All posts by Miss McDermott

Having lots of fun teaching and learning with P2/1!
Eco-School, Food Technology, Global Citizenship, Health and Wellbeing, P1, Uncategorized

P1c One Planet Picnic – 27 Sept

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Today we enjoyed preparing our Scottish Cheddar cheese and Linlithgow apples grown in Iona’s garden for the One Planet Picnic. As you can see in the photographs we all took turns at cutting and putting the cheese and apples on the cocktail sticks.  Thank goodness we have been practising our fine motor skills over the last few weeks – we were all fantastic and no one got jabbed or stabbed! The best part however, was getting to eat  the snack at the picnic where we also had some Scottish oatcakes and some carrots which had been harvested from the school garden with a little help from Mrs Spori!

Unfortunately due to the weather the picnic was in the hall.

Here are some photographs of different activities that we have been doing over the last few weeks to help develop our fine motor skills.

 

 

 

P1, Social Studies

P1a Visit to Botanic Gardens

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Today we visited the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh to learn why SWAF is important for bears and animals.  SWAF stands for SHELTER, WATER, AIR and FOOD.  We enjoyed taking part in lots of games and activities and of course the teddy bear’s picnic (which unfortunately had to be indoors due to the weather).

A big thank you to Mrs Fullerton for joining us at short notice after I had sent letters saying that we would not need parent helpers today.

 

Dance, Health and Wellbeing, P1, Uncategorized

Health & Wellbeing Week in P1a

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This week we have taken part in lots of different activities to help us learn about improving our health and wellbeing.

On Monday morning we practised our movement skills playing games at Enjoy-a Ball with Paul.

In the afternoon, we had great fun learning dance moves with some girls from P7 – we were even able to show off some of our own dance moves as we love dancing in P1a!

On Tuesday we had a more relaxing day with Amy from Relax Kids. We learned how to control our breathing and keep calm if we were feeling worried or upset.   We also got to lie down and relax while Amy told us a lovely relaxing story.

Wednesday was a lovely sunny day and our first, very exciting sports day at Linlithgow Primary School.  Miss McDermott was too busy picking up javelins to take very many photographs!

All week we have been recording the number of healthy snacks we have been eating. On Thursday we talked about what we thought were healthy foods.  We worked in groups to sort foods in to groups of eat more and eat less.

Lots of us also brought our bikes and scooters to school and enjoyed taking part in the obstacle course.

Before assembly on Friday we discussed getting help in an emergency and when it is appropriate to call to 999.  We enjoyed taking part in some role play however lots us don’t know our home addresses which is perhaps some homework for the holidays!!

Community, P1, Religious and Moral Education

P1 Church Visit to St Ninian’s Craigmailen Church

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This morning both P1 classes visited St Ninian’s Craigmailen Church. We met Mr Houston the minister and were able to ask him lots of questions.

We took along our baby doll “Louis” so that Mr Houston could  show us what happens at a Baptism ceremony.  We learned that it is not just babies that get baptised and that the oldest person Mr Houston has baptised was 72!

When we returned to school we had a small party to celebrate with cake and a glass of lemonade. There was lots of toasting “baby Louis and the proud parents and Godparents”

Thank you very much to all of the parents who joined us this morning and to Mr Houston for welcoming us to the Church.

Art, Creativity, Digital Technology, Drama, P1, Uncategorized

P1a – Learning Update 9th May

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Last week we enjoyed taking part in a variety of activities with  Louisa from the Drama Box and Miss McDermott is going to be trying some more of these with us in class – although perhaps not learning how to speak “banana”!

We are enjoying using the new ipads to support our learning  in literacy and numeracy although everyone has not yet had a turn and we are also learning to be patient.

For art this week we read the story The Day the Crayons Quit and then worked with a partner to draw pictures using the wrong coloured crayons.

Our famous artist this week was Henri Matisse. We looked at some of his paintings but also some of his famous “cut out” art work too.

We then used only coloured paper, scissors and glue to make our own amazing and very colorful Matisse style pictures.

Unfortunately over the last week we haven’t been very quick at getting organised in the mornings and this is important as on Tuesdays we have Music first thing with Mrs McWhirter and on Thursdays we have French with Ms Hussain.  Miss McDermott said we were “as slow as treacle” but none of us really knew what treacle was.

On Friday morning for snack we had a little treat – pancakes with treacle! We were able to see how slowly the treacle dripped off the spoon and of course the best part was we got to taste it.  As you will see from the photographs – most of us actually quite liked it, despite what you might have thought!

Art, P1, Science, Uncategorized

This week in P1a – 20th April

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This term we will be learning all about famous artists and we started this week by learning about Picasso.  We read a story about Picasso and then we looked at some of his famous works including paintings and sculptures and talked about what we liked and disliked.

Then we created some our of own Picasso style faces as you can see below!

We learned that when Picasso was sad he painted using lots of shades of blue.  We mixed different shades of blue paint and created our own “Blue Period” Picasso art gallery.

In Science we are still learning about forces so as the weather was nice we went outside to do an investigation.  We worked in teams to find out which ball would travel the furthest down the ramp but first of all we had to make sure we were doing a “fair test”.  All of the teams predicted a different ball but in the end we found out the same result and the tennis ball was the winner!

Food Technology, Mathematics, P1, Science

P1a Lego, Marmalade and Science Week – 18th March

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Since we started in P1 we have been practising our fine motor skills to make the muscles in our hands and fingers stronger.  We do this in lots of different ways and in lots of different curricular areas.  For example – using scissors for cutting, using the tweezers for picking things up, finger painting, threading things such as beads etc. The photos below show just some of these and the results of all this practice – look at how fantastic we are getting at handwriting!

 

In maths we are continuing to add and subtract numbers within 10 and one of our favourite activities at the moment is a Lego game where we have to add or take away bricks.  The winner is the person with the largest tower.

Miss McDermott had bought a new book about Paddington Bear in London when she was there at the February weekend. We enjoyed listening to the story but lots of us hadn’t tried Paddington’s favourite snack – marmalade sandwiches.

With Mrs Smith’s help, we made a selection of different marmalade sandwiches and had a little tasting session. You will see from the photographs we had a visitor in the middle of the tasting session!   We then collected the data about our favourites and used this to create a chart.  Miss McDermott also showed us how you can do this on the computer – much quicker!

This week was British Science Week and our focus was on different things that can be pushed  and pulled.  We linked this to our reading as we used a non fiction book to follow instructions and make a “bug” that worked by pulling the strings to make it move. We also practised our fine motor skills as we had to cut and thread.

 

 

 

Health and Wellbeing, P1, Parents

P1a Health and Wellbeing Showcase

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Here are the powerpoint presentation and photographs of our stand at the recent Health and Wellbeing Showcase held in school.  It was deliberately quite simple so that the children were able to talk about what they had been learning without any adult help.  Thank you to everyone who came along, especially in the afternoon when the children were at the stand talking about their learning.

HWB PPT showcase

 

Global Citizenship, International Education, Literacy, P1, Social Studies

P1a China topic activities – 28th February

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This term as well as learning about Scotland we have been learning about China too and as you will know this was the theme for our fantastic assembly.

We have  watched a video about primary schools in China and we saw that the children painted their numbers and this was something that we wanted to try.  However it wasn’t quite as easy as it looked on the video!

We also made a Chinese shape puzzle called a tangram.  It is made of 7 pieces that fit together but can also be used to make lots of other shapes and silhouettes but they must not overlap. Even though we cut up our own puzzles – only 2 of us could put them back together again! We did all persevere though and didn’t give up  or complain when we found it hard.  We have been talking a lot about growth mindset and this task was a good example of having to keep trying different ways and think positively.

Below is a link to an online tangram puzzle that you can try.

http://www.abcya.com/tangrams.htm

                

This week our story writing also had a Chinese theme.  We have noticed that lots of the stories we have been reading include dragons so decided to write our own dragon stories.  At the start of our writing lessons we always share our ideas with our elbow partners for 5 minutes.  We  have a special cat timer to let us know when the 5 minutes is up and we then share our ideas with the rest of the class before we draw our pictures and write our stories.

You will be able to read more of our stories in our jotters at the Parents’ meetings in March.

Digital Technology, Food Technology, Health and Wellbeing, P1, P6, Social Studies, Technology

Internet Safety Day and Mango Tasting in P1a!

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This week we have been talking about what we think the internet is! (Please note – all of the children took part in the discussion but they did not all want to be filmed!)

https://vimeo.com/254561251

https://vimeo.com/254561289

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https://vimeo.com/254561701

https://vimeo.com/254561743

We played some games with our buddies about staying safe when using the internet.  The games included talking about things like not sharing passwords or logins and what to do if something pop ups on the screen and you don’t know what it is or don’t like it.   We have learned that we should always tell a grown up.  Here are some photos of us playing the internet safety game with our buddies.

The buddies also helped us to play another game which was  all about emotions –  which as you will probably know is something else we are learning about this term.  Hopefully we will now be able to play this game in the classroom with each other.

We are enjoying learning all about China and rehearsals are well underway for our assembly next week.  Miss McDermott read a famous Chinese story all about the Monkey King.

In the story, the monkeys eat mangoes and collect them from the trees.  Lots of us hadn’t seen or tried mango so today for a little treat we had mango for snack.  Some of us helped Mrs Smith to cut up the mango ( and remembered our good handwashing skills first).  We did a quick hands up survey and most of us seemed to enjoy it – just like the monkeys in the story!!!

 

 

 

Health and Wellbeing, P1, Science, Thinking Skills, Uncategorized

This week’s learning in P1a – 26 January

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It has been another very busy week in P1a!

This week as part of our  health and wellbeing curriculum we learned all about germs and the importance of washing our hands properly.  Here is the video we watched and discussed in class – it’s got quite a catchy little song at the end too!

We practised washing our hands and singing the song  and now that we are “germbusters” hopefully we will all stay healthy.

Well done to the boys and girls who sang the handwashing song as they washed their hands!

https://vimeo.com/253504988

This week’s team challenge had a winter theme,  At nursery,  we had learned how water changed into ice when the temperature was really cold.  Our challenge was to free a little dolphin from a block of ice without damaging it.  We were not allowed to smash or chip the ice but we had lots of other good ideas as you will see from the photos.  It was not quite as easy as we first thought!

And here is the winning team!

This term in PE we are practising throwing and catching.  Our PE day is now Wednesday, however over the next 2 weeks we may need to use some of our hall time to practise for our assembly.  Miss McDermott was very impressed with our throwing and catching skills already! If the weather is not too cold or wet we can hopefully practise this outside too.

We have been learning all about Scotland this week and have enjoyed lots of Scots stories, poems and songs.  We made  Saltire flags for our special Scottish celebration on Thursday.