This week we have been excited to welcome our P1 parents for our Peephole into Play sessions. The children really enjoyed welcoming you into our classroom and sharing their learning experiences with you. Here’s what the children had to say:-

Ethan “I loved my dad and mum coming to school and playing with me.”

Dexter “I showed my mum my train made out of lego and duplo.”

Jack “I was having fun playing the dog game on the laptops.”

Rory “I liked my mum coming. I made her food in the home area and we looked at minibeasts. Mum didn’t believe that butterflies have legs. ”

George “I showed mum around the classroom and did some writing.”

Kyle “I liked playing with the lego with my gran. We made a big lego house.”

Our learning about Minibeasts has continued this week with great enthusiasm and Jack confidently explained about metamorphosis when the pre-schoolers came to visit. The pre-schoolers told us they have caterpillars in the ELC playroom and we are excited about the possibility of going to see them. We listened to the story ‘Twist and Hop Minibeast Bop’ and discussed different kinds of minibeasts. You can listen to the story again here.  We were listening out for rhyming words and were very impressed with how well the pre-schoolers could identify rhyming words.

Cara reminded us that in writing we had to cut out the different stages of a butterfly’s life cycle and put them in the correct order before writing about what happens at each stage. Georgia said she enjoyed when we designed our own bee and butterfly gardens. A few of the children’s comments about our minibeast learning:-

Cara “I enjoyed making a bug hotel for all the lego insects.”

Dylan “I enjoyed looking at the minibeast bodies in the tuff tray.”

Theo “We have been learning about the thorax and the abdomen and the head.”

As Thursday was Outdoor Classroom Day we took some time to appreciate the outdoors and used our senses to tune in to the world around us. We sat quietly for 3 mins and then wrote a list of all the things we could hear. While in the garden we took some time to look at the P6s pocket garden. They have planted some mint and when you rub it your fingers smelled like mint. We talked about some plants that you can eat and some that you can’t. (Poppy)

Other comments about our learning this week:-

Minny “I liked learning how to count in 2s, 5s and 10s.”

Mohnish “I enjoyed the lego and building a cafe.”

In PE we have been learning tennis. Kaylan said “It’s kinda tricky trying to bounce the ball with the racket.”

Cara “I enjoyed tennis.”

Kade “I liked playing Galactic Pugs.”

Theo “Mrs Fraser taught us about equal groups.”

It’s been an exciting week as we have begun to learn about Minibeasts. We have been learning the different parts of an insect and know that an insect’s body is made up of three parts; the head, the thorax and the abdomen.

We thought about the different habitats where we might find minibeasts and matched minibeasts to their habitats.  We also learned some new vocabulary when we learned that minibeasts are cold blooded and sometimes go into a state of diapause which Poppy told us “means the insects stop being active until it is warmer again”. We understand that Metamorphosis is the process when an insect changes from a young insect to an adult. A good example is when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly and Theo explains this beautifully when he said “They wrap themselves in a chrysalis and then change into a butterfly. It needs to pump the liquid into its wings to make them strong enough to fly.” We learned how to use a classification key which involved lots of great discussion as some of us didn’t know that butterflies had legs. We particularly enjoyed singing this song, perhaps you could practise it again at home!

In  phonics P1 have been learning the sounds ‘ai’ and ‘oa’ and enjoyed playing a robot game to practise these sounds. The children were also very good at identifying rhyming words with these sounds. P2 were learning about alphabetical order and were putting lots of different minibeasts in order according to their first and second letters.

This week we have been practising our handwriting and been working hard to form upper and lower case D and E correctly.

In maths we have been learning about volume and capacity and are now confident to measure and compare the volumes of different containers.

We enjoyed listening to P1s assembly all about their journey through play. Minny was impressed with how confident they spoke into the microphone.

Here are a few of the children’s highlights this week:-

Poppy “I liked learning about minibeasts and I didn’t know that butterflies had feet and I liked learning about volume. I know volume is about how much liquid can get into the glass.”

Theo “Labelling the parts of an insect was pretty hard.”

Kade “I enjoyed learning about volume and capacity.”

Rory “I liked playing in the building area and building a castle and a camper van.”

We’ve had another busy week and are looking forward to the long weekend, please remember school is closed to all children on Monday. We are also closed to school children on Thursday as staff have an in-service day.

This week P2 have begun the Read Write Inc (RWI) Spelling Pre-Programme in preparation for beginning RWI Spelling Programme in Primary 3. This week we have focused on singular and plural and consonants and vowels. We have also learned that there are 26 letters in the alphabet and 44 speech sounds in the English language. We all enjoyed singing along to this song. Primary 1 have continued to learn their set 3 sounds and are becoming much more confident with blending these sounds together to build words.

In Writing we wrote about what makes us happy and Mrs Clyne was impressed with how well we were able to self-evaluate our work and identify our next steps.

In Maths we have completed our length and height topic and have begun to investigate mass. We have been measuring the mass of different items and then comparing the mass of objects using ‘lighter’ and ‘heavier’. We have also been practising our number word sequences to 50 and enjoyed singing along to this song.

In PE this week we have been developing our fitness through mini-fitness stations and running laps of the school field.

Miss Whigham set us a challenge to build a bridge from lego. Some of the children worked co-operatively and with a very focused approach constructed a strong and stable bridge, unfortunately we missed the opportunity for a photo before someone kindly tidied away the lego!

In our Health and Wellbeing lesson we had a super discussion about People Who Help and Look After Us. We talked about all the different people who care for us and all the specific things they do to show they care for us. We remembered our Trusted Adults that we have in school for times when we are feeling worried and we linked our learning to Children’s Rights as it is our right to be cared for.

Have a lovely holiday weekend and we look forward to seeing the children back on Tuesday 3rd May.

Theo “We had fun watching the video about the Magic Key.”

Poppy “We were measuring weight and we were learning about what’s heavier or lighter.” I enjoyed using the measurement toys.”

Dexter ” I enjoyed doing the bridges contest because it was fun.”

Minny “I had fun when we had the measurement toys out.”

Kade “We learned that singular means one and plural means more than one. Me and Theo were building a Jurassic world out of lego.”

Cooper “I enjoyed helping build the Jurassic world monorail. The monorail is like a train but not a normal rail. It goes on tracks which are inside water.”

Ethan “I liked building the monorail with Cooper.”

Can you believe we are in term 4 already! It’s going to be a busy term ahead with lots of learning and fun times. Please see the below links for our P1 and P2 Window into Learnings which will give details on the specific areas of learning for the children.

LVPS P2-1, P1 Window into Learning Term 4

LVPS P2-1, P2 Window into Learning Term 4

Welcome back, we hope you all had a lovely Easter break. This week the children have enjoyed sharing their news from the holidays. It has been lovely to see their confidence when talking to their peers as they shared their news. We also held spontaneous talks about our family.

In Phonics P2 have been learning about silent letters with a particular focus on w and b. Mrs Clyne was impressed when Cara spotted some silent letters during one of our reading sessions. P1 have been continuing to learn set 3 sounds and focused on oa, a-e, i-e, o-e and u-e. They were successful learners when they used their knowledge of phonics to build words with these sounds.

In Maths P2 have been continuing to develop their understanding of length by measuring using centimetres and considering length within addition problems. P1 have been further developing their understanding of number bonds to 20 and enjoyed exploring these using Numicon.

As a school we have been learning about Children’s Rights and on Tuesday some of our class joined children from across the school to take part in an interview about our work on Children’s Rights. We were all delighted to hear today that the school had been awarded Silver Level accreditation for the Rights Respecting Schools Award.

Today we had a whole school assembly where we learned about Earth Day. Earth Day was founded to make people think about the Earth and how to look after it. This year’s theme is Invest in Our Planet. We talked about lots of ways we can help to look after the Earth including planting more trees, walking to school, litter picking and recycling. We also enjoyed learning a new song about how we can make a difference.

During our assembly Mrs Smith told us about World Vision  and their Child Sponsorship programme. Over recent years, the school has been supporting a boy called Mulageta but he has now grown up and does not need our help anymore so we have a new sponsor, a 5yr old boy called Amza Augustine. We will be thinking about different ways that we can raise money to support Amza, his family and the village where he lives.

Today some children were acknowledged for their excellent treehouse designs for the Chief Forester’s Challenge STEM Competition 2022. Here is the picture of those who received certificates in our class.

We hope you have had a lovely week and enjoy a restful weekend.

Miss Whigham and Mrs Clyne

Today marks the end of another busy term and we had great fun participating in our 2nd Digi Day. Thanks to our Digi Champs for planning such fun activities and to our P7 leaders for supporting us in our play. We have been playing Sumdog on the iPads and laptops, feeding Easter eggs to the teddy in the game Teddy Numbers on the Smartboard and tried to build a tower to hold an egg. We also had a visit from some P5s who had been busy building a vehicle and let us try it out!

This week we have been learning about Needs and Wants and considering Children’s Rights. We know that we need clean air, water, clothing, shelter and medicine to survive so these are the things we need. We discussed the things we would like to make life more comfortable and some of us wanted tvs, phones and computers. I wonder how many of us could live without these if we had to?

Our P7 leaders came to talk about Sustainability Goals and in particular Zero Hunger, they gave us a super presentation. We discussed that some people do not have much food and that we should be grateful for what we have to eat and not waste food. We talked about how some people do not have much food and need to use Foodbanks, we can help by giving donations to the Foodbank if we are able to.

In Literacy, we continued with revising set 2 and set 3 sounds and the P2s were practising words with consonant blends. In Numeracy, we have continued to practise our number bonds to 20 and we have begun to explore measure using a ruler.

In RME we were learning about why we celebrate Easter.  Theo reminded us that “Easter is a celebration of Jesus’ sacrifice” and Ethan told us that people celebrate by having egg hunts. Cooper reminded us that “the egg is for the stone that was rolled away”.

Our Almondell House winners enjoyed a lovely egg hunt in the school garden and also enjoyed some Easter crafts in the gym hall.

Miss Whigham and I would like to wish all our children and families a very happy and safe Easter and we look forward to seeing the children back on Tuesday 19th April.

Today we were very excited to lead our first ever class assembly. We chose the theme of Mother’s Day because this Sunday is when we celebrate Mother’s Day in the UK and we can say thanks to our mums for everything they do for us. We drew some lovely pictures of our mums and told our audience why our mums are special to us. These are just some of the reasons we gave.

“My mum is special because we do lots of fun things together.” Cara

“My mum is special because she is kind to me.” Mohnish

“My mum is special because she cuts my hair and she is the best cook ever. She gives me brand new toys.” Dexter

“My mum is really funny. She plays pranks on me and tells me jokes and it makes me laugh.” Ethan

“My mum is special because she takes care of me and my family.” Dylan

“My mum is special because she makes yummy breakfast for me.” Jack

These are some of the beautiful pictures we drew of our mums.

As part of our assembly we learned some new songs but our favourite one was The Mother’s Day Song, have a listen and you’ll see all the great ways (or not!) we can help our mums. We have also been busy creating a special surprise for our mums which we are sure they are going to love!

In Numeracy this week we have practised odd and even numbers, revisited number bonds to 20 and begun to explore measurement by considering length and height. We had great fun trying to find items which were shorter and longer than a spoon and then we practised measuring different items in the classroom using non-standard units from around the class.

In literacy we have been revising our Set 2 and Set 3 sounds with a particular focus on consonant blends ng and nk for P2 and the split digraph i-e for P1. We have also been practising our red words to build up our fluency in reading. If you have time please practise these at home by clicking on this link, red-words.

This week we have been enjoying the lovely weather and we hope the sunshine continues over the weekend for our Mums’ special day! Have a great weekend.