We have been busy bees in Primary 1! Read on to find out what we have learnt.

Literacy

We are writing more and more as each week passes.  We write about our weekend news, practise writing sentences that our teachers dictate to us AND we have made more posters persuading people to look after the world an our seas. Our teachers are so pleased with us all.

Numeracy

We have been learning how to share, this is called division.  We have learnt that when we share equally we all have the same amount, this makes it fair. We have been sharing amongst two, three and four groups.  We have in lots of practical activities including sharing food between our class bears, using 2, 3 and 4 hoops to share cubes, pencils, pasta pieces.  These activities have been fun and really helped us to understand the concept of sharing.

Topic – Under the Sea

We have learnt about the biggest sea creature of all, the whale! We knew that they were big but didn’t realise that the blue whale was bigger than our classrooms! We also thought it was cool to learn that whales use a little hole on their head, (this is called a blowhole) to spurt out water to help them to breathe.

RERC

We listened to the Bible story, ‘The Widow’s Mite’. We learnt that the woman had only 2 coins but she gave them both in love for God. God wants us to give everything we have to him. We can do this by being kind and loving, giving money to charity, praying and singing to God, going to church.  Our teachers are very proud of how we show kindness each day to each other in class.

Another great week was had in P1!  What did we get up to?

Literacy

Our Word Boost story this week was, ‘Grumpy Cat’, written by Britta Teckentrupp.  Mrs Mac is sure this story is about her cat, Murphy as he can be very grumpy! We enjoyed listening to this  and learning new words and their meanings, Our teachers have told us that when we learn new things we are exercising our brains, cool!

We also learnt how to form capital letters and learnt when to use them in our writing.  Our writing has really come on, our teachers are very proud of us.  We had another go at writing an imaginative story titled. The Sore Paw’.  Our teachers said that they are so good we are all going to be authors when we grow up!

Numeracy

We have been doing lots of oral number this week. We counted forwards and backwards, counted in 2s, 5s and 10s and practised our doubles facts to 20.  We also learnt how to sort out things and how to interpret bar graphs and pictograms.

HWB

We did a lot of things this week connected to looking after our mental health.  We listened to one of the Winnie the Pooh stories and learnt that Eeyore is often sad but his friends are still good friends to him and look after him.  We learnt that getting a good sleep, eating healthy foods and exercising are good ways to helping us to keep the blues away.

Topic

We looked at Scottish inventions this week.  We were amazed to learn that lots of really important things that we use every day were made by Scottish people! We were so inspired that we worked in groups to make our own inventions using junk that we had.  What fun we had working together, problem solving and listening to one another’s ideas as we made our inventions.

Have a lovely long weekend everyone!

Love, P1.

It has bin a richt guid week!, (it has been a really good week).  We have had such good fun this week and especially with our new topic, ‘Scotland’.  Read on to find out what else we have been up to.

Literacy

As well as revising lots of sounds previously taught, we learnt two new sounds this week, ‘ng’ and ‘wh’.  Both of these sounds appear in lots of words, (as we found out).Now that we have a bank of sounds in our heads we are writing more and more each day and using our knowledge of these to help us to sound out words when we are reading too.  We are becoming more confident at writing independently and giving writing a go.  Our teacher are VERY proud of us all.

Numeracy

We have have had a great time learning about ‘time’ this week.  We have learnt that time never stops, (unless the batteries run out in your clock/watch)  and that being able to tell the time is a really important skill that we will use for the rest of our lives.  We have been practising how to tell the time for o’clock and half past times and are becoming really good.  We have also been practising our number bonds and learning strategies on how to find a missing number, e.g. : 2 plus what makes 5 ?

Health and Wellbeing

We learnt how to skip this week in P.E.  It was easier for some of us than others.  Skipping is really good as it helps with balance, jumping and coordination and it is fun! We also recapped the importance of looking after our teeth and were given a cool toothbrush and toothpaste to take home.

Topic

We started a new topic this week, ‘Scotland’. We looked at how our country looks from space and located Broxburn on the map.  We are learning a Scottish poem, ‘Traffic Lichts’ and drew Edinburgh Castle too.  We were amazed to find out that it was built on a volcano and even more relieved to find out that it is extinct, phew!

IDL

We are really enjoying learning Spanish and think it is super that we can chat in Spanish to our teachers in the morning  as we say, ‘good morning’, ‘hello’, ‘please ‘, and ‘thank you’ .  We are also really good at knowing the Spanish words for lots of colours and can even count to 20 in this language.  Wow!

Thank you for reading our blog, have a nice weekend.

Primary 1.

We have had such an exciting week that we cannot wait to share it with you all!

Our classrooms are looking all Christmassy! We have Christmas trees, decorations and lots of beautiful sparkly and colourful lights.  We also have a new addition to each of our classes, little elves !We arrived to school on Wednesday to find letters and our little elves in our classes.  The letters asked us to name the elves so we put on our thinking caps and voted.  The most popular name in P1a was Cookie.  In P1b the little elf was named Snowy and in P1c the elf’s name is Fred.  Our new friends are kindness elves and have been sent to us because they heard that all of the boys and girls in Primary 1 are soooo kind.  We are so excited to have these little elves in our classes and can’t wait to spread kindness and happiness with them.

Talking about Christmas we have been so busy working on our Nativity.  It is coming along nicely and will be ready in the next few weeks to share with you all.

Literacy

In literacy we learnt three more sounds this week, ‘sh’, ‘ch’ and ‘x’. We learnt how to recognise, say and read and write words with each of these sounds.  We also listened to a story about a fox and rewrote it.  Our writing is getting better and better each week  as we are becoming more confident writing words all by ourselves!  We are enjoying reading too.  We use our pointer fingers to point to each word when we read it.  We really enjoy reading little ditties and all about Kipper and Floppy.

Numeracy

In numeracy we have continued working with coins, counting amounts and playing with real coins.  We know that it is really important to learn about money as we will use money to pay for things when we are older.  We have also learnt a new song about subitising.  We thought that this was a funny word!  It means to be able to recognise amounts really quickly, for example if we hold up one of our hands we know that we are showing a 5.  We don’t need to count !

Topic

We made lovely little owl pictures based on the story that we read last week, ‘Owl Babies’.  We also learn more about foxes as these too are nocturnal animals.  Mrs Mac spotted one just the other night there in her street!

Thanks for reading!

Primary 1.

It has been a great week for us all in Primary 1.

What have we learnt ?

Literacy

We learnt three new sounds this week, oo, j and y.      We had lots fun engaging in play activities including : playing with yo-yos, playing in the cafe ordering food and looking at jam. We also have been practising reading our balloon words and had fun being little book detectives seeing if we could spot some of these words in our library books. We also listened to the story, ‘Owl Babies’ and rewrote this  story in our own words. We all did such a good job that we gave our teachers a dilemma when choosing a ‘Star Writer’ from each class. Our teachers are super impressed at how well we are all doing using our sounds to help us to write!

Numeracy

We have been learning how to identify and count coin collections.  We have also been learning how to count forwards and backwards in 2s and 10s which was useful to us when we had lots of 2ps to count.

Nocturnal Animals/Light and Dark.

The ‘Owl Babies’ story was a nice little introduction to us learning about nocturnal animals.  Over the next few weeks we will be finding out more about these animals and learning about the sun, moon and stars.  We will also be learning how to keep safe when it is dark outside.

Nativity

We have been practising our lines and songs for the Nativity.  We are learning lots of new skills whilst we do this including: talking to an audience, projecting our little voices and acting. We can’t wait to dress up in our costumes to retell the story of Christmas.  Watch this space!

Last week was very exciting ! What did we do ?

Literacy

We learnt two new sounds this week, f and b.  We had lots fun engaging in play activities including : making fans, fish, making flower soup, having a bear picnic and designing bags.  We are looking forward to learning 3 sounds next week as we are doing so well!

Numeracy

We learnt all about symmetry this week. We used mirrors on shapes that had been cut in half and thought it was cool that the mirror showed the other half of the picture. We also played a super game online which helped us to match the other halves of pictures.

Dinosaurs

We had a super surprise this week! We received a package from Professor Alexander.  In the package was an egg and dinosaurs to play with! We do not know what is in the egg yet but we under strict instructions to look after it. We will be spending the next few weeks learning all about dinosaurs which we are so excited about!

R.E

We have been learning that the month of October is a special month as we pray especially hard to Our Lady.  We have been learning her special prayer, the Hail Mary.  To honour her we made paper flowers which we have displayed on our altar

It has been a busy and fun week in Primary 1.  What have we been doing ?

Literacy

E and ck were the two sounds that we learnt this week.  We found it really cool that two letters can appear in words but only make one sound ! We continued to use our sounds to read and write words and are doing well.  We especially enjoy our writing lesson each Thursday. This week we spoke about the beauty of Autumn and drew a lovely Autumn picture in our jotters.  Our illustrations are really coming along.  We are trying hard to add details to our pictures and choose sensible colours to colour in.

Numeracy

We have been learning to use our pencil to count groups of objects on a page.  If we remember to do this we will never lose our place when counting and always count each object.  We also continued with the formations of numbers 1-10.  Our teachers are really proud of us all. We also learnt the names of 2d shapes and used these to make super shape pictures.

Autumn

We have had lots of Autumnal fun this week .  We learnt all about hedgehogs and made our own.  We learnt a new word, ‘nocturnal’.  We know that if we we ever see a hedgehog during the day it could mean that the little hedgehog needs help, hopefully we won’t ever see one.

Note from our teachers: Thank you to you all for your support over the last few weeks.  The children have settled in well and deserve a well earned break. Have a lovely October week and we will see you all on Tuesday, 19th of October.

Bye for now!

Primary 1.

The weeks are zooming by! What have we been doing ?

Literacy

We learnt two more sounds this week, k and o.  We learnt that k and c are best friends because they have a lot in common, they make the same sound! We liked these new sounds as it meant that we were able to read more words including: mop, not, mop and kit.  We go over these sounds each day so that we do not forget them.  We have also been using our sounds to have a go at writing words.  We have to stretch the words and say them slowly to help us to  remember each sound that we need to write down.  This can be quite tricky but we know that with lots of work we will soon be amazing.

Numeracy

We have been looking at the order of numbers 1-10 and learning to count forwards and backwards from any number, eg : 4,5,6,7.  We find this funny as we are so used to counting from the number 1, however we know that this skill will help us when we start to do adding and take away sounds. We have continued working on patterns and have had lots of fun still using counters, crayons, pasta shapes to make some.

Health and Wellbeing

We have spent time this week learning about the ‘Zones of Regulation’  which is a big phrase to learn.  It means how we deal with our feelings. The Zones of Regulation will help us to  recognise that if we are ever in a situation that is making us lose control of our emotions there are lots of things that we can do to  help manage our feelings to help ourselves get back to a healthier feeling.  We have learnt that each feeling can be given a colour:

Religious Education

We made beautiful crosses which we have displayed beside our altars in class.  We have been learning how to pray and some of the prayers that we say each day at St Nicholas.  We know that praying is special.

Bye for now everyone!
Primary 1 and Primary 1 teachers.

It has been a short week but a very busy and enjoyable one !

What have we been up to?

Literacy

We went over all of the sounds that we have been taught so far.  These include: s,a,t,p,i,n,m and c.  We used these sounds to read AND write words.    Our teachers are  very proud of us.

Numeracy

We looked at patterns and how they are everywhere! Our socks, dinner dishes, school tie  are good examples of patterns,  We made our own patterns using colours, size and shapes.  This was good fun.

Health and Wellbeing

We have continued to ‘check in’ each day in all of the classes.  We enjoy placing our name pegs and stones beside the emotion baskets as it lets our teachers know how we are feeling.

Religious Education

We learnt all that God gave us 5 senses to help us to make sense of the world.  We went on a senses walk around our playground which helped us with our daily mile.  We used our senses of sight and hearing to spot the beautiful leaves that are lying in our playground just now and listened to the crunch sound that was made as we stood on them.

We are in the middle of making autumnal pictures.  We will share pictures of these once they are finished.

Bye for now everyone!
Primary 1 and Primary 1 teachers.

Five quick weeks since we started school,

we have learnt lots, our brains are getting full.

New routines, sounds and numbers,

it really has been fun,

Oh it’s great to be a Saint Nicholas Primary 1!

Our teachers are so proud of us all! We have learnt lots these past few weeks, made new friends and had lots and lots of fun! What have we learnt this week?

Literacy

Our sounds this week were i and n. These have been super sounds to learn and helped us to make new words to help with our blending. We looked at the words, ‘is’, ‘it’, ‘cat’, ‘pat’ ‘at’ and ‘mat’.  We are finding it really cool how the sounds that we have learnt can now be pieced together to make real words!

Numeracy

We recapped numbers 0-10.  We practised the formation of them, where they are placed on a number line and we looked at their values.  We also explored pattern.  We learnt that patterns are everywhere! Patterns can be found on plates, cups, clothes, doors and lots more places.  We had lots of fun making our own patterns too.

Health and Wellbeing

We learnt how important it is to keep nasty bugs away.  We did a little experiment where one person covered their hands in glitter  and then touched lots of things in our class.  We couldn’t believe it when we noticed that the glitter had also gone all over everything that had been touched.  Our teachers told us that this what happens with germs hat we have on our hands if we don’t keep them clean. We are very good at remembering to wash our hands but it was fun being reminded about how important it is to wash our hands to keep us healthy and safe.

Religious Education

We learnt all that God gave us special people in our lives who help us each day.  We are thankful for all of those people for looking after us and keeping us safe.

Finally… (Word from our teachers)

Have a lovely September weekend everyone! We will see the boys and girls for more learning and fun on Wednesday, 22nd of September.

Bye for now everyone!
Primary 1 and Primary 1 teachers.

What have we been learning this week in Primary one ?

Literacy

We learnt two all about two  more sounds this week, t and p. We learnt that these are gentle sounds. We also learnt how to write these sounds. We also did some blending. We took the sounds that we have been taught and linked them to make little words.  How exciting!

Numeracy

We looked at numbers, 6 , 7 and 8  this week.  We played lots of games ordering these numbers and practised the correct way of writing these.

Health and Wellbeing

We learnt all about teeth and the importance of looking after them.  We know that if we want to keep the tooth fairy happy we must brush our teeth twice a day and make sure that we clean all of them and not just the ones that we see at the front of our mouths. We had fun cleaning teeth and cutting sticking health and unhealthy food choices on our grids.

Religious Education

We learnt all about Mary this week.  It was her birthday on Wednesday. We learnt that God chose Mary to have a special baby, Jesus.  We will learn lots more about Mary this year.

Finally…

Our teachers were very happy to talk to our mummies, daddies and carers after school on  Monday. A big thank you to those of you who managed to tune in to the virtual meeting.

Bye for now everyone!
Primary 1.

We can hardly believe that we have been at school for three weeks already! Time is speeding by and we are having so much fun. Read on to see what what we have been up to.

Literacy

We learnt two new sounds this week, s and a. We learnt how to write these sounds through play using string, spaghetti and slime!

Numeracy

We learnt how to write numbers 3, 4 and 5. We have been using loose parts to help us with our counting and had lots of fun exploring pattern.

Health and Wellbeing

We listened to the story, ‘The Colour Monster’. We learnt that the little colour monster is having a hard time, as his feelings are all jumbled up. He is red, green, yellow, blue and black, all at the same time. It’s making him very confused and he doesn’t know why. Luckily, the little colour monster he gets help and learns to make sense of his mixed-up emotions. We spoke about things that make us feel happy, sad, excited and confused and learnt that it is ok to feel lots of different emotions.

Religious Education

We continued talking about what makes us special and started special pictures of ourselves that our teachers are going to hang up in the corridor. We will take pictures of these for you all to see once we are finished.

Finally…

We are learning through play. We have lots of areas set up including: a writing area, a storybook corner, a loose parts area, a construction area, tuff trays, a home corner and a craft area. It really is fun being at school!

Bye for now everyone!
Primary 1.

It has been a super week for us all in Primary 1 and very exciting as we started our phonics learning and our numeracy program. What have we been up to this week?

Literacy

This week we learnt how to read and write sounds m, and c  We did this using a variety of methods including tracing the letters in sand, shaving foam and hair gel.  We made monsters for sound m , cool cats for the letter c and slippery snakes for the letter s.  We had lots of opportunity to play whilst reinforcing these sounds and had lots of fun! The construction area and the dressing up areas seem to be firm favourites!

Numeracy

For numeracy we learnt how to write the numbers 0, 1 and 2.  We learnt that there is a number zoo that will help us to form these. So far we have met Greedy Zero, Penguin One and Ticklish Two.  The number  0 is a gorilla named Greedy Zero as his tummy is the shape of a zero. The number 1 is named after ‘Penguin One’ as this penguin just loves sliding around in the snow which makes a dirty mark on her tummy in the shape of a one and Ticklish Two is a beautiful swan who looks just like the number 2.

Religious Education

We learnt that when God made us he made us unique and it is this uniqueness that makes us special.  We learnt about our teacher’s families and some of us spoke about our families and our talents.

Health and Well being

We learnt that everyone at St Nicholas has a trusted adult, someone who when can go to if we ever need help or a chat if we ever feel worried.  We also spoke about the trusted adults that we  have in our families that we go to when we need help: mummies, daddies, grannies and grandads etc..    We have chosen our trusted adult for school and know that St Nicholas is a big family where we all look out for each other.

We also made a start on our class charter.  Our charters are based on the United Nations Rights of the Child.  We learnt that at St Nicholas we ALL have the right to feel safe and listened to.

It has been a wonderful week indeed! Enjoy a well deserved rest at the weekend.

Primary 1 teachers.

Ta dah! We would like to introduce  our lovely Primary 1 children to you all.

Primary 1a

Primary 1b

Primary 1c

It has been a great first week.  We have spent the time learning new routines, getting to know one another and learning and having lots of fun through play.  The primary 1 teachers are all really looking forward to the year ahead.  Dear families, please check this blog each Friday for a weekly post to see what we have been doing.

Have a lovely weekend everyone,

Mrs Macdonald P1a, Miss Doolan P1b and Mrs Koziel P1c.

Hello Everyone,

I have attached the learning grid for this week (W.C. 18.5.20). Please send pictures of your child’s work and emails letting us know what they are enjoying to the school inbox. Thank you to those of you who have sent pictures so far, it’s great for us to hear how they are getting on and lets us plan for future learning.

Each week we have been putting challenges on Sumdog, the challenges run from Monday-Friday before expiring. This is so we don’t have too many up at the same time because it can be quite confusing for children.

Any questions just email, we are happy to help!
Miss McKeown and Mrs Gardiner 

Home Learning Week 7

Primary 1s have had a fantastic first week of school. They have been very busy exploring their new environment, taking part in different activities, learning new routines and making lots of new friends. Here we are in action…

Well done to Isla and Matthew for their super sporting achievements outside of school.

Isla was recently awarded a medal for her great skills in gymnastics , whilst , Matthew was awarded not one , but, three medals for his wonderful skills in Tae Kwondo. Great stuff Isla and Matthew!

Today , the P1s were veeeeeeeery busy as part of  ‘Fitness Fortnight’  In the morning, the boys and girls learnt all about fencing.  It was so much fun! We learnt that long ago everyone was taught how to fight using swords as there were no police officers to keep us safe from harm so when people fought they used to do so using swords ! We were shown lots of different kinds of swords that were used long ago including a knight’s sword, a pirate’s sword and a long sword.  We even got to have a shot of holding them.  They were might heavy !

We also got a shot at sparring with the practise swords.  We learnt how to stand properly, how to hold the sword in safe mode and how to keep ourselves safe whilst wearing the protective equipment.  A special thanks to Gordon from ‘Fencing is Fun’

In the afternoon, we welcomed Nina from ‘Zumba Kids Nina’.  She showed us some cool moves and we danced the afternoon away with a dance off and other dances.  It was fantastico! Thankyou to Nina for coming along to help us. Dancing certainly keeps you fit !

Today we travelled to Craigswood Xcite in Livingston for more fun fitness. We practised our throwing , catching , jumping and running whilst working at different stations. It was so enjoyable ! Massive thanks to the staff at Craigswood for organising today and to our helpers for accompanying us.

Today we had a football session with James Pegg and a younger volunteer, Ethan from Broxburn Colts. We warmed up by running in and out of spaces and by following a leader. Next we had a go at dribbling with a football and scoring into the goals! We were very good at celebrating our goals!!

We finished our session by playing a mini game of football with our friends. We had great fun!

Here are our thoughts :

Thomas – ‘We had two players against each other’.

James F – ‘We played a game and you had to jump over hurdles and score a goal and get a point’.

Keilidh – ‘You had to get the ball off your partner’.

Lucas – ‘First of all we were put into teams and had to score a goal’.

Isabella A – ‘We had to do some exercises before we played’

Daniella – ‘These excercises are called a warm up’.

Jie – Rui – ‘We had to get the ball to the goal’.

Piper – ‘I liked the bit when I scored a goal’.

Today Primary 1 children went to the Primary 7 classrooms and paired up with their buddies to develop their ICT skills. We practised switching the laptops on and off properly and then played some maths games. Primary 7 boys and girls were excellent digital leaders!

1. Smoothie Tasting !

Today we spent time learning more about fruits, why it is important to eat them and what they do to help keep our bodies healthy.  We then got to try two different smoothies that were made from strawberries and bananas and mangoes and passion fruits.  We got a mixed reaction.  Some of the boys and girls loved them, some didn’t.  One thing that we did all agree on was how important it is to eat healthily.

What did we think about the smoothies ?

Isla – ‘I liked the smell’.

Max C – ‘I really liked the mango and passion fruit one’.

Matthew P – ‘I liked both of them but I didn’t like the smell’.

Brooke – ‘I liked the strawberry one’.

Joshua – ‘I liked the smell and the taste’.

James H  – ‘I didn’t like the smell or the taste of them’.

Shahzaib – ‘The orange one was delicious’.

Haziq – ‘The mango and passion fruit was sweet’.

Thomas – ‘They were scrumptious’.

Cheers everyone !

Today we did judo, walked our daily mile and tried lots of different fruits including, pineapple, watermelon, oranges, blueberries and raspberries. They looked delicious ! We also listened to the story, ‘Keep Running Gingerbread Man’.  We particularly enjoyed this as this story was a twist on the original fairytale and helped us to learn about the importance of a healthy lifestyle.

What a lovely surprise we got this this morning ! Another letter from our friendly dragon and a clue for the next fairtale that he wanted us to read.  What did he leave us ? Well, he left us a little gingerbread men so we listened to the fairtyale ‘The Gingerbread Man’ .  We then decorated our own little gingerbread men with sweeties and icing, (we can’t wait to eat them) and retold the stories in our castle books.

We read to our P7 buddies today.  They were very impressed us, especially as we can now read lots of big words!

Today, Karen  from the National Youth Choir of Scotland, (NYCOS) came to our classes and worked with us helping us to learn new songs designed to help us to keep a steady beat and feel a steady beat.  It was great ! We particularly enjoyed the song ‘Tiptoe Tiptoe’.

Continue reading NYCOS in Primary 1. →