For the last couple of weeks we have had a focus on problem solving and life skills.
The children were set different challenges in the Block Play and were able to focus and work as a team to create some wonderful buildings.
Eoin was also helping Mr F fix his bike. He was able to assist taking the chain and the wheel off and Mr F managed to cycle home with a fixed bike!! Great team work!
We were fortunate enough to have a visit from West Lothian Museum services this week. Linking with our current Social Studies context we enjoyed an afternoon of Victorian artefacts! The class were allowed to handle a lot of the items and were amazed to see how things have progressed since Victorian times, even though we have the Victorians to thank for some of the amazing inventions that we use today. It was interesting to see that the Victorians used an abacus in Arithmetic similar to the concrete materials we use in Numeracy today.
This was a great springboard for our Victorian context as it led to discussions about Victorian inventions, housing and lifestyle to name but a few. We will be linking this learning to our current Literacy theme of creating a recount, the ability to retell and evaluate an experience. The Museum Service have kindly agreed to attend our Sharing the Learning in March so come along and see if you can identify the purpose of our Victorian artefacts, remember your child is now an expert!
Our Class novel is Hag Storm. It is written by Victoria Williamson. Hag Storm is based on the life of Robert Burns and one of his most famous poems, Tam O’Shanter. The class did really well to identify some of the similarities not only with the characters but also the way both writers built suspense through their vocabulary choices. Linking to some of the activities we enjoyed during Scots Week we identified Scots language within the novel and created a glossary.
We all had a go at learning a Scots language poem. Our favourite poems were both written by the same poet, Gregor Steele. The first one was called When Granda got the Internet and the second interestingly titled When Squirrels Tak Ower the Warld. Well done to everyone who gave them such a good go.
This week we took part in lots of different learning. We engaged with Fischy Music Scot’s concert and even got a ‘shout out’ from the presenters. We listened to some short stories in Scot’s, including The Boy in the Bunnet, and thought about all the Scot’s words we knew. We thought about and drew what the Loch Ness Monster might look like. We learned and recited a Scot’s poem to the class. We learned about Scot’s words for different parts of the body and sang Heid, shoulders, knaps & taes.
Happy New Year to you all!
Please find attached the Nursery Newsletter for January. We look forward to welcoming those of you who can make it, to our next ‘Stay and Play’ on the week beginning the 4th March.
We have been continuing to look at a new sound in phonics and this week we focused on the ‘use’ sound. We are still working on division in numeracy and are looking at symmetry and measuring in maths. We enjoy using Epic on the IPads to read a variety of books. It has been great learning more about our Space topic and learning about stars and galaxies as this was what the pupils wanted to learn. We also worked on what doubles we knew in our Number talk this week. We got a lot of interesting numbers.
We were learning to use the correct word in past tense. Some words were easy and we just had to add ‘ed’ when we changed it to past tense, like look & looked. Others were harder as the word changed, like drive & drove. We all chose a card and then had to find our different tense partner. Then we had to write a sentence using each of the words correctly.
We chose our new historical topic of Romans after Christmas. Today we worked with random partner to find out facts about Romans. We were also looking for when in history they lived and what language they spoke. We found out that Roman Empire was from 625BC to 476AD and they spoke Latin.
We have been learning to create fractions in shapes and we have also been learning to divide numbers by 2, 3 and 4. We have been using the Numeracy Tools to help us make the calculation and then we share our strategies. We then write the calculation to show the link between the concrete and abstract approach.
We have to make sure everyone has an equal amount. Colin
It is easier to divide the counters equally by sharing them one at a time. Jamie
I used my times tables to help me. Ellie
If we haven’t got an equal amount we can check again and we can notice if we have counted too many or something. Lilly Rose
We enjoy leading our own learning and we were so excited to do this on Wednesday. The council were cutting down a tree in the playground and we were so fascinated by what was going on. We kept going to the window and Miss Marra decided to take us out to the playground to have a closer look. We enjoyed talking about what was happening and why it was happening. We also drew pictures with chalk to show what we could see.
Back in the classroom, we looked at photos that we took on one of the ipads while we were outside and we talked about what we could see. We asked lots of questions and shared our knowledge of why trees are so important. It was then time for Numeracy and Miss Marra adapted our learning to make it relevant to our interest.
We worked on this word problem in random partners to support us with learning division:
40 new trees are going to be planted in four different fields. The council would like the same number of tree planted in each field. How many trees would need to be planted in each field to make it equal?
We then realised the division calculation is 40 divided by 4 = ? We shared counters equally in random partners and worked out that 10 trees would need to be planted in each field. Some of us knew the answer straight away but we enjoyed using the tools to show the calculation and help our partner. We were challenged with different numbers and calculations which we then solved and shared with everyone. We all agreed that we really enjoyed our learning.
Article 12: We have the right to be heard
Article 13: We have the right to find out things and share what we think with others.
‘This week we have been learning about number bonds to 10 or 20 or 100’ Alfie.
‘This week we have been counting in twos’ Alexus.
‘In our science topic, we were learning about the Earth. There are houses and trees. It is the third planet from the Sun.’ Kayla.
‘We were talking about healthy foods. I drew grapes, fish and turkey on my healthy plate’ Finlay.
‘We were making the solar system’ .
‘I painted one side of the paper, then I folded it and when I opened it, there was a butterfly’ Mia.
‘I made a crab’ Ralph.
We are learning to divide. As a class we used a PowerPoint to help us share 15 cupcakes between 3 people. We had to place the cupcakes on cakes, one on the first, one on the second, one on the third, next one back on to the first plate etc. we found out the answer was 5. Next we shared 30 apples between 10 plates. We continued this with different calculations. Then we were split into random partners. Using cubes we worked on 12/3, 12/2,12/4 and then 18/2 & 18/3. We noticed that division links to multiplication and our times tables.
We have been learning to write extended, more interesting sentences. To help with this we looked at pictures and were to describe them. We started by thinking about the nouns we could see in the picture. Then we wrote adjectives to go with each noun. Then we use some of these words in a sentence. We completed the first one as a class. Then we were split into random partners and looked at a new picture. We wrote our nouns, adjectives and then sentences on our desks. Now we need to remember this any time we are writing sentences and try to make them better by adding in adjectives and connectives.
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