A Very Busy Start to the Term in P3B

 

Welcome back everyone! We have had a very busy few weeks in P3B. We have been working hard to create posters about the “Zones of Regulation.” Each class has a chart and we use our names to show how we are feeling by placing our names in either the green, red, blue or yellow zones. This is a great way for us to talk about our feelings and we shared strategies that can help us regulate our emotions. We were so excited to visit P1 and P2/1 this week to share our learning with the younger children.

We had some great ideas, using our own experiences to help us. Many of us suggested strategies such as telling our trusted adult, taking deep breaths, taking five minutes to have some quiet time, brain breaks, write a note in our Worry Box, go to the Safe Space. The children were confident individuals as they spoke clearly and were eager to show the younger children the pictures on their posters. Well done everyone! Thank you so much to Mrs Murdoch, Ms Rutherford and the children in Primary 2/1 and Primary 1 for allowing us to come to your class.

 

This term, we are learning to summarise texts in Reading Comprehension and we are learning to write a Narrative text in Writing. We decided to link these two areas by summarising an example of well-known narrative texts. We had a choice between “Hansel and Gretel,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” Rapunzel” and ” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” We worked in random partners to read the text and write a short summary. We also had to write words down about who, what, why, where and when? This encouraged us to think about the Orientation section of a Narrative text.

In Maths, we have continued to consolidate our learning about Compass Directions. We practised all the directions we learned last term and worked in random partners to use compass directions on a map. One of our favourite days was when we took our learning outside. We try to take part in outdoor learning at least once a week if possible. Everyone was excited to practise compass directions in the playground and we used great vocabulary to demonstrate our learning.

Thank you to this amazing learner for volunteering to be our “human compass.” You did a great job following the directions you were given and you helped remind everyone about North West, South West, North East and South East.

We then played a game called “Captain’s Coming” where we had to listen to the instructions and use our learning about Compas    s Directions to help us. As you can see, we all really enjoyed our learning and we had a discussion to remind us the purpose of playing this game. Some of the children said it was helpful to have objects or areas as reference points in the playground to help them remember the directions.


Article 28: We have the right to learn.

Article 29: We have the right to develop our talents and abilities.

Article 13: We have the right to find out things and share what we think with others.

Article 12: We have the right to be heard.

 


Happy Red Nose Day! P2/1 had a great time dressing in red for Comic Relief today.

This week we have been learning to use tally marks to record information. We found out about our favourite animals and favourite toys. P2 have been dividing by 2 and P1 have been learning to ‘share equally’.

We read our reading books to our reading buddies in the library and P2 learned five new Word Boost words from The Tobermory Cat by Debi Gliori.

Literacy in P3B

 

We have been taking part in stations this week to help us read and write “ou” words.  We enjoyed our learning activities and could talk about how they help us to remember how to read and write our words.

We used play dough to make our words.

We completed a word search to help us read our words. We enjoyed trying to find our words, especially the ones that were hidden very well. Miss Marra gave us some extra words to challenge us too!

We also looked for our words in books. We then wrote the words we found using a strategy of our choice. Some of us chose to write our words on our Literacy Learning Wall.

Some of also practised writing our words in hieroglyphics to challenge ourselves further. We enjoyed linking our learning in Literacy with our Ancient Egyptian Topic.

 

Article 29: We have the right to develop our talents and abilities.

 

Snapshot of Learning in P3B

We have been taking part in “choral counting” in Number Talks. We count together as a class, usually skip counting, and then we look for patterns. Miss Marra asks us the questions “what do you notice? What do you wonder?” This gives us the chance to talk about patterns and share our strategies. In this choral count, we were skip counting in 3’s.

I noticed all the number going up in order, adding 3 each time.   Lexi

The first digit of each number gets higher to show that the numbers are getting higher e.g. 1, 2, 3.  Struan

I noticed that in the bottom row when you add the digit in each number together, they make either 6 or 9.    Finlay

 


 

We are continuing to practise reading and writing Fry’s words in class. On the weeks when we are working on a Phonics sound, we still practise reading and writing Fry’s words during Smart Start. We love writing our words on the desks because it is a fun way to write them and it helps us to practise spelling them correctly.

 

We are enjoying our Ancient Egyptian Topic and we have been provided with opportunities to lead our own learning. We asked Miss Marra if we could learn more about mummification so we watched a video, explaining the process and then we had a go ourselves. We mummified dolls and we even had a go mummifying our partners. Luckily no organs were removed! We remembered to start from the head down.  Two of the most important skills we had to use were communication and teamwork. This is what we said about our learning.

I loved it so much because it was so much fun!   Aria

That was so good. I remembered to start at the head.   Tyler

I started at the feet by mistake but then I started again and remembered to start at the head.    Isla

I’ve learned more about what mummification is and how they do it.   Emmi

I already knew lots of facts about this but I liked sharing what I know.   Peter

Article 13: We have the right to find out things and share what we think with others.

P3B Literacy

We are learning to write an explanation text. We have been working hard to explore the features of an explanation text and this week, we created our own. We used our “magic box” to choose a random partner and we wrote our first explanation text on the desks. We love writing on the desks with white board pens.

We explored “why a police officer’s job is important.” We worked together as a class to create each section of our explanation text and we wrote our sentences with connectives and the correct punctuation. We also took pictures of our writing and displayed them on the smart board to help us talk about our learning. We are excited to plan and write a new explanation text in our Literacy jotters next week.

Article 13: We have the right to find out things and share what we think with others.

 


We take part in Guided Reading on a regular basis throughout the week in P3B. Sometimes, we work with Miss Marra in our Reading group and we take part in “Echo Reading” or “Choral Reading.” We also identify words in a text and ask and answer questions about the book. We also love taking part in Paired Reading with a partner. This helps us to develop our independence and support each other with reading. We read our reading book; however, we sometimes choose a book of our choice too.

Article 29: We have the right to develop our talents and abilities.


Learning inP2/1

This week has been Scots Week at East Calder. P2/1 have enjoyed listening to stories about Katie Morag. We were really surprised and excited to receive a letter from her! She was asking us to design a new tartan skirt. Her one had been ruined when she was trying to deliver the mail. We used our fine motor skills to use a ruler and created these fantastic tartans.
In music we’ve been learning to keep a steady beat by clapping and dancing along to Scottish music. This is our favourite song:

https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/songs-and-rhymes/katie-bairdie-audio

We did a brilliant job of reciting our poems in Scots and are really looking forward to hearing all the winners at our Scots school assembly next Friday.

(Article 28: We have the right to learn. Article 29: We have the right to develop our skills and abilities.)

 

P3a Handwriting

Every Friday we work on our handwriting. We practice our letters lots of different ways – white boards, smart board, jotters and wipe clean boards.  We work on our letter formation so that we do it correctly in all of our work. Later on this year we will start to join letters so really need to be writing them the correct way.

Literacy in P3B

We love a challenge in P3B! This morning, we took part in a new learning activity to practise reading and writing our Fry’s words. We learned how to create a word search. We each created our own word search, however; we worked with a partner and Miss Marra saw lots of great teamwork. In Smart Start tomorrow, we are going to ask another group to find the words. We enjoyed our learning and would like to do more word searches to practise reading and writing our words.

Article 13: We have the right to find out things and share what we think with others.

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