Category: School Updates

As part of our whole school Health and Wellbeing  programme  “JIGSAW” , our theme for this block of time is “Dreams and Goals”.

P3/4 were given the challenge of designing their Dream Garden including each child creating a building/ area of their own choosing eg a games area, tree house, outside cafe etc.

Continuing the challenge this week, the class were asked to do a tour- appointing a spokesperson and writer – but were given only written instructions and only 10 minutes to discuss and prepare! This was a difficult and sometimes frustrating task, and afterwards we discussed how we deal with frustrations as part of developing our skills in collaborating and team work. Mrs Stewart went on the tours with the class and agreed that the designs were very creative and that it would be amazing if we could make the designs into real gardens!

The JIGSAW programme suggests a “SOLVE IT!” approach and we were able to incorporate this new learning in our Writing task on Thursday. The challenge then was to write about an Adventure in the Dream Garden! The groups had to again work closely, sharing ideas and creating a collaborative piece of writing.

We have since created a display of our new vocabulary alongside our finished Dream Gardens!                                          

It has been another exciting week in Primary one. Firstly our class won the weekly peg challenge. Pegs can be awarded by any member of staff (except their own teacher) for a number of reasons, it can be for excellent work, displaying our school values or for completing a challenge. It is the first time this year we have won and our reward is an extra playtime if the weather ever improves.

This week we welcomed 2 new members into our Deans family. We have 2 beautiful baby guinea pigs! More are due any day from our other pregnant mummy guinea pig.

Health and Wellbeing

This week we have been focusing on our “Dreams and Goals” We are going to create a display explaining what they are and how we hope to achieve them.

Some of their goals included learning to swim, being a better friend, developing good listening skills etc. I will keep you updated as we think a little more about how we can achieve these goals.

Literacy

We are continuing to develop our independent writing skills. Most children are now using our tricky word wall and alphabet strips. We tried hard to write instruction about how to build a snowman and to write more detailed sentences describing who, what they were doing and where.

Numeracy

This week we have begun looking at subtraction. It has been introduced in a very practical and active way. We shall continue to focus on this skill and I am hopeful that the children will make the connection between addition and subtraction quickly.

I hope you all enjoy the long weekend and I look forward to seeing the children on Wednesday 19th.

On Thursday afternoon we had our second visit from Katy’s mum, who shares a local cake decorating and sweets business with her sister, called “M and S “.

Katy’s mum visited previously when we set up our class “Crafty!” business to discuss logos, branding , advertising and budgeting.

On this occasion, she returned to share some of the skills herself and her sister  use when decorating cakes, which are made to order.

Everyone in P 6/7 had 2 cupcakes to decorate and a huge range of icing, sweets, fudge and sprinkles of various kinds to decorate with. Most popular- and most challenging -was using the piping bags! For fun, we had an in-class design competition to encourage creativity.

The class and Miss Taylor would like to say thanks so much for the generosity shown, in providing all of the resources and sharing expertise!

The children continued their block of athletics in P.E this week. We explored they different ways in which to throw objects depending on their weight and size. We have linked this to our knowledge of force and motion in science.

We have also continued to work with P3 in our ‘Oor wee tour of Scotland’ topic. We worked hard this week to finish our leaflets, posters and fact files that are full of fantastic and interesting facts about these wonderful cities in the past and present. This allowed the children to showcase their collaborative and communication skills, by helping and listening to others ideas and using all these great suggestions in their work.

In R.E this week the children were introduced to the six key beliefs of Islam and also explored the five pillars of this faith. The children did a fantastic job of working in their groups to act out each of these five pillars.

To end our fantastic week we had our participation Friday. We were lucky enough to get a visit from S3 pupils from Dean’s Community High School. They had come in to help the P3/4 children explore ‘My World of Work’. This resource provides children with the opportunity to create a work profile. This links in to Deans Primary Schools focus on work skills 4.0. The children really enjoyed answering questions about their personality and  traits. At the end of this the children are given an animal that best fits them, this is also followed by different career suggestions that the children’s skills would work well in. After the children had completed this on their ‘My World of Work’ profile the children then drew themselves in the career that grabbed their interest the most and they drew their animal logo at the top. Well done P3/4 you were all brilliant during participation Friday and have done Deans proud!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

This week we have been working hard to become more independent learners. We have focused on strategies that we could use when writing to help us become more independent. The main strategies we have found to be most useful are using a wordbank, an alphabet strip and attempting to sound out words phonetically. The children have done so well and are becoming more confident and willing to “give it a go”. Some examples below.

Hamish McHaggis

We have just about come to the end of our tour of Scotland with Hamish. The children have really enjoyed it. This week we drew pictures of Nessie and tried to think about words to describe her. The children thought she was beautiful, shy, friendly, enormous etc.

We also tried to plot some towns and cities he had visited on a map of Scotland.

Also a big thank you to Elizabeth who along with her mum made this beautiful tartan handbag.

Developing the Young Workforce

Children are becoming more confident when leading learning and are now more readily volunteering.  We are working on the skills required to lead e.g. good listening, fairness, encouraging members of their team etc.

Children have also been trying to work collaboratively with each other and developing turn taking as well as listening and talking skills.

Numeracy Challenge

This week the children worked in small groups. They had to add 2 numbers together and display the answer using dots patterns.

Have a lovely weekend!