Primary 1 – Calderwood Primary and Nursery

Into Calderwood – Shetland Clan in Calderwood

Shetland Clan have said goodbye to East Calder Primary and are ready for their new adventure in Calderwood! Over the past five weeks we have learnt new things, made lots of new friends and explored different situations in our play. Most importantly, we have had great fun doing it! We are so excited to continue our adventure in our new school.

As part of our transition into our new school, during writing, Shetland Clan drew themselves in Calderwood. We developed our understanding of how to share feelings and ideas through pictures. We focussed on adding detail to our pictures, ensuring what we drew was relevant and specific. Some of us even labelled the different parts of our picture. We also discussed the use of capital letters, full stops and finger spaces during this. With support, Shetland Clan even wrote a sentence about their drawing (and added their own title)! Miss Greig was very impressed with their determination and focus.

As I’m sure you can see from these drawings, our Clan can’t wait to be in Calderwood together. We have had a very successful start to the school year in East Calder and are ready for our new and exciting adventure in Calderwood.

Thank you for your commitment and continued support,

Miss Greig and Shetland Clan

Orkney Clan’s Numeracy

Wow! I can’t believe that’s us five weeks in already and it was our last day at East Calder Primary School today. We have such an exciting few weeks coming up as we will be settling into our new school building and classroom. For this blog Orkney would love to share our learning in numeracy with you.

We have been practising our number recognition, number formation and counting skills. The children have enjoyed learning outdoors, playing smartboard games and engaging with various number activities. We went outdoors and used chalk to make games of hopscotch. Orkney Clan had so much fun practising their number formations and hopping! I was very impressed. We have also been practising subitizing by looking at dot patterns. This is where the children try to identify the number of dots in a set by quickly looking at them. They are very good at being able to discuss the different ways that they noticed the dots too. If you want to practise at home, dominoes are brilliant for this.

Orkney Clan are going to continue to develop these skills in numeracy because it will help them with their understanding of number. They have been very engaged and I am so proud of what they have managed to achieve so far.

I hope you all enjoy your well-deserved September break.

Thank you for your continued support,

Miss Cunningham

Orkney Clan Phonics

Orkney Clan have had a fantastic and busy few weeks. It is clear that the children’s confidence has grown hugely with following the day to day routines. They especially enjoy our morning check-in where they find their name and then place it in a pot which best describes how they are feeling. Orkney Clan also love learning new things! An aspect of our learning that we would like to share with you is our learning in phonics.

This week has been very exciting because we have been introduced to some of our initial sounds. The children are learning two new sounds a day as part of a fast track introduction. This will ensure they have some understanding of all the sounds before we look at each sound in more detail after the September break. So far we have learned a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i and j. We have learned a character, sound and action for each of these letters. For example, the character for ‘a’ is Annie Apple and she makes an ‘a’ sound. The action is pretending to eat an apple while saying ‘a’. Maybe you could ask your child to tell you about the letters and the sound they make? Can your child spot any objects around the house that begin with any of these sounds?

One of the children’s favourite learning activities has been colouring in the letters and their characters. They have great discussions about the characters and what they might like. For example, someone asked if Clever Cat likes to eat carrots. It is fantastic to see some of the children choosing to practise writing letters for themselves too. Over the next few weeks we are going to have a look at the rest of our initial sounds. We are so excited to meet everyone else in Letterland.

Orkney Clan had an amazing dress down day today! I hope you have a great weekend and I am looking forward to seeing everyone again on Monday.

Miss Cunningham

Orkney Clan’s First Week

A huge welcome to Primary 1! We have had a very special and exciting week in the Orkney Clan. It was our first ever week of school and the first ever week of Calderwood Primary! It has been amazing seeing everybody come together for the first time.

The children have settled in beautifully into their new environment and routines. They have made new friends and enjoyed getting to know each other. They have also been developing their imaginations and experiencing the world around them through play.

Orkney Clan loved learning about STEM with Miss Christie, they were discovering how they could make a rocket fly by using a plastic bottle. After learning about the rockets, some of the children have even tried to make their own in the construction area. They also enjoyed developing their movement skills for PE with Miss Miller.

I have been so impressed by the children’s curiosity, excitement to explore and enthusiasm. It is fair to say Primary 1 have had a fantastic week and I am looking forward to seeing everyone again next week for some new learning and adventures.

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Cunningham

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