The Den Gang have been worried about birds being hungry in this cold weather as they have been discussing how tricky it must be for birds to find food as the ground is frozen and there are no berries left on the bushes. To help the birds, they decided to make bird feeders.
Here are the instructions we followed if you would like to make your own bird feeder at home: https://www.rspb.org.uk/fun-and-learning/for-kids/games-and-activities/activities/make-a-speedy-bird-cake
We have been working hard in gym to improve our throwing and catching skills. We played clear the garden, practiced our under and over arm throwing and worked in small teams.
Lucy- It was easy, I could throw the beanbag really far.
Brendan- I liked catching. I was proud because I got to demonstrate my skills for my friends.
Tadas- I liked playing clear the garden, I liked throwing the pretend beanbag weeds.
Aayan – I liked balancing the beanbag on my head. It was tricky and easy. Bending up and down was super tricky.
We have been using our imagination in writing. We were pretending that we were in a secret hiding place or a place that we really like to be. Some of us were in our beds sleeping, some friends were on a beach and one friend was even in a pyramid!
Lucy – being in a pyramid would be very cool!
We have been working hard to make sure we hit all our targets in writing. We are using the symbols to remind us what we need to do to be successful. This week Sophie and Lexie did a fantastic job at making sure they remembered all of their targets. Super work, well done!
Lexie- I am happy because I got everything pink.
Sophie- It was exciting to get lots of pink.
Have a read at their amazing work.
This week our sound has been ‘h’ for happy harry the horse. We have completed lots of fun activities. We are working hard to think about where we hear the sounds. We had fun with Mrs Fleming jumping into the hoops for each sound.
As part of our Scotland topic we wanted to make our own Scotland flags. We worked in teams using collage to complete our flags.
We are getting better at our number talks and are even practising our own.
Lexie- I like when my idea gets written on the board.
Ethan and Tyler made their own number talk using the dot patterns. They made 10!!! Well done boys we are very impressed!
We are delighted to announce that our Swap Shop is now open!
Please come along and browse our items. We suggest a 20p donation per item but this is not essential. Please also feel free to hand in any clothes you have that are looking for a new home!
This photograph was taken on Monday, at the front of the school. During the week, we have discussed silhouettes, and using chalks. We have made some lovely pictures using the photo as our inspiration.
“I enjoyed using the chalks – it was very messy” EC
“It was lots of fun” LM
“Nobody knew the picture was taken from our school” AD
Maths
This week we have started learning about quarter past, half past and quarter to times. We are using analogue and digital clocks. We have also been learning to use the mathematical symbols > greater than, < less than, and = equals. We are also practising rounding numbers to the nearest 10.
Burns Assembly
Today we had Burns Assembly in school. We all took part in a Scottish style dance. We wore sashes and we looked very smart.
Reading & Writing
We have been reading and writing with our class pet dogs this week. We have been writing stories about our pets, and what they might get up to when we are not in class.
“It’s always more fun to read with a dog” “It was fun writing about the dogs”
We all enjoy reading to our pet dogs, but we don’t quite have enough for one each yet. If you have any toy dogs you no longer need and would be willing to donate to our class, please send them into school. They will be looked after, and read to often.
We have been learning all about Scotland this week. Tomorrow we have a special Burns Day assembly and we have worked really hard to learn a Scottish song called ‘Coulters Candy’.
Ethan- It has been difficult, there are lots of Scottish words and they are a bit tricky. Mrs Stevenson learned some words too, she thought they were really hard to say but she didn’t give up!
We all want to say a BIG thank you to Mrs Buntin who helped us by playing the piano.
We were invited to be a quality audience for P3. We watched them dancing a Scottish dance.
Lucy- They had to do lots of turns, clapping and skipping.
We read the story of ‘Hamish the Highland Cow’ by Natalie Russell.
Roman was able to retell the whole story to the class.
Today we were visited by the dental team.
Scarlet- We were getting our teeth checked by the dental team.
Kayleigh- They were counting how many teeth we had.
Calvin- It was kind of weird …..we had to wear sunglasses….inside!!!!
Finlay- They had a mirror to see if our teeth were clean or not. They needed the mirror to see to the back.
Lexie- We all got stickers. I really like the colours on mine.
We have been learning number patterns of 5. Aayan- We were really good and we found lots and lots of patterns.
We learned all about the add sign + . Harrison was able to make it with his fingers.
We had an exciting morning today. When we came into school we got a big surprise. Our cloakroom has changed! Thank you Tom for all your hard word it looks fab!
Ashley- I like it because we have more room.
Brendan- It looks very colourful.
There will be more exciting changes coming soon….so watch this space.
This week we have started work on our new topic ‘Mystery tour of Scotland’. We have been identifying what we already know about Scotland and what we would like to find out. So far we have completed some map work and have been learning some Scottish poetry for the assembly on Friday. Next week we will be looking at how Livingston used to be and watching some historical videos of the area. We will be learning about shale mining in West Lothian and why it was such an important industry at the time. Pupils are looking forward to creating art work in the style of famous Scottish artists and will be doing Scottish country dancing with Mrs Moyes.
In ICT we have been learning about coding and using Blockly to create simple instructions. The games we have worked on so far have proved very popular and the class are really keen to learn more.
Since the start of term we have had a big focus on learning / revising key spelling words and have been working on them for Smart Start every day. We have also been trying to improve fluency when reading aloud and pupils have been encouraged to apply their decoding strategies for tricky words. It would be really helpful if pupils could continue to work on this at home. Our next target area will be to focus on handwriting to improve written presentation.
In literacy the focus has been on developing persuasive writing skills. Our first theme for the writing was homework and our subject for next Monday will be whether pupils should have to wear uniforms. We have also been learning to peer and self assess our writing which the class find quite challenging and we will continue to work on.
In maths we have been working on time. Everyone should now feel quite confident about o clock, quarter past and to and half past times. Our focus just now is telling the time using minutes past and to. Next we will be converting between analogue and digital time. Finally we will be interpreting simple timetables such as train and bus times and programme schedules.
This term gym time with Mrs Moyes is on a Tuesday afternoon and the class will also have futsal on a Friday so pupils will need gym kit on those days.
Deans Primary Clothing Swap Shop
350,000 tonnes, that’s around £140 million, worth of used but still wearable clothing goes to landfill in the UK every year
More than 60% of householders in the UK say they have unwanted clothes and textiles stored in their homes
To help combat this, Deans Primary are starting up their own Clothing Swap Shop. There will be items of clothing for both children and adults available for you to take – we suggest a 20p donation per item but this is not essential. If you have any clothes in good condition your children have grown out of you would like to pass on please hang them up on the rail (we would appreciate if these were washed first).
The swap shop will be located at the front entrance of the school from Tuesday 29th January and will be open every school day.
Happy swapping!
It is nice to be back together after our Christmas holidays and are looking forward to the term ahead. A reminder to Parents/Carers to ensure your child brings gym kit on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (P4 children only) and please ensure your child has appropriate indoor shoes.
Literacy
After watching Newsround, we were interested to learn that schools in Paris may open later, allowing children to spend more time at home. This inspired us to write a persuasive piece of writing on the subject and to include different points of view. Fraser thought it would be a good idea to stay home longer as he could” spend more time caring for his guinea pigs.” Debbie thought it would be a good idea for schools in Scotland to open at the normal time as she has to ” get up at the same time anyway as her Mum goes to work.”
Numeracy
During our number talks sessions we have been revising our strategies to help us double numbers. Aleena and Liam suggested two different methods to use. Please keep practising this at home.
We have been very busy using our senses this week. We had a smelly quiz where we were trying to guess what things were, just from their smell. We also had a tasting session, and we were focusing on whether the tastes were sweet, sour, salty or bitter. We found it quite hard.
We were also trying our hand at writing sensory poems. It was quite difficult as we were trying to include each of the 5 senses. It looks like, it smells like, it sounds like, it tastes like, it feels like.
We are continuing to work in maths on rounding to the nearest ten. This week we also had a visit from the Transport Police, reminding us to stay away from the railway.
We have enjoyed creating our own Oor Wullie stories. We used tableaux in drama and took photographs of them. We got our ideas from magazines and cartoon strips. It was really fun.
We have been working on long division in maths and continuing with our mental maths and practising our tables with Big Maths Beat That etc.
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