Primary 1 – Carmondean Primary School Blog

Primary 1 – 17.09.21

In Primary one we have had a very busy first few weeks at school. We have all settled in really well and know the daily routines of primary one. We have enjoyed taking part in a range of activities and learning experiences through play.

In literacy we have been learning the following sounds: s, a, t, p, n, i. We have been identifying words that begin with these sounds and practising our letter formations. We have had some reading books home and have been reading in class every day. Please ensure your child has their reading folder in their bag each day.

In numeracy we have been focusing on number formations and counting forwards and backwards. Backwards is quite tricky but we all try very hard! We have been focusing on money – looking at different ways to pay and identifying coins. We enjoy paying for our hairstyles and food from the café in our playroom!

Through our play, the children have become very interested in babies and families. It would be great if you could send in any baby photos (on Seesaw or physical photos) of your child.

Reminders:

All children should have indoor shoes.
Please ensure water bottles only contain water in them.
PE days are Monday and Wednesday.
Reading books are handed out on a Monday and must be returned on a Friday. We are using these everyday so it would be great if your child could have their reading folders in their bags every day.

Thank you for your continued support,

Mrs Macaulay, Mrs Muir & Mrs Steel

Primary 1 18.6.21

We can’t believe that there is only 1 more week of term left! This year has flown by!
Primary 1 have been working hard this past week. In phonics they have learnt the ‘oa’ sound pattern and were able to say lots of words containing this sound. Many children were able to challenge themselves to write these words in a sentence, remembering a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop. This was our last week of reading books. All books should be handed in today and new books will be handed out in Primary 2. Please continue reading over the holidays to build your child’s confidence sounding out unknown words and recognising key vocabulary.
In maths, the children have been learning about odd and even numbers. They know that even numbers always end with a 0,2,4,6 or 8 and that odd numbers end in 1,3,5,7 or 9. Here is a fun odd and even song you might want to sing at home:

In science we have been learning about space. The children discussed all that they know about the Earth, sun, moon and stars and created some excellent pictures.
This was our last week of homework and will be our last formal blog post of the year.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all the support you have given this past year and to wish you a fun and restful summer.
Primary 1 teachers.

Primary 1 News

We’ve had another fantastic week of fun in Primary 1. We would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Ferguson for organising the Sports Day for Primary 1 this week. We had the opportunity to race in our house teams, play the javelin and football. We played lots of fun games and worked together in lots of team sports. Everyone tried their best and did a fantastic job! We also wrote about our experiences from sports day and the sport that we liked best.

This week in phonics we were learning the ‘oy’ sound. We created our favourite toys using different crafts and practised writing sentences with ‘oy’ words in them. In maths we revisited time and ordered the day in the life of a farmer using o’clock analogue times. We were also learning new mental maths strategies including doubles and near doubles.

We were learning all about fair trade this week and sorted food that comes from UK farms and products that come from abroad. We looked at the fair trade logo and learned more about farmers abroad through Paoblo the banana farmer.

We also talked about road safety and the importance of looking, listening and crossing the road safely. We discussed being safe getting in and out of the car and how to be a safe passenger.

Thanks for all of your continued support,

Miss Christy and Miss Daun

Primary 1 1/6/21

Primary 1 are having a fantastic week and enjoyed spending some time in the sunshine yesterday. It looks like the weather is going to continue to be hot this week. Please send your child to school with sun cream on when it is going to be sunny and feel free to provide a sun hat for their time outside.
Yesterday the children were very excited to film the end of year flash mob. We can’t wait to show you the finished video at the end of the school year. The children did a great job learning and performing the dance and we were very proud of them!
In phonics we are revising the sounds ee, oo and ai. The children are learning to read and write words with these letter sounds and are making great progress with this.
In maths we are learning to skip count in 2s, 5s and 10s. Here are some fun songs you might want to listen to at home to help practise:

In farming we are learning about livestock farms. The children will be thinking about the different animals which are found on a farm and about where their food comes from.
Thank you for all your support, please be in touch if you have any questions.
The P1 teachers.

Primary 1 News

We’ve had another great week in primary 1!

Thank you to everyone that assisted us this week with our junk modelling scarecrows! We had a blast using lots of different recycled materials in creative ways to make our very own scarecrow. We used plant pots, bottles, cardboard, cloth, cardboard box packaging, glue and masking tape to create our models. The children were shown lots of examples but were challenged to do this independently. We had lots of fun doing this! We were also learning all about arable farms this week and were challenged to create our own arable farm maps and draw the food that is grown on this type of farm on a healthy food plate.

We were learning all about the ‘ai’ sound this week and created our own trains. We consolidated our coin recognition this week and were working out the change we would receive when paying for an item with 10p. We sorted coins into the correct category and we were challenged to use the correct change at our farm shop during play time.

Thank you for your continued support,

Miss Christy and Miss Daun

Primary 1 20.5.21

Primary 1 are having a lovely week!
In literacy we are learning the ‘oo’ sound. The children are learning to read and write lots of ‘oo’ words and have written their own books. We are so impressed by the progress we are seeing in phonics just now, the children are working so hard!
In maths we are learning to recognise British coins. Throughout the week we have introduced the children to a 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 and £2 coin. Today we are learning to order these coins from the smallest to largest value and next week we will learn how to add coins and find change.
Here is a fun game you might want to try to practise these skills
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/money/coins-game
In our farming topic we are enjoying watching our wheat plants grow. Small shoots are poking out from the soil and the children are taking turns to water them to help them grow.

Today we are learning about the foods which come from farms and will be creating healthy plates with food from all the main food types.
A reminder that there are 3 new seesaw activities to try this week for homework. Well done for all the work handed in so far.
Thank you for all your support.
Miss Daun and Miss Christy

Primary 1 News

What a fun week we’ve had in primary 1!

We are starting our new farming topic in school and the children were asked what they would like to learn and what new farming play areas they would like in the classroom. We are going to be learning all about Scottish arable and pastoral farming, farm yard animals and the food that is grown on a farm. The children asked for a farm shop which we have started implementing in our classrooms. In science we were learning all about how a plant grows and what it needs for survival. We planted our own wheat seeds from RHET and we watered the seeds to help them grow. We were writing about each step in the plant growing process and how they seeds germinate and grow a stem, roots and finally bloom into a flower. In maths this week we have been learning about data handling. We went outside to the field to collect data about how many cars passed by the school. We used tally marks to record each colour of each and then presented this information on a bar chart. We were also learning about venn diagrams and were asked to find items in the classroom to put into the correct hoop. In literacy we were learning about the ‘ee’ sound and created a bee craft.

We’ve really enjoyed all of the fun learning activities this week!

Thanks for your continued support,

Miss Christy and Miss Daun

Primary 1 6.5.21

We hope that you all had a lovely long weekend and that you are enjoying your extra day off today.
This week we have had a writing focus where the children have been learning the skills of story writing. We began on Tuesday by reading the story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. After reading the story the children worked together to identify the start, middle and end. On Tuesday, the children wrote about what happened at the beginning of the well known Fairy Tale. They drew excellent pictures of Jack selling his cow Daisy to the man for 5 magic beans before writing a few sentences to explain what happened. Yesterday, they wrote the middle section where Jack climbed the beanstalk and saw an enormous castle belonging to a giant, his harp and hen. Tomorrow we will finish the story by writing about how Jack escapes from the giant. So far we have been incredibly impressed by the children’s work. They have remembered the story brilliantly and are working hard to sound out their words in the writing. If your child wants to remind themselves of the story before the final writing piece, here is a video of the story.

In maths, we have moved onto learning about data handling. We created a pictogram showing the variety of favourite colours in the class and have been learning to interpret pictograms to find the most and least popular answers and and answer simple questions. Next week we will be learning to write and count tally marks, create and read bar graphs and to interpret simple Venn diagrams.

We have enjoyed listening to the children’s class talks about their favourite dinosaur. Thank you for all the hard work you put in preparing your child. They did a brilliant job!

A reminder that PE days are Tuesday and Wednesday and that children should come to school prepared for this.

Thank you for your continued support
Miss Christy and Miss Daun.

Primary 1 27.4.21

Primary 1 are having another busy week!
In phonics we are learning the diagraph ‘ph’. This can be tricky because it sounds like the ‘f’ sound and so we are focusing on the children writing and reading some simple words with this sound pattern rather than trying to think of words by themselves. The children are becoming much more confident blending words and are being challenged to hear all the sounds in each word by themselves. In reading we are looking at non-fiction books. The children are learning to find specific facts using the contents page and know that the book doesn’t need to be read in order from start to finish. They are also learning to identify picture, captions, labels and titles. Non-fiction books often have more tricky vocabulary in them so please don’t worry if your child if struggling to read all the words.

In maths we are revising the numbers 1-30. The children are learning to find numbers on a 100 square (Here is a good interactive number square you might want to look at from home https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/paint-the-squares). They are also learning to write the numbers neatly and correctly and to order them. Please keep practising all these skills at home.

In science we are learning about electricity. The children have learnt about how electricity is generated and have thought about items which use mains power and items which are powered by a battery. You might want to look around your house to see if you can find battery powered and mains powered appliances.

This week our SEESAW homework is to create a 1 minute class talk on a dinosaur of your choice. Full instructions can be found on your SEESAW assignment. We will be listening to these talks next week and are looking forward to learning new facts about the dinosaurs.

A reminder that next week the children are on holiday on Monday (3rd) and are also off on Thursday (6th). We hope that you all have a lovely few days off.

Thank you again for all your continued support.

Primary 1 teachers.

Primary 1 News

What a fun week in Primary 1!

This week in maths we have been learning all about position and movement. We created grid maps for our Bee Bots and programmed them to move to different areas on the map. We had lots of fun using the Bee Bots, practising coding skills and using vocabulary such as ‘forwards, backwards, left and right’. In phonics we were learning the sound ‘wh’ and we made whales using wax resist materials and practised writing questions using ‘where, why, when and who’. We were learning to comprehend our story in reading by splitting our text into a beginning and an end. We were also asked questions about our story to check our understanding.

This week, we were writing about the plesiosaurs and had the opportunity to explore how the dinosaurs became extinct. We have also been enjoying playing with dinosaurs and exploring the skills of a paleontologist in our role play play corner. In science we have been looking at the water cycle and explored what happens to water when it is cooled and heated. We used our prediction skills to guess what was going to happened and compared our predictions to our results.

Thank you for all of your continued support,

Miss Christy and Miss Daun

Primary 1 31.3.21

Primary 1 have been having a great week. We have enjoyed learning all about the Easter story and about how people celebrate Easter. We have made Easter cards, sequenced the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection and are looking forward to an Easter Egg drawing competition tomorrow.
In phonics we have been practising the sounds sh, th, ch and ng. The children are working hard sorting words with these sounds and writing some short words on magnetic boards. In reading we are working on asking questions about our books. If you are reading books at home why don’t you try asking a few questions about the story after you have finished reading?
In maths we are learning the days of the week and months of the year. Please practise naming the days and months at home to build familiarity with the order. We have also discussed distinctive things that happen on each day (for example we have a half day on Fridays), and what happens each month.
We are all looking forward to the Easter holidays now. We hope that you get an opportunity to rest after what has been a bit of a tricky term. Our last day of school is tomorrow and we come back on Monday the 19th April.
Have a great holiday and we can’t wait to see you all when we come back.
Primary 1 teachers.

Primary 1 News

We have had lots of fun this week in Primary 1!

We have enjoyed exploring our dinosaur topic in more detail this week. We learned all about palaeontologists and the skills they need for work. We looked into Mary Anning and explored a fun drama where we had to find fossils and use tools to collect them. We learned about mixing primary colours and used this knowledge to create dinosaur artwork. We loved using mixed media to create our final designs! We explored palaeontology in our play this week too and the children were challenged to dig out dinosaurs from blocks of ice. We packed a palaeontologist’s bag and created a dinosaur fact file on a diplodocus in our writing.

In literacy we have been exploring questioning in our reading and have been learning the sound ‘ng’. We made crowns for a king and explored this sound through our jolly phonics programme. In maths we have been learning about time (o’clock and half past on an analogue and digital clock). We made our own clocks and have been playing many fun games to help us learn about time. We were also learning about the Easter Story and sequenced this story from beginning to end. We had lots of fun doing this!

Miss Daun and Miss Christy

Primary 1 w.b. 15.3.21

Good morning
Primary 1 are having a lovely week so far and have been enjoying some time outside in the sunny weather we have seen in the past 2 days.
This week in phonics we are learning the sound ch. We have been thinking of lots of words with these letters in them and have been trying to blend some of these words on our magnetic boards. We are also continuing to develop skills of reading and have been teaching the children to ask a question about their book. Thank you to everyone who is practising reading at home, it is great to see the children’s confidence grow. Please make sure that your child has their book each day in class so that we can read regularly.
In maths we are learning to tell the time. We are looking at analogue and digital clocks and are learning to tell an o’clock time on each of them. Next week we will move on to half past times. The children are working really hard at this and are impressing us with their knowledge.
In topic we are learning about the diplodocus dinosaur. The children wrote brilliant fact files explaining some of the facts they know about this dinosaur.
A reminder that tomorrow is Red Nose Day. The children are invited to come to school dressed as a super hero. We will be thinking about who the money will help and will be completing some fun activities in class.
Thank you for all your continued support.
The Primary 1 teachers.

Primary 1 News

We’ve had lots of fun this week in Primary 1! We have been exploring our dinosaur topic through literacy, art and we’ve been making our own fact files to showcase all of the facts we have learned so far. In literacy this week we have been learning the sounds ‘sh’ and ‘th’ and we have been consolidating some of the sounds we have already learned. We enjoyed painting the common words; with, us and so at the art table this week and we made a beautiful mother’s day card. In reading this week we were focusing on blending simple words and creating a question about our text. We learned that a question begins with who, what, where, why and when.

In maths this week we were learning all about fractions. We learned how to split a shape in half and identify shapes that are split equally in half and shapes that are not. We also learned how to add and subtract within 20 on a number line.

We explored positive mental well being and friendship through our Wellbeing Wednesday programme. We looked into caring for others and demonstrating different ways of being a good friend. We all really loved this!

Important notice: Please ensure that reading books are with your child every day at school. Reading books are issued on a Monday and collected in on a Friday. Please note that we cannot hand out a new reading book until the old one is collected.

Thanks for your support with this,

Miss Christy and Miss Daun

Primary 1 3.3.21

Primary 1 are having a great week in school! Yesterday a mysterious box arrived to our classroom with an egg inside. There was a letter from Professor Rex alongside the box telling us that he worked at the archeology department in a University and that he wanted us to look after the egg until it hatches. The children looked at some of the clues in the letter and decided that it was probably a dinosaur in the egg. We are now going to learn about dinosaurs as our interdisciplinary topic so that we can look after the dinosaur egg well. The children are very excited about this and have enjoyed looking at some dinosaur fact books in class so far.
In phonics we are learning the sound ‘th’. We have been thinking of words containing this sound and are learning to blend them with magnetic letters.
In maths we are learning to share objects into groups and to find halves and thirds. The children are working hard to make sure that the groups are equal and fair.
A reminder that PE days are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Please come dressed for outdoor gym these days.
Tomorrow is World Book day. The children have been encouraged to come to school with a book from their house which they will read in class.
Homework is going to continue on Seesaw this term. This week there are 3 activities to try.
Thank you for your continued support.
The Primary 1 teachers.

January Active Fun Challenge results

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in our January Active Fun Challenge. The number of active minutes logged across West Lothian Primary Schools was phenomenal and 32 primary schools in West Lothian took part.

Carmondean Primary logged 33 days, 2 hrs and 9 minutes of active minutes in January- AMAZING!

Take a look at the results video here https://youtu.be/EtVvnFjk0OM to see which schools ranked in the TOP 10.

Judy Murray announces the winner in the video and sets out a challenge to everyone. I gave the challenge a try- can you do better than me?

January 2021 Active Fun Challenge

Happy New Year everyone.

I’m hoping that you all made your New Year Resolution to be as active as possible in 2021 because I have entered the school into a competition to find the most active school in West Lothian and in true Carmondean spirit we are in it to win it!

How can you help?

Be as active as you can. Any activity counts from taking taking part in PE lessons to walking your dog to dancing along to Just Dance.
Record the number of minutes each week you are active and submit the number on this form. This most be done by 10am every Monday. ( first submission date is Monday 18th January)

Every Tuesday the school with the highest number of weekly activity minutes will be announced and at the end of the month the school with the highest number of minutes throughout the month will be the champions.

Good luck, happy exercising and if you have any questions please get in touch.

Mrs Ferguson

Primary 1 7.12.20

Good morning.
Primary 1 had a great week last week, finishing off with a fun trip to the nursery garden for some fun in the snow and outdoor learning.
This week we are learning about h and w in phonics. The children are becoming really confident thinking of words with each sound at the beginning and are learning to blend letters together to create short 3 and 4 letter words.
In maths we are going to be learning about pattern. The children will be completing lots of Christmas crafts exploring simple shape and colour patterns.
We are also going to be learning about Christmas, looking at the Christmas story and how Christmas is celebrated in the UK.
This week we are continuing to give out homework on seesaw. There will be a few activities to complete over the week. We have been very impressed with the works we have seen on seesaw over the last 2 weeks. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for your continued support
Miss Daun and Miss Christy

Primary 1 News

What another fantastic week we have had in Primary 1! In literacy, we have been learning the sounds ‘b’ and ‘u’ and have been thinking of words that begin with these letters. We have been working closely on forming letters correctly, blending new words containing these letters and have been identifying the sounds on the magnetic boards. This week we were writing about our favourite storybook and why we enjoyed it. Thank you to everyone who shared their favourite story with us on See Saw, it was lovely seeing you talking about your favourite books at home.

We have moved on to subtracting within 10 in maths this week. We have been using concrete materials (blocks, 10s frames, counters, fingers and rekenreks) to help us solve subtraction problems. We have had the opportunity to play many fun maths games and have enjoyed working together. If you would like extra practice with this at home, have a look at the subtraction game on Topmarks: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/subtraction/subtraction-to-10

We explored the story of Mr Kringle’s little toy shop during our topic time this week and asked the children to predict what happens next in the story. We also looked at how toys have changed over time and compared baby toys to the toys older children use.

We have been working on counting up to 10 in French and played circle time games to consolidate our learning. We were also challenged to type our full name on the iPads during ICT.

Homework

We are now posting all of your child’s homework on See Saw. We aim to post three different home learning activities each week and this will be uploaded every Monday morning. We hope you have all managed to access this from home but please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you are having any problems. This week we ask that you complete the segmenting and blending reading activity, the subtraction problems and a French activity to consolidate what we have been learning in class.

It has been lovely seeing all of your work on See Saw and well done to everyone who has posted so far. Thank you for your continued support with this,

Miss Christy and Miss Daun.

Primary 1 23.11.20

Good morning
Primary 1 have been very busy the past few weeks. We have begun a new interdisciplinary topic learning all about toys. We started this topic with a virtual visit from the museum services. Maureen called us on the class laptop and spoke about some of the toys children played with in the olden days. The children were able to investigate the different materials toys used to be made from and saw the differences between toys now-a-days and toys in the past. This week we have turned our role play areas into toy shops. The children are enjoying creating toys to place on the shelves and are learning to use money in the cashiers area. We are using this topic to explore forces and have been learning about toys we push and toys we pull.
In phonics we have been learning the sounds g, l, f and o. This week we will be learning about b and u. Thank you for all the work you have been doing at home to practise writing these letters and thinking of words containing each sound.
In maths we have finished our work on addition and are now learning to subtract. We will be using lots of concrete materials to support learning in this.
Homework from now on will look a little different. We are going to be using Seesaw to post a variety of activities each week. Seesaw is a fantastic resource which allows your child to complete activities on a tablet or phone and send them back to us. Your child will come home today with a sheet explaining how to access their personal Seesaw account. Please let us know if you need any help with this. Reading books will continue to be given out weekly and should be brought to school every day to be read in class. Thank you for your continued support Miss Daun and Miss Christy