Month: May 2019

Today at Families Connect we were discussing Number Talk. We learned some numbers in Welsh – this showed us how confusing learning numbers can be for our children. We tried out some games related to numbers – we had to sort buses into ‘teen’ and ‘ty’ garages and then we were given a busy street scene where we had to find lots of hidden numbers; similar to ‘Where’s Wally?’

When the children joined us, we enjoyed snack together and then played the games. Some of us challenged ourselves by timing how long it took us to put all the buses in the garages and find all the numbers in the scene. We were all careful to pronounce the number names clearly, as sometimes children can confuse ‘teen’ and ‘ty’ numbers.

Next week is our last week of Families Connect. We will be sad for Families Connect to end but we are really looking forward to a group trip to Innoflate to celebrate the completion of our programme!

P4 have been developing their skills in athletics in preparation for sport’s day. We have been working on throwing skills with the javelins, (foam ones!), hurdling, mini shot putts and sprinting. We hope to get outside onto the field in the better weather this term. It would be great if pupils could bring in some warmer gym clothes suitable for outdoor wear in a Scottish Summer. Our gym days this term will be Tuesday and Friday.

In maths we are rounding off our focus topic on multiplication by a single digit. Pupils are generally feeling much more confident about it now, but I have emphasised how important it is to practice these skills regularly to maintain them. The same goes for times tables and every opportunity to practice them in a spare 10 or 15 minutes really helps. This term we will be working on division, estimation and rounding, measurement and decimals.

In literacy we have come to the end of our focus on information writing with a final piece about Egyptian pyramids. Pupils report that they feel more confident about what is expected when writing in this genre. In our final term our new focus will be on narrative writing which the pupils are really looking forward to. They have asked to do some pieces of writing in pairs to help share ideas.

Today the pupils had a judo taster session which they really enjoyed. Everyone engaged with great enthusiasm and huge smiles. Topic work this term will have an environmental theme. Pupils have asked to work in mixed groups again and will be moving around classrooms and working with different teachers twice per week. In each session they will be learning about a different aspect of our environment, factors affecting it and how we can look after it.

 

Continuing our topic on Climate Change, we looked at deforestation and it’s affects. We sorted statements about deforestation into ‘for’ and ‘against’ piles. We then debated the issues it caused but also found that there were some reasons that people might think it can’t be fully stopped. Things like toilet roll, paper and a good road network were essentials many of us decided we would not like to live without!

This led to rich discussions around what alternative there may be. One class member suggested we attempt a ‘paperless day’ in our class – watch this space…………………..

Today we were working on the importance of counting. After their cup of tea (and chocolate biscuits!) the adults tried out counting using the alphabet – we had to pretend we lived in a place called ‘Letter Land’ where numbers were replaced by letters. This was VERY confusing, but it helped us see how tricky it must be for our children to learn the value of numbers.

When the children joined us, we enjoyed snack together before playing a game called ‘Ten Nice Things’. We each had a box of 10 party bag items, we took turns rolling a dice and we were then able to steal that number of items from our partner’s box. We kept playing until one person had lost all of the items in their box. Throughout this game the adults asked their children a variety of questions, such as:

• If I spin a two, will I win?
• If you have six things, how many have I got?
• If I have five things and I win three more, how many will I have altogether?
• If I have six and give you three, how many will I have? How many will you have?
• Who has the most/the fewest things?

We are positive everyone is going to have a lot of fun at home playing this game!

Next week our focus is on ‘Number Talk’

It has been another quick week in P1 and P2/1. We are super excited by the arrival of some new friends including a new teacher called Mrs Anderson who is going to be working with us all on Wednesday afternoons. We are very happy to welcome her to our school. We had a little taster of some yoga as Mrs Anderson has special skills in yoga.

Lexie – I loved yoga even though it was my first time doing it!

Lennon – I really enjoyed the monkey poses.

Kyle – I enjoyed the lion pose.

We have been learning to ‘take away’ . Mia enjoyed using the numicon to support her learning. Kayleigh has been practising independently using a dice to make up her own take away calculations. She was able to remember to always put the big number first. Brendan thought that crossing out was a good strategy and helped him find the answer.

Writing this week.

We have been learning 2 new tricky words – want and went. We decided to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. The children did a fantastic job and we hope they achieve their dream careers.

Lennon and Charlie explained that when you grow up up need a job to earn money. Here are some of our career dreams…..

Brendan – I want to be a police officer or a firefighter.

Chloe – I want to be a teacher to help my friends.

Scarlet- I want to be teacher.

Charlie-  I want to be fisherman so I can make fish fingers, I love fish fingers.

LLLLLLL ladybugs.

This week our new sound was the letter ‘l’. We made ladybugs to remind of the sound and shape of the letter.

Isla – I liked the task. I put 3 and 4 dots on and I knew that made 7 altogether.

Chloe – I liked the red shell on mine.

Destination Judo.

Today we were lucky enough to have Jake from Destination Judo come into school and give us a half hour judo taster session. We had to wear cool judo jackets and take off our gym shoes. It was great fun, we played lots of games with a partner and had to be really good listeners to play the games safely.

Mia – I liked playing the ‘get the bean bag’ game, it was fun being a starfish.

Sophie – I liked trying to push someone over onto their back, it was a turtle game and you had to protect the bean bag.

Lexie – I enjoyed getting to be the referee.

If you would like any further information about Destination Judo or to book a free introductory session call – 0131 467 9054. Classes are held on a Monday at Elim Church, Deans.

Reminder!

Monday and Tuesday are holidays for the children. Enjoy the short break and we will see you all back on Wednesday.