Author: Mrs Fleming

This week the children have enjoyed taking part in a number of Christmas activities.

On Tuesday the children performed their Christmas poem “Peppermint Stick”. Mrs Wallace recorded it and it is now available for you to view. Enjoy!

On Tuesday afternoon we had our class Christmas party. The children enjoyed dancing, playing games such as – corners, musical bumps/statues, pass the parcel and pin the tail on Rudolph as well as welcoming a special visitor (who is currently in our bubble). Some Pictures below.

The children have also enjoyed taking part in a number of Christmas art activities. I hope you enjoy hanging the baubles and gingerbread men on your tree. Some images of the process below.

Some of the books we have enjoyed reading.

I would just like to say a big thank you for all the support you have given the children and school since August, it has been very different year and hopefully next year at some point, we can welcome parents back into the school building. I hope you all have a brilliant Christmas and a very happy new year and I look forward to welcoming the children back on Wednesday the 6th of January 2021. Take care and be safe!

I hope you are all well and managing to get organised for Christmas. In school, the excitement is building. It began with the children’s Christmas lunch (in their bubbles of course)

Next the children wrote a letter to Santa. They decided they were all definitely on the nice list and have been good all year! The letter said “I have been good. Can I have …………………… please”. Some children are now able to write short sentences independently. So proud of them. Some examples below-

We are also busy practising a Christmas poem that will be available for you to view in the last week of term. We have been practising it everyday and making candy canes. This is the poem and some candy canes we are preparing for the performance.

Today we read the most beautiful story “Little Robin Red Vest” . It’s about a little robin who is kind and gives away his 7 vests to other animals who need them in the week before Christmas. So by Christmas eve he has nothing to keep him warm but Santa has been watching his kindness and Mrs Claus makes him a special red vest. The children absolutely loved it and wanted to make a vest for the little robin. We used a  guided draw. I think you will agree the children did really well!

Maths – Money

This week we have began looking at money. I started by asking the children what “does money mean to you and what do we use it for?” I noted down some of the responses-

For now, the children are exploring and sorting different coins. We will move onto investigating their value and how we can make different combinations. Our Dean’s Store will help.

Lastly after all the hard work we enjoyed some Yoga from Mrs Anderson via Skype.

Have a lovely weekend and I will be back with the last blog of the year next week!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in P1A! The children are so excited.

   

Digital Learning

This week the children were given the opportunity to take part in the creation of a festive Stop Frame Animation. It is animation that is captured one frame at time, with physical objects (in this case Mary, Joseph etc.) that are moved between frames. When you play back the sequence of images rapidly, it creates the illusion of movement.  Each class is contributing to the retelling of the Christmas story (when complied it will be available for you to view), Some pictures of the children demonstrating their skills.

The children are also learning a Christmas poem “Peppermint Sticks” which will be recorded and available to view during the last week of term. We have also began making Christmas decorations (a sneak peak below!)

         

Literacy – Writing

We have started our Christmas writing and this week they were asked to write “what they like about Christmas”. As you would expect all enjoyed getting presents, some said they liked putting up decorations and all wanted to play in the snow (at least one wish has been granted!). Some examples below

 

Our sounds this week have been “d” and “u”. We now have all the vowel sounds and the children have been working hard to blend the sound to make words and write short sentences. We have also been working extremely hard on reading and writing common words. Any help you could give them would really support the development of their reading and writing skills.

We are continuing to focus daily on teen numbers however, it important to consolidate numbers and number bonds within 10 so I created a fun challenge for them.  I split them into 3 teams and  gave them mats with dot patterns and cups with the answer on top. They had to quickly count and place the correct cup on top of the dot pattern. This went well so I changed it slightly. The children were then given mats with addition sums on it and cups with answers on top. They found this challenging but great fun. They can be very competitive!

Health and Wellbeing

This week we looked at friendship. How to make new friends and something they could offer a new friend. The children came up with a number of suggestions –

Robbie – “I would ask them to join a game”

Katie – “treat them nicely and if they got hurt I would help them”

Emily – “play games with them”

They made some lovely friendship tokens.

   

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I will be back next week with more news from P1A.

 

The children have had another busy learning week. We have been doing lots of filming of our Sharing the Learning. The children hope you enjoy seeing them working hard in and around the school. Some of this weeks learning the children would like to share with you.

Literacy

Writing –

Our skills in persausive writing are developing really well (you can hear the children talking about them in our Sharing the Learning video). All the children are aware of what an opinion is and how to share it through their writing. This weeks topic was reading and why it is imoprtant. The children came up with lots of reasons such as -Sahel -“I will be able to read more books when I get older”, Conlon “I will have fun finding out new and interesting facts”etc.  Some examples below-

“b” and “h” sounds

This week the children have been introduced to “b” and “h”. They have been blending these sounds with others that they already know to create words. Some children are now reading short sentences. I am very proud of them!

Within our Sharing the Learning video there is a short number talk where the children are encourged to share their counting strategies. The aim is to find the most efficent way. I hope you find it interesting. We have been counting collections to 20 as well as consolidating knowlege of number bonds within 10.

 

Health and Wellbeing

Last week the children discussed the important issue of bullying and what it means to be bullied. This week we focused on what to do if a friend was being bullied. Some responses

Sahel said “I would ask the bully why are you bullying my friend?” and he though his friend would be very sad.

Robbie said “I would make the bully say sorry”

Conlon said “I would tell an adult” and thought his friend would be angry.

Indie thought her friend would feel terrified.

We all agreed that you should tell the bully to stop and speak to a trusted adult.

Have a lovely weekend, and I will be back next week with more news from Primary One.

We have had another very busy week in Primary 1A and the children would like to share some of their learning with you.

‘We now have our very own classroom shop called “Dean’s Store”

We have used as many real items of food (with price labels) as we can and even have a full sized working till! The children have been so excited and had such a brillant time  playing in the shop. Although it is fun, there are a number of additional benefits such as, writing a shopping list, turn taking, discussion, counting money giving change. Some fun pictures below-

Literacy

Writing  –

The children are continuing to develop their persuasive writing skills and this week they have been giving their opinions on pets. They all agreed that pets are great to have and came up with super words to describe them, such as” cute, playful, friendly, fluffy and the best!” Some examples below-

Our sounds this week have been “e” and “f”. Some pictures below of the activities the children have taken part in.

Although we are working on numbers beyond 10, the children are consolidating their knowledge of number bonds to 10. They have been doing this through games from Educationcity and team challenges.

Health and Wellbeing

We are continuing to celebrate difference and this week we focused on bullying. The children finished their gingerbread men by creating an anti-bullying slogan for his cap. Conlon came up with a excellent message “No Bullies Here!”

I hope you have a great week and I will post more news from P1A next week.

 

Welcome to this weeks blog. We have had a super week, working hard and learning lots. The children have chosen some areas of their learning they would like to share with you.

We celebrated Remembrance day by making poppies and observing the 2 minute silence.

 

Literacy -Writing

This week we have continued to develop our skills in persuasive writing. The children had to give an opinion about play, why and what they enjoyed about it. Some examples below-

  – “o” sound

This week we have been learning about the “o” sound. The children have been writing, making and using the sound to create 3 letters words. Some children have been challenging themselves to create short sentences using a mixture of CVC words and common words!

O owls made with Cheerios!

As well as working on number bonds to 10 this week, I set the children 2 number matching challenges. In the first challenge they were given a large sheet of paper with numbers on it, they had to place the correct number sums on top of the answer. The second challenge was similar however, this time they had to match the correct dot pattern to the number. They enjoyed and did well on both!

 

Health and Wellbeing 

This week our health and wellbeing has been linked to Children in Need. We have listened to clips from the BBC and Joe Wicks about the importance of mental health and reconnecting and valuing those around us. The children choose a friend from the class to compliment them and say what makes them special, they then drew them a special picture. Some examples below-

Lastly a picture of the children getting ready for Children in Need 2020.

Have a great weekend. More updates next week.

I hope you have all had a good week. The children enjoyed their socially distant Halloween party last Friday. We have some super dancers in Primary One!

Some learning the children would like to share with you-

The children have enjoyed using shapes and paint to create their own fireworks.

 

 

 

Writing   

This week we have been working hard to further develop our skills in persuasive writing. The children were asked to give their opinion on how fireworks made them feel. Some super sentences below!

You may notice that at the bottom of each writing page there are core writing targets. The children are working hard to achieve them by using a capital letter, finger space, full stop etc.

Word Boost

This week we introduced a new learning tool called Word Boost. BOOST words are good words for supporting your child with their talking, listening and later with their reading and writing. They are more ‘grown up’ words and we choose them from children’s story books. We want children to learn words like enormous and tiny so that they can use these as well as words like big and small. We teach Boost Words through a story the children enjoy. The story is read daily and 4-5 words are choosen. We talk about what the words mean, what they sound like and how we can use  them in all sorts of ways. We use the words lots of times because that is how children learn them. We will go back over the words from time to time because this helps your child to remember them.
Pictures below of this weeks Boost Words and story.

Maths – Shape

As well as number work  we have had a focus on 2D shapes and 3D objects. We have been sorting them and using them to build rockets, gates and robots.

As well as shape, I set the children a problem solving challenge. They were asked to draw as many different ways as they could to make 5 using 2 different coloured apples. They did really well, I’m very proud of them!

Health and Wellbeing – Celebrating Difference

Last week the children identified similarities between themselves and others in the class.  This week they identified differences, some responses below

Indie said ” I’ve got a sister and Katie doesn’t”

Conlon said “He has ginger hair and no-one else has”

Emily said “I like drawing and Sahel doesn’t”

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. More learning on next weeks blog.

 

 

 

 

Firstly, I would like to say that as a staff, we are so sad that this year we are unable to have a our annual Halloween disco. It is one of the highlights of the year for the children (and some of the staff!!) but hopefully next year things will be back on track. This week some of our learning has had a Halloween theme.

We have been painting pumpkins using a mabelling technique and used wax crayons and a paint wash to create different textured affects.

 

The books we have enjoyed reading.

The children especially enjoyed Funnybones!

Writing     

This term we are focusing on persuasive writing. As a starting point, the children were asked to share their opinion on  things that were important to them. Next, we focused on sharing how Halloween makes us feel. The children really enjoyed thinking of words to descibed how they felt and suggested scary, spooky, excited, happy etc. Some examples below-

                        

This week we began ELF which stands for Early Literacy Focus. ELF will run Monday to Thursday from 9.15 -10.25. Within this time, the children will complete 4 literacy tasks  e.g. reading, common words, handwriting and phonics, and will be supported by an adult during each task. We are hopeful that this will  enable the children to become more confident, independent learners. Below is a sound mat which we use to support blending. The children bring 3 sounds and place them on the mat, initial sound on the head, middle sound on the tummy and end sound on the tail, we then blend them together to say a word. We are beginning to change initial sounds to create new words.

News sounds this week i and t (for tiger)

   Number 10

This week we have been focusing on number 10. We have been using numicon to help us learn our number bonds to 10.

Health and Wellbeing

This term we will be looking at how we celebrate and value difference. We began this week by looking at similarities between ourselves and our elbow partner. Some pictures below.

 

 

I hope you all have a fantastic  Halloween!

I hope you have had a relaxing break and managed to have some fun time together.  This weeks blog will be a little shorter as we have only been in school for a few days.

Writing

This week the children have been writing about their  holidays. They have been writing independently and trying to include some of the common words we have been learning. Some pictures below.

 

      “n” sound

New sound this week was “n”. The children used newspaper cuttings to create the “n” shape.

Today we have been focusing on partitioning numbers to help create number stories. Some pictures below.

         

Health and Wellbeing

On Wednesday the children explored different emotions. They watched an extract from upside down and identified a number of emotions and how each made them feel. They really enjoyed expressing different emotions through drama. Today we read My Big Shouting Day” and used a guided draw to create Mr Angry. They drew some super pictures!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I will post more updates next week.

 

Hello and welcome to the final blog of this term (hard to believe!) . Some of this weeks learning that the children wanted to share with you.

Literacy –

This week we have been focusing on the “a” sound. The children have been making “a” in lots of different ways and have been learning to blend it with another sound to make a  word – am which we then used in our writing. In term 2, we will be doing lots of blending of sounds to make 3 and 4 letter words.

   

 

Writing –

This week the children have been learning how to create a simple sentence using the common words they already know. The sentence was I am 4 or 5. In order to be successful the children had to use a capital letter, finger spacing and a full stop. Some impressive pictures below.

During smart-start the children have been using magnetic letters to make common words and then practiced writing the words on different coloured paper.

   

Reading –

Books we have really enjoyed this week include-

This is a lovely story about Billy who worries about everything. He worries so much that he can’t sleep. Luckily Grandma knows how to help him. She makes him a worry doll so that Billy can tell his doll all his worries and she will worry instead of him. It is a lovely story that the children really enjoyed and they loved seeing my worry doll (in the picture above).

The Colour Monster

This is a story about feelings and emotions. The colour monster in the book is feeling very mixed up. He is yellow, blue, red etc. (each of the colours represent an emotion e.g. yellow happiness etc.) the story helps the children to identify feelings and understand that we all experience different feelings and sometimes more than one at the same time. This linked to our weekly health and wellbeing activity.  We drew our own colour monsters using a guided drawing technique.

   

This week we revisited 8 and moved onto the number 9. The children have been learning different ways to make and partition 9 and have been displaying different combinations  on a ten frame. We are also continuing to develop subitising skills using dot patterns (the ability to recognise the number of objects in a group without counting them)- e.g. how many do you see and how do you see them? The children are definitely becoming more skilled in this area of numeracy.

I hope you all have a fantastic holiday, keep safe and I look forward to welcoming the children back on Wednesday the 21st.