Category: Session 2020-2021

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.

 

 

 

Literacy

 

This week we started Early Literacy Focus (ELF) which means that the children will now be working in small groups with an adult for all literacy activities.

In spelling this week, we were learning a new sound through rainbow writing, practising our words on a whiteboard and using the words in a sentence. We also played spelling pairs with our partner.

We were learning about persuasive writing this week. We were persuading the reader that Halloween is fun.

 

Maths

We were learning about odd and even numbers. We were learning how to work out if big numbers are odd or even. We learned that when a number is in the hundreds, we just need to look at the ones to work out if it is odd or even.

 

IDL

Our new topic is the Vikings. We were learning that in the Shetland Islands they have a festival called Up Helly Aa. It is held on the last Tuesday in January to celebrate the Viking heritage and welcome in Spring.

 

 

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.

Welcome to our P1A blog. We have had another really busy week in Primary One. The children have used a  number of different materials and techniques to create some fantastic Autumn art . Some pictures below.

The children finished our  Autumn display by creating acorns. They made them by using sponge paints and collage.

We had great fun making Autumn Sun-Catchers. The children cut and sorted tissue paper and arranged the paper inside a leaf shape. I laminated them. All we need now is some Autumn sun to create the desired affect!

To create the prickles for our hedgehogs the children used plastic forks dipped in paint. We think this technique was really effective.

Literacy –

This week we have focused on the “p” sound as well as common words “the, A and I”. We have played “p” bingo and used our coloured cats to determine where in a word we hear the “p” sound.

   

 

Writing –

This week the children were asked to draw a picture of themselves. They had to add lots of detail e.g. eyebrows, fingers, etc. and the picture had to have all the relevant body parts. The aim was to get them to think about using descriptive language e.g.  I have long brown hair/ blue eyes etc. Some examples below.

We have also been busy making our own zig-zag books which sequence the life-cycle of an oak tree.

Numeracy –

In numeracy we are continuing to focus on numbers to 10. This week we have been exploring different ways to make numbers using a variety of concrete materials.

Health and Wellbeing

As part of our Jigsaw recovery programme  the children were asked to think about what they are looking forward to learning now they are back at school.

Katie said “I am looking forward to writing more numbers and I feel happy when I do this”

Liam said “I am looking forward to learning how to draw and add more details and I will feel good and happy”

Conlon said “I am looking forward to learning how to write all my letters correctly and that will make me feel good and happy”

 

I hope you all have a lovely weekend! More updates next week.