Author: Miss Pringle

This week we have been busy practising our Nativity and are improving hugely each day. Those children who have speaking parts have now been issued with their lines highlighted on the script. This is so you can practise when to come in. Please take on the role of the other characters so your children can hear what is said before their cue. You will have also recieved a green letter home with an order form for tickets – tickets are allocated on a first come first served basis so please get them quickly to avoid disappointment. If you do not have a green letter please see your child’s class teacher as soon as possible.

We also had a visit from Neil, a mountain rescuer, who told us all about his role in the community. He told us about what he has to do in an emergency and showed us what he keeps inside his backpack. We also got to go inside a real emergency tent! We have loved learning about the roles that the different emergency services have in our community and have the RNLI in to visit on the 16th December.

A gentle reminder than gym with Mrs Ferguson begins on Wednesdays. The class get rewarded with a certificate if they all wear their gym kit – this consists of black, navy shorts and a white t-shirt.

Thanks for your support.

We have enjoyed our short week in Primary 2 and have been very busy trying to fit everything in! The children enjoyed sharing their long weekend news with the class and it was lovely to hear about what everyone got up to.

This week we have been counting in 10s and the teachers were very impressed with the children’s ability to do this – well done. Please keep practising this at home too, particularly counting on in 10s from a given number e.g. 12, 22, 32…

We have also continued our work on phonemes and focused specifically on the ‘oy’ phoneme. This can be a tricky one and there was a little confusion so practise at home will be beneficial.

We are still enjoying our topic on life in the past and explored some household items from the past. The children looked closely at a Grandfather Clock and made their own version. We look forward to you seeing these on the wall at Parents’ Evening.

There are still several children coming to school on a Tuesday/Thursday without a gym kit. Please can you ensure shorts and t-shirt are provided on a Tuesday and an outdoor kit (joggers/shorts – weather dependent) are provided on a Thursday.

Thanks in advance,

Miss Pringle, Mrs Oliver and Miss Rafferty

We have had a very busy week in Primary 2. We have been working hard to introduce play into Primary 2 and now have the classrooms set up as 3 stations – teach, practise and play. The children have been working in rotations around the stations and have done really well.

Thank you to all who came along to Meet the Teacher. It was lovely to see so many faces. We issued newsletters which informed you about our planned learning this term and our gym days. Your newsletter will be in your child’s bag if you were unable to attend.

We have been revising some of our phonemes this week and children should have brought home their reading book. We will hear reading regularly but encourage you to practise at home as much as you can.

We have also begun to explore life in the past as our topic. The children were shocked to hear that pupils used to get hit by the belt in school and are keen to find out more. We will be setting our classroom up as an olden day school for an afternoon next week!

Look out for our first homework of p2 which will be issued on Tuesday.

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Pringle, Miss Rafferty and Mrs Oliver

What a busy week we have had! We all came back from the holiday Monday with lots of exciting stories and shared these during circle time.

Our Farming theme is now well underway and we have been exploring the different animals that live on a farm and making crafts for our role play areas. We have begun report writing and have been writing about the role of a farmer.

We are revisiting money and are looking at the value of coins up to £2 and will be moving onto ordering them into the correct order.

Reminders:

We have a judo taster session on Monday 27 May – children are not required to bring anything.

P1 0-P have their class assembly on Tuesday 28 May – adults to come to the fire door next to the new gym hall for 9.00am.

What a busy week we have had. We have been exploring road safety and have developed our knowledge on stop, look and listen. The children all showed an excellent ability to assess whether a road was safe to cross and were able to discuss the process.

We also had two visitors who showed us how to do CPR. They discussed, at a basic level, when CPR may be required and showed the children how to do it, using dummies, to the tune of ‘Baby Shark!’ They all did so well and we were impressed with their mature attitude and sensible questions.

As the weather heats up please ensure your child comes to school wearing sunscreen and with a sun hat. Unfortunately we are not able to apply sunscreen unless there is a medical reason so please ensure that this is applied before school.

Our P1 assemblies have begun and Mrs Steel and P1S did a fabulous presentation around fairytales. P1O-P are getting ready for their assembly on Tuesday 28 May and Miss Christy’s class will follow after. Look out for more information!

We have had a busy week in Primary 1 and are very excited by our new dinosaur theme. The responses to Professor Rex’s showed us that the children had a keen interest in finding out more about individual dinosaurs. This week we have been finding out about the Tyrannosaurus Rex and will include facts about him in our individual fact files.

Our dinosaur investigative area is now set up and the children are enjoying free play between all 3 classrooms, exploring the different dinosaur related activities that are on offer. We have been exploring the job of a paleontologist and used toothpicks to pick the chocolate chips from cookies! The children were concentrating so hard and were so focused in this activity.

Some children will have received a key ring with some key words on it for their reading. Please practise these regularly – these are words that may not be phonetic and need to be learnt by sight.

We hope you all had a lovely October holiday. It has been nice hearing about all your exciting adventures from the children.

Next week the Primary 7 children will begin to sell poppies for remembrance day. It is a minimum donation of 50p for each poppy, with £1 being preferable. Please ensure your child knows there is money in their bag.

We are changing the homework organisation slightly. It is a challenge to get all the homework marked and new homework issued within the same day therefore homework will be collected on a Tuesday and reissued on a Wednesday. This is on a fortnightly basis and you can find the due date on the top of the homework sheet. Please ensure your child brings their reading bag, reading book and blue reading log to school every day.

This week Miss Pringle and Miss Christy’s classes had a visit from Katie from the RSPB. She taught us all about different animals habitats and gave us some simple ideas to begin to create homes for small animals within our playground. We used the large field to hunt for different habitats and played games which encouraged us to think about the challenges small animals face to find food and shelter. This was a wonderful experience and Mrs Steel’s class are looking forward to their RSPB visit next Tuesday.

We have had a busy week in Primary 1! We have learnt the sounds ‘p’ and ‘n’ and are developing our understanding of words that have these sounds in them. We have been practising the correct formation of these sounds and have heard lots of stories about children practising them at home too – well done! Please refer to the sheet at the front of the yellow homework book for correct formation. It is very important to get it right at this early stage before habits are formed.

In maths we have been exploring numbers to 10, specifically focusing on 7 and 8. We have used our fingers, ten frames and rekenreks to develop a secure understanding of each number. Some of us are even able to split the number into two sets.

We have begun our consultative planning and the children’s interest has led us onto healthy and unhealthy foods, our likes and dislikes and exploring where clean water comes from. We look forward to doing a tasting session next week! We have been using our clas floorbooks to note down ideas and the teachers use these to identify gaps in our learning and take these interests forward.

Thank you to those who returned the homework sheet regarding the blog. An overwhelming amount of parents/carers have requested a hard copy and therefore we have decided to provide a hard copy for all, as well as posting the homework on the blog fortnightly.

Reminders:

• Please ensure your child’s Reading book and blue log come into school daily. We have purchased new reading bags for the children and these will be gifted at our open event (see below)
• Our open afternoon is on Thursday 27 September at 2.15pm and our open morning is on Friday 28 September at 9.00am. You are only asked to attend one session as both are the same. We are doing it on two separate occasions to try and account for working patterns.
• We will be beginning to change into our gym kit for gym. Please ensure your child brings their kit on a Monday.

Good morning,

Please see below for some tasks that you may wish to complete during the snow day. Please upload any photos to your child’s learning journal and we will use the iPads to discuss their activities during group time.

1. We have been exploring castles in Nursery. Can you make your own Castle using snow? It could include a moat!

2. Make a snowman family – compare sizes using the words ‘smallest’, ‘largest’, ‘tallest’ and ‘shortest’.

3. Using a ruler or measuring tape measure how deep the snow is in your garden/outdoors.

4. Draw a detailed picture of what you can see from your window. Encourage children to add detail to these drawings.

5. Go sledging, allowing your child to pull the sledge (even when empty) is a good way of developing their strength and coordination.

6. Make footprints in the snow and compare the different sizes.

7. Share your child’s online learning journal with them and discuss what they were doing in each picture/video.

8. Enjoy one of your child’s big bedtime read books and make a note letting us know their thoughts (we will share these with their P5 reading buddies)

9. Go a walk together and discuss what you see (birds – how many? Icicles, footprints, animal footprints)

10.  Encourage your child to write their name in the snow.

11. Make some bird food. A simple recipe can be found at: https://www.rspb.org.uk/fun-and-learning/for-kids/games-and-activities/activities/make-a-speedy-bird-cake/

12. Investigate the melting snow. How long does it take to melt? What makes it melt faster?

13. Have fun! We look forward to sharing your photos with you all on our return to Nursery.

Last week our morning and afternoon children explored how to make a bug hotel and discussed it’s purpose.  The children discussed the type and size of materials we could use to create our hotel.  They searched the nursery and our garden for suitable materials and found pine cones, twigs and sticks, plant pots, leaves and ceramics to design the hotel.  They used scissors to cut plant pots to create lots of nooks and crannies for the bugs.  The children are very eager to explore what kinds of bugs we might find and hope to be able to welcome our first mini guests to the hotel in the very near future!