outdoor learning – Carmondean Primary School Blog

Primary 2 – 21.5.20

Good morning Primary 2,

We hope you are enjoying this lovely weather. Some super work on the Learning Journals already this week. If we were in school just now we would definitely be looking for ways to take our learning outside! This week we are learning about time durations. You could draw a clock face on the ground and use sticks for the hands – try moving them forward and back to find the time 1 or 2 hours before and after a given time. Maybe you could even make a human clock and you could use your legs and arms for the hands!!

Here are some other creative outdoor challenges you might enjoy:

-Make a collage using sticks, leaves, stones, pine cones etc. We would love to see any of your creations.

Design and build a board game. You can create your own board game or recreate one you already know e.g. snakes and ladders. Create some clear instructions for players of your game and try it out! Here is an example:

Thursday would normally be PE time with Mrs Ferguson. Here are some fun PE activities to try:

Animal movements (1)

We know that many of you love your Music time with Mr Shanks and thought you might find this online activity fun- you can choose Song Maker and create your own song, changing the tempo ( how fast or slow) and the instruments. You can also record it!

https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/

Let us know how you are getting on and please just ask if you require further resources or advice to support learning.

Mrs Oliver and Miss Rafferty

Primary 1 4.3.20

Primary 1 are in the middle of another busy week. This week we are learning the sound ‘ch’. We have thought of lots of words containing the sound blend and are making progress writing these with accuracy. In maths we are learning about position and movement. The children have enjoyed programming movement paths using beebot robots and watching them move. We have also been working on the positional language of up, down, forwards, backwards, left, right and between. The children enjoyed following instructions wearing blindfolds and listening for instructions in drawing exercises.

Our dinosaurs topic is coming to an end next week. This week we learnt about volcanoes and the impact of an eruption on the dinosaurs. We really enjoyed making our own volcano with baking soda, vinegar and soap and watching it erupt in the playground. Next week we are taking a trip to the National museum in Edinburgh. We are going to take part in a few seminars and will go to the T-Rex exhibition. Here is a link to the website for you to look through with your child: https://www.nms.ac.uk/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/national-museum-of-scotland/tyrannosaurs/

Next week we also have planned an open afternoon for parents and carers to come into school to see what the children have been learning about dinosaurs. The classrooms will be open from 2.45-3.15 and the children will have a few examples of work they have done to show. We will be making invitations for this event on Friday so look out for them for more information.

Tomorrow is World Book Day. Each child is to bring in a book from home to read in class. Try to pick a book your child knows well so that they can talk about it to their peers.

A reminder that tomorrow afternoon and Friday morning are our shared start and finish. These sessions are opportunities for you to come to our classrooms to see an online resource we use in class- education city. Each session will be exactly the same so it is only suggested that you come once. Tomorrow you are invited to come between 2.50 and 3.20 and on Friday between 9 and 9.30.

A reminder PE is on a Thursday so please come prepared with a named PE kit.

Outdoor learning is on Wednesday afternoons. Thank you to everyone who comes prepared with wellies and warm coats. The children love this session!

Thank you for all your continued support

The P1 teachers

Primary 1 11.2.20

This has been another busy week in Primary 1. In phonics we are moving on from learning single sounds to blends. This week we have been learning the sound ‘sh’. The children enjoyed making sea shells and thinking of lots of words with ‘sh’ at the start and end. The common words we have been learning are ‘she’, ‘come’ and ”from’. Please try to write these at home and use them in short sentences.
In maths we are revising our knowledge of subtraction using a variety of resources to help us count. The children are really impressing us with their ability to take away from up to 20, well done!
Today is ‘Safer Internet Day’. We spoke to the children about the devices they have at home and who they should tell if something goes wrong or doesn’t seem right. Please continue these discussions at home and read through the leaflet in your child’s homework folder.
Tomorrow we will be going to the nursery garden for outdoor learning. The garden may be wet and muddy so please make sure that your child has appropriate shoes and clothes that can get a little muddy. We will do our best to avoid children getting too muddy and wet.
A reminder that this weekend is our February break. The children are off school on Friday, Monday and Tuesday and return to school on Wednesday 19th February. We hope you all have a fantastic break!
Thanks for your continued support.
Primary 1 teachers.

Primary 1 22.1.20

This has been another busy week in Primary 1. We have been continuing our learning about dinosaurs. Yesterday another letter arrived from Professor Rex asking us to investigate the job of a paleontologist. Lots of the children would like to be a paleontologist when they are older so it was a great opportunity to talk about the skills they need to develop in school now to help prepare. In order to practise being gentle around delicate fossils the children picked chocolate chips out of cookies. It was great fun and the children especially loved eating the cookie when they were finished! Tomorrow we will be researching the diplodocus and writing a factfile on it. If you have time at home tonight why don’t you look up the diplodocus online and see what facts you can find?

In maths we have returned to a focus on addition. We are moving away from a reliance on cubes to count amounts and are encouraging the children to add small amounts in their head. We are continuing to revise numbers to 20 at the same time and any help you can give at home is much appreciated.
In phonics we are learning y and z this week. We only have 2 more sounds (q and x) left to learn and the children are very excited to know all the letters in the alphabet. We are continuing to work on blending these sounds together to make 3 and 4 letter words. The children are making great progress in this!
Today each child will be reciting the poem ‘Roguey Poguey’ in front of the class. We will then chose 2 winners to represent the class in front of the whole school in Friday’s Burn’s Day Assembly. Good luck to all the children.
A few reminders:
PE is on a Thursday. Please send your child to school prepared for this with a named PE kit. PE is in the morning so it is helpful if your child comes to school with their PE clothes under their school uniform.
Outdoor Learning is on a Wednesday afternoon. We will try to get out every week and in all weathers so please send your child with suitable footwear and clothes.
Many of the children are asking for water throughout the day. Please send your child to school with a named water bottle each day. The children are allowed to take a drink at story time and during the day when they are not with the teacher.
Thank you for all your support
Primary 1 teachers.

Primary 1 10.1.20

We hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a happy new year!

Primary 1 have an exciting term ahead. Our new topic is dinosaurs and the children are loving it so far! They are all very engaged as they enjoy sharing what they already know about dinosaurs and what they want to find out about them. We received a letter from the well renowned palaeontologist, Professor Rex. He asked us to look after his dinosaur egg.

In numeracy we have been exploring numbers from 11 to 15 and we will move on to looking at the numbers 16 to 20 next week. In literacy Primary 1 wrote letters to Professor Rex asking him questions about dinosaurs and the egg that we are looking after. We can’t wait to see if he replies!

The children have been given a Scottish poem to learn and recite as part of Burns Day. Two pupils from each class will be chosen to take part in the competition on Friday 24th January.

Our PE days are on Thursday and we will be starting up our outdoor learning again on Wednesdays (letters will be issued shortly). Homework was handed out on Tuesday and is due back on Tuesday 21st January.

Hope you have a great weekend.

The primary 1 teachers.

Primary 1 30.10.19

The primary ones are all very excited for Halloween tomorrow! We will be learning more about it and will hopefully do a few crafts in the afternoon to celebrate!
This week we have been consolidating all the letters we have learnt so far. The children are making great progress writing these sounds, recognising them and identifying words with each sound at the beginning. The children are beginning to blend the sounds they know together to make short words. Thank you for all the work you have been doing at home to practise this with the sound cards in the homework.
In maths we have been continuing our work on addition. The children have now learnt to write sums using the add sign and equals sign. We are still using concrete materials to assist our addition so if you are practising at home please remember to give your child objects to support the sum.
Tomorrow we will be taking the children to the nursery garden for outdoor learning. Please send your children to school with wellies and a warm coat.
Thank you for all your support. As always, we are available before and after school if you have any questions.
The p1 teachers

Primary 1 23.10.19

Welcome back after the holiday! We hope that you had a lovely break, it was great seeing the children again and hearing all their news yesterday.
This week we are learning the letters ‘c’ and ‘k’. The children will be learning how to write these letters and will be thinking of words containing both sounds. Please practise these sounds at home and use the letter cards in your homework pack to make short words (cat, kip, neck etc).
In maths we are beginning to learn about addition. This week we will be doing a lot of practical activities creating and combining 2 sets of objects. The children have been very good at doing this so far.
The children are very excited for Halloween just now. Yesterday we changed the play areas in the classroom to include lots of Halloween themed activities. The children have enjoyed dressing up in spooky costumes, writing magical spells and using spiders to count out amounts.
On Thursday we are planning on going to the nursery garden to do some outdoor learning. Please come to school with wellies or shoes which can get muddy and a warm coat.
Thank you for all your support
Primary 1 teachers

Primary 4 16.5.17

We have been learning about measure and used measuring tapes, ramps and cars to measure length and distance. We tried to get the furthest distance possible from our toy cars and recorded our results on a class table. We had 2 teams as joint winners getting 2 metres!

We have been looking forward to our bug hunt today. We will be out in the woodland looking for bugs and using our pooters and magnifying glasses to investigate our mini-beasts further. We hope we can catch a few to have a race and see where they travel to in 2 minutes. We will then measure the distance they have traveled. Thank you very much to the parents who have volunteered to help us today. Without you, our visit wouldn’t be possible!

Keep watching on here for updates of our photos from the investigation.

We also met our baby caterpillars this week. They arrived in our class and have been very hungry, busily working their way through their food to get strong enough for their transition to a butterfly. We are very excited to see them turn into their very own chrysalis and watch the transformation happen before our very eyes!

Reminders:

Auchengillan is coming up and we will be going in two weeks time!

Monday – Indoor PE Kit

Tuesday – Outdoor PE Kit

Homework:

measure and time practice on Studyladder at your discretion

Due Friday: Reading week 5, Spelling week 3

Thank you for your continued support

Miss Smith and Miss Donaldson

Primary 6 11.11.16

Hello everyone

Primary 6 have had an excellent week this week.

On Tuesday we went outdoors to do some art work. We used natural materials from the playground like different coloured leaves, berries, twigs and stones to create symmetrical pieces of art. The children worked very well together in groups and we think the finished products are fantastic! You’ll see some examples of the children’s work below.

In Outdoor PE we have began to learn the skills of hockey. This week we learned how to control and pass the ball and in the coming weeks we will be playing small team games together.

Next week we will begin work on our new topic of “A Tale Unfolds”. The children will be working in small groups to create a story that they will eventually write a script for and then perform. We can’t wait to start this project and we are sure that the finished results will be fantastic.

Your child should have brought home a copy of their latest big homework challenge. It is due in on Friday 9th December. Children should plan a short class talk about a current European news story. They can do a powerpoint or poster to accompany their talk. If your child needs any resources from the school (paper, pens, colouring pencils, use of laptop etc.) then they should let their class teacher know as soon as possible.

A quick reminder that PE days are Monday (outdoor PE) and Wednesday (indoor PE but children should also come prepared for being outdoors). Please ensure that your child brings appropriate clothing and footwear to school on these days.

Maths and Spelling homework is handed out weekly. Please look out for them on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Thank you for your continued support. Have a great weekend!

Miss Clark, Mrs Wylie and Mrs Kelly