Author: Mrs Fleming

Welcome to this weeks blog. The Deans Decision Makers have been busy creating STEM challenges for our school advent calendar. The first challenge was to go on a nature walk and look for patterns in the environment. The children took lots of pictures and identified lines of symmetry in a number of objects. On Tuesday, our challenge was titled “Dancing Salt” (sound waves and vibrations). We had to place clingfilm tightly over a bowl then put salt in the middle and place the speaker in different position around the bowl and watch the sound waves create vibrations. We discovered that salt was too light and rice was a good alternative.

On Wednesday the children had to make an igloo using marshmallows and cocktail sticks. This was tricky but as they worked together they managed to create small igloos. Some managed to make a roof and opening for a door.

   

On Thursday the challenge was to use marshmallows and spaghetti to build and measure a tower.

       

It got a bit tricky so the children made snowmen instead. It is nearly Christmas after all.

   

       

Lots of good discussion, problem solving and fun had by all!

This week we read a beautiful book called Little Robin Red Vest. It is the story of a kind little bird who gives away his 7 vests to his friends who need them.  On Christmas Eve he was cold and alone but Santa had been watching him and rescued him. Mrs Claus knits him a very special red vest and this is how the robin got his red breast. The children have drew robins for our winter display and designed vests. A lovely story well worth reading.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend . Not long to go now!

 

Welcome to this weeks blog. On Friday of last week the children took part in Participation Friday. This event happens once a month and enables the children to become more involved in the local community. In Primary 1, we will be  visiting local attractions in Deans and giving them a rating out of 5 stars. Some picture below of us visiting the park and feedback from the children.

     

   

             

They loved it with most of them giving it 5 stars!

Writing

As this week was the end of our  persausaive writing block we had a little fun! The children had to persude the reader that “Santa should visit me because……….” It was lovely to hear how kind and helpful they had been all year. Some super examples below-

     

    

I am sending their writing home for you to enjoy!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. I will be next week with the last post of 2021!

 

Welcome to this weeks blog. In our class it’s beginning to look alot like Christmas. The children have decorated the class christmas tree. It looks beautiful!

They are all very excited and this month there are alot of Christmas actvities going on! Along with Primary 2 and 3 we have been practising for our annual Nativity, A Miracle in Town. It is really unfortunate that we cannot invite parents and carers into the school but the whole performance will be filmed and sent out for you to enjoy.

Writing

This week the children were trying to persude the reader that we should look after our playground. They came up with lots of reasons, the main one being that we need to be safe. Safe is one of our school values that we talk about daily. Some fantastic examples below-

     

Health and Wellbeing – PE

This week the children have been challenging themselves whilst developing their balancing, jumping and landing skills.

   

It was great to see them challenging themselves further to do a forward roll when they landed.

Numeracy

In numeracy, we are continuing to explore addition and this week the children really enjoyed playing ladybird bingo. They had to mentally add 2 numbers together and match it to a number on their board.

       

We also had a green apple red apple challenge. The children are definitely developing a range of strategies for partitioing and combining numbers!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I will be back next week with more updates from P1.

Some of this weeks highlights.

Persuasive Writing

This weeks persuasive piece of writing was about why exercise is good for you. The children had great ideas and the writing was amazing. Some children writing 2 sentences and all children attempting to sound out words independently. I am so proud of them all!

Numeracy

This week we have been working on addition to 10 as well as making numbers in different ways. The children are becoming more skilled at partitioning  dot patterns and enjoyed using numicon to create number families to 10. They are becoming more skilled at explaining the strategies they have used.

 

           Charlotte making 10 by using 4,2,2,1 and 1

   Hunter making 10 using 6,2 and 2

A big thank you to everyone who helped make fantastic diormas. It is great to see the children engaging and enjoying reading. Some examples below.

     

     

They will be displayed around the school for everyone to enjoy.

Last Friday we celebrated the Scottish Book Bug Launch by dressing in our pyjamas, gathering in the hall and listening to stories. Some pictures from the    Launch-

   

Buddies

The buddies joined us on Thursday afternoon to create the front cover of the book they are writing together.

     

Have a lovely weekend and I will be back next week with a weekly update from Primary one.

 

This week is Scottish Book Week and the children have enjoyed taking part in a number of reading related activities. One activity that they have really enjoyed is Stop, Drop and Read, which means when a bell rings everyone stops what they are doing and picks up a book and starts reading. Some pictures below-

                             

This activity created super diagloue between the children about what they were looking at.

Phonics

This weeks sound has been “e” . We now have 4 vowel sounds which enable the children to create 3 letter words using the mats and magnetic letter board. Some pictures below-

   

Numeracy

All the children have been taking part in  numeracy challenges this week. The first one was to stick a post it note on the answer to the correct addition sum on the number line. The children really enjoyed it and are definitely competitive!

The second was to match the numicon to the dot pattern as well as the numeral. They all did really well!

     

Buddies

The children enjoyed spending time with thier buddies today. Together they have began making a comic strip which details pictures of what they like to do with their buddy, what they like most about each other etc. A great time had by all.

       

     

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I will be back next week with more updates.

I hope you have all had a good week. Some highlights the children wanted to share with you.

Writing

This week the children had to persuade the reader that we need chairs. To make the point and have some fun the children came into class on Wednesday morning and all the chairs were taped up!

There was a lot of discussion about what was going on. I explained what was going on and we carried out a little experiment. The children had to walk around writing and then think how different their handwriting looked when they were not sitting focusing.

       

In the end the children came up with lots of reasons why we need chairs such as, we would get sore legs and a sore back from standing, our work wouldn’t be as neat, we wouldn’t be able to concentrate as much etc. Some great finished pieces of work.

Non-Fiction Reading

As part of our Autumn topic we have been learning about hedgehogs. To find out more information about them we have been searching through a non-fiction book. The children really enjoyed learning about the hoglets and hibernation. Some pictures below of the book as well as their artwork ( we used forks to create their spikes!)

Maths – Symmetry

This week we have been focusing on symmetry. The children having been looking at objects that have lines of symmetry  and making symmetrical paintings. Some great examples below-

     

Numeracy

Some pictures of the children independently carrying out numeracy tasks to challenge themselves.

     

It was great to speak to all of you who made parent’s evening (telephone calls of course!)  Have a lovely weekend and I will be back next week with more highlights.

Welcome to this weeks blog.

Firstly a picture from last weeks Halloween party. A great time had by all.

Writing

This week the children had to persuade someone that fireworks can be dangerous.The children came up with some very persuasive agruments including – you can get hurt, other people can be silly putting you in danger and pets can get very scared. Some examples below-

   

Phonics – “i” sound

This week we have been exploring the “i” sound. Having another vowel sound has enabled the children to blend more sounds to create 3 letter words. They have also been working on their letter formation. Some pictures below-

   

Numeracy

This week we have focused on the nubmer 10. The children have been using ten frames to support their learning. They are an amazing learning tool that support counting, place value, addition and subtration.

We have also been carrying out daily number talks. Number talks or dot patterns are an important tool to help children build a visual link to composing and decomposing small numbers.  Dot patterns provide opportunities for children to work on counting, seeing numbers in a variety of ways, subitising and learning number combinations. An example of a 9 dot pattern detailing the children’s thinking below.

I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable Bonfire night. I will be back next week with more highlights.

 

 

 

Some highlights from our busy week!

Writing – Persuasive

The children have began a new writing genre. From now until the end of term they will be exploring persuasive writing. This week the topic was Halloween. They were given a sentence starter “Halloween is good because ………..” They came up with a number of reasons- “you get to trick or treat”, “you get to dress up in a scary costume” “you get to scare people” etc. Some super examples below.

Phonics – “a” sound

This week the children were introduced to the “a” sound. This is an important sound as it enables the children to start blending and reading 3 letter words. They used sound mats to support the blending process. They did really well, I am so proud of them.

     

   

Numeracy

In numeracy this week we have been sorting, counting and ordering numbers!

   

   

As a special Halloween treat the buddies came to help Primary One carry out some spooky Halloween art!

     

     

Lastly we are still working on our Autumn display. We think it looks fantastic!

I hope you all have a great Halloween weekend and the children enjoy dressing up and eating lots of sweets! I will be back next week with more updates.

I hope you all had a lovely holiday and managed to enjoy some family time together. This week our blog is a little shorter as the children were off on Monday. Some highlights they wanted to share with you.

Autumn

This week we started our new Autumn topic. We created a tuff tray with lots of interesting objects to explore and books to read. The children went with Mrs Dobbie on an Autumn walk. They collected lots of leaves and we have began to create our Autumn display.

As you can see from the picture above we have also been making pumpkins. The children have been developing their skills in collage and marbelling.

       

Hopefully by next week  our display will be finished and you can see more examples of their terrific work!

Literacy – Writing

This week the children wrote about what they had been up to during the holidays. It was great to see the children trying to extend their writing by explaining how they felt. Some super examples below-

     

Listening and Talking

Our brand new listening station arrived this week and the children enjoyed listening to pre-recorded stories for the first time today.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and I will be back next week with more highlights.

Some of this weeks fantastic highlights!

Health and Wellbeing – PE

This term in PE we have been learning to travel safely in different ways and directions. We have also been developing balance and ball skills. Some pictures below of the children practicing-

     

French

Children have been introduced to basic conversational French. Most can say the colours of the rainbow and introduce themselves in French. On Wednesday we had a special visitor named Cammonbear who encouraged the children to introduce themselves and play some simple games in French. The children absolutely loved having him in the classroom and learned lots from him.

Literacy – Writing

This week the children have written about what they enjoy doing with their buddies. As I have mentioned previously the children love spending time with them . We had a circle time to get ideas before they started to write. Ideas included – writing with them in our class writing area,  reading in the library, playing in the playground. Some examples below-

Tricky words

A big thank you to all parents who have been helping their child/children learn tricky words from their word walls. It can be challenging however, we continue to practise them daily. The children enjoy challenging themselves to write and read them.

 

Numeracy-

The children are exploring number and are working hard to develop their skills in a number of ways. Some pictures they wanted to share with you-

I hope you all have a fantastic holiday. I look forward to welcoming the children back on Tuesday 19th October!