your family are keeping safe. We have loved seeing some of the work you have done at home on the Learning Journals. If you have not yet posted then please do over the next few days. It is a great way for you to share your hard work and for us to stay in contact with each child. If you have forgotten your password or haven’t used this platform before, please email the school office and one of us will sort you out! Alternatively, you can post a comment on the blog and we can help you with any queries you have there.
You should still have your ‘Home Learning’ pack given out last week and we encourage you to keep working through the activities there. Our plan is to issue a new set of learning grids (similar to the Homework sheet) each week on Monday, but please don’t feel any pressure to have completed all of last week’s work by then. We are trying to be as flexible as possible because we appreciate that every household will have different conditions to work within.
Today’s suggested learning activities are:
Reading – We are keen to continue developing the children’s reading skills whilst they work from home. There are a few online resources which provide access to e-books and we will be sharing these with you over the next few weeks. Today have a look at starfall (link below). The book we would like the children to read is ‘Mox’s shop’. Most children should be able to read the words in this book and so we encourage you to sound out the words and only play the audio if there is a word that you get stuck on. After reading the book draw a picture in your yellow jotter showing your favourite part of the story and try to write a sentence describing what is happening. My favourite part was when Mox dropped the eggs all over the floor! Remember a sentence needs a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop. Parents please don’t worry if spelling isn’t correct, at the moment our main objective is to build the children’s confidence having a go and hearing some sounds in words. If you are supporting please encourage the children to write their letters correctly. You might also like to play the ‘ot’ and ‘og’ games next to the story?
https://www.starfall.com/h/ltr-classic/?mg=m
Maths– In maths this week we have been learning to split a number of objects or a shape into halves and quarters. If there is a particular activity your child enjoyed doing throughout the week why not try it again. Think about when we use halves and quarters in real life. For example, when making lunch you might cut your sandwiches in half, or if there are 4 people in your house you might give each person a quarter of an amount of sweeties after tea? Get creative and post your everyday examples on the learning journals. We might post some of your best ideas on the blog next week?! Make sure that you child understands that each part of the half or quarter must be the same (equal). Sometimes in class I do examples where I don’t share the objects equally and ask the children to say why it’s not fair! If you want to continue this learning, there are a few good games on Education City. Log on to the website and search under ‘subjects’ for numeracy. Then click on Early***. The games appropriate for the learning this week are called:
Half your cake and eat it https://ec1.educationcity.com/content_select/index/3/2/1/7#/c=26149
Half and Half https://ec1.educationcity.com/content_select/index/3/2/1/7#/c=26148
Half baked https://ec1.educationcity.com/content_select/index/3/2/1/7#/c=26150
At the moment Education City is struggling with the number of people accessing it. When I was planning this lesson I found that pressing ‘reload’ when the error message appeared allowed me to get on the page. If that doesn’t work then maybe try again another time. The games require children to be able to visualise splitting a group/ shape in half and this will be difficult for most Primary 1s at this stage in their learning. To support your child I would suggest using objects found around your house. For example, if it says select half of the cakes and there are 10 cakes I would get out 10 objects (coins, pencils, rubbers, bead etc) and 2 plates. I would ask the children to split the 10 objects between the 2 plates equally and then select their answer on the game.
Fairytales– Continue with your challenge to create Jack’s beanstalk. We have really enjoyed seeing the progress in these creations on the Learning Journals and are looking into ways of sharing your pictures with everyone. Once your beanstalk is made, why don’t you act out the story of Jack and the Beanstalk using toy figures in your house. You could always make puppets of the main characters by drawing them on paper, cutting them out and sticking them on sticks from your garden? If you need a reminder of the story the BBC has broken it up into 14 sections https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/english-ks1-jack-and-the-beanstalk-home/zff42sg
Thank you for your continued support.
Please continue to post on the Learning Journals and comment under the blog to let us know how you are getting on.
Miss Christy, Miss Daun and Miss Cunningham
Hi Henna,
Please don’t worry, It sounds like you are doing a great job! The packs we sent home are there to support you and to give you some suggestions of activities you can do at home to support your child’s learning. We are posting every day on the blog to give you some further ideas and challenges if you find them useful. The ideas we are posting on the blog are great as they link to learning we would be doing in the classroom, so if you are looking for some ideas this is a great place to start. We will also be posting 3 new grids each Monday on the blog with some fun activities you can do at home. Make sure there is plenty of time for playing and relaxing too! We hope that you are all keeping well and are staying safe in these difficult times. We appreciate that managing your child’s learning whilst being stuck at home and possibly also working will be very challenging, so please don’t worry! If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch. We would like to help in any way that we can!
Thank you for getting in touch,
Miss Daun
Hi,
Firstly FAO Miss Daun: Umaiza says I miss you! (with a kiss).
I hope all you lovely teachers are doing well.
Could one of you please advise me. I am really worried because we have yet to work through all of the worksheets in the pack handed out to work on at home.
I have only managed to check your posts on the blog today as well. I feel like we are falling behind already. Sorry but I have to be honest. Umaiza has been doing work from Monday that I tailored around her, as well as doing the work in the handouts. For example, I know she struggles with writing some letters as she often starts writing from the wrong place etc. so I have repeated some lessons with her (like the letter formation worksheet so she can get extra practice). Should I be avoiding repeating lessons now that you guys are posting on the blog daily? I also have my final year law exams (online of course) approaching and in fact I have my dissertation plus a few more exams in June-July time too. So, honestly I am doing the best I can in these circumstances. Please can you give me some general guidance on what the best way of home schooling would be. I ask on behalf of parents experiencing the same but not able to ask this expressly.
Thanks.
Henna.
Hi Primary 1,
I hope you are all enjoying learning from home and are having fun exploring the learning activities in the packs we sent home. Have any of you started to make Jack’s beanstalk? It would be great to see some examples on the Learning Journals! If you need any help accessing the Learning Journals, please get in touch with us on the school blog and we will be happy to help.
Have you managed to access Mox’s shop on Starfall Education? It would be lovely to see how you are all getting on with fractions at home. Have any of you tried to cut your sandwich into quarters?
If you can’t access Education City at the moment, you could watch some of the videos to find out more about fractions on BBC Teach:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/maths-ks1-fractions-titch-and-ted-do-maths-part-one/zmkygwx
These videos could be used a starting point for a lesson or unit of work about fractions. Children might think about what else in Ted’s shed is whole but could be made into two equal parts – or two halves. There are teacher notes attached to each video which you may find useful.
We hope that you are all enjoying your time at home and still have lots of time for playing and relaxing with your family! I hope you are all well.
Primary 1 teachers