Author: Mrs Gordon

We have had a lovely week in Primary 1. We were so busy making and playing in our new role play area. As our current topic is transport we talked all about different ideas and had a vote in each class as to what we wanted to make. Both classes ended up picking airports. We then had to talk about what we needed to make and what parts an airport would need. A plane was of course a top priority…Mrs Anderson was an excellent help and is an expert plane builder we discovered. We also made passports, boarding tickets and luggage labels as well as prices for the items in our shop (lots of sweets!). Then it was time to play! Lots of fabulous role play and dialogue between the different characters with lots of dressing up involved too.

In literacy we had a revision weeks of some of our digraphs so far. We have found this very difficult and need to have lots of practice at home to make sure we can recognise the key sounds. The main ones we are mixing up are oo and oa and igh and ai. Our common word recognition is fairly good, but writing them is a lot trickier…again lots of practise at home would be great.

In numeracy we have been working on finding the difference. Lots of us found this concept very difficult, the language around it is difficult. We did lots of practical ways like I have 8 sweets and you have 6 sweets what is the difference between the sweets.

We also tried lots of visual ways where you can see the difference by putting cubes lined up beside each other, or numicon overlaying each other. Maybe this video clip might help with a bit more practice at home.

In French Camembear taught us about body parts. We remembered lots from our head, shoulders, knees and toes clip, but we did’t know hands (les mains). See if you can play Jacques a dit at home (Simon says) using body parts. Say touchez first which means touch. Here is our wee song to practise.

Today we had some buddy time outside. It was lovely playing with our P7 buddies.

 

Mrs Gordon and Mrs Bell want to say a huge thanks to all the children and parents for supporting us during these tricky times. We will certainly miss seeing your gorgeous wee faces over the next few weeks. We are really hoping to see you again soon. We will post lots of messages and videos for you.

Thanks also to Mrs Donald for her support in P1 this week, she has gone above and beyond.

Happy weekend xxxx

This week we have been learning all about the oo and ew digraphs as in good and new.  We learnt that oo is mainly found in the middle of words and ew at the end (but not always…). Look how many words we managed to write independently!

We also learnt 2 new common words her and of. We have learnt so many common words that we really need to keep practising them at home. It would be good to do lots of reading and writing activities with common words. You could try things like pick a few that you find hard and make snap cards with those words. You could try the look, say, cover, write, check process for those you find hard to write. Or you may want to try this game, pick year 1 – tricky 1

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/lcwc/index.html

In  numeracy we did some revision of our number bonds to 10 to see how well we could recall them. Lots of us can manage but only when using our fingers. It would be great to get to the stage where we just automatically know that 8 + 2=10 etc. We did lots of practise with numicon too.

Have a wee practise with this song at home, and see if an adult or an older sibling can test you!

As part of our transport topic we had a special visitor called Bob the Train Driver. Bob took us on a Magic Train Ride with our magic ticket. It was very exciting! After we visited lots of different lands on our train we had to think of the land we would like to visit and draw what we saw out the train window. This was our plan for writing, and the next day we wrote about what we had seen when we visited a land. Some of us went to Fairyland, Candyland, Under the Sea Land, Star Wars land and even the Bat Cave! Mrs Gordon was very impressed with our writing. Most of us even managed to add and as a connective to make our sentences more exciting. Next week we are going to redesign our role play corner to have a transport theme…

Happy weekend from Mrs Gordon and P1a

 

Our new digraphs this week were ow as in show and oa as in soap. We found this quite tricky to master…but oa mostly goes in the middle and ow mostly at the end of words. Our new common words were you and one, again we can recognise these from our reading books, but can we spell them?

In numeracy we were focused on looking at our symbols and mixing addition and subtraction signs together. We get into the habit of always taking away even when there is an addition sign. Mrs Gordon and Mrs Bell made a worksheet where they had answered some calculations incorrectly, we had to tick or cross the answers once we had worked out if they were correct or not. This was encouraging us to read symbols carefully!

We also continued our money journey by looking at giving change. This is a very tricky concept and will need lots of practise. It would be good to try this out at home by making a little shop. We will practise this a little more next week.

In art we looked at line drawing, colour and proportion when we did still life drawings of daffodils. Some of us did a pencil drawing first and then added paint. It was quite difficult to get the sizes right, but Mrs Gordon was very impressed with our finished artwork. You can see it in our corridor on our new spring display!

For World Book Week we did lots of fun activities. We designed book covers for our favourite books, read lots of stories in class, had 2 mystery readers (Mrs Bell’s mum and Mr Logan), had Lynne Rickards (an author) in to read one of her books to us, went to P5/6 for a story session (including blankets, cushions, juice and a biscuit, yum!), dressed up and went to Mrs Bell’s class assembly on books! Phew that was a lot of things…

On Wednesday and Thursday night it was the P6/7 show Fame, Mrs Gordon was pleased to see so many P1’s come along and enjoy the show. They did so well.

Today we were so pleased to see lots of our parents come in for our BEAR event (be excited about reading). We read Handa’s Surprise and then with the help of our grown ups we made fruit from playdough, sequenced the story, retold the story with puppets and drew pictures of the fruit, animals and characters. At the teaching table Mrs Gordon was working with us to predict what might happen next in the story. We had to draw what we thought would be next. Mrs Gordon was very impressed with all the great ideas.

Happy weekend from Mrs Gordon and P1a.

Another busy week in P1a. We made and tasted pancakes with Mrs Woolsley, Mrs Anderson and Mrs Stapleton. It was a lot of fun, and we thought they tasted better than the ones in the shops.

In IDL we further explored transport by looking at the history of trains. We loved learning about the locomotive, steam engines and how they work, and the bullet train. We then designed our own train. Don’t they look fantastic!

In literacy this week we met our first trigraph – igh, we learnt that this goes in the middle of words like might, bright etc This is a very tricky one for us so we will need lots of practice. We also learnt the other way to make this sound -y, as in cry, fly etc this is also quite tricky! Our common words were said and come, they were ones we have been seeing in our reading books so are quite familiar with them. Look at the words we built using scrabble tiles…this is another good way to practise word building at home! It also reminds us of what the capital letters look like.

In numeracy we continued our work with the subtraction fact families. We are starting to get a really good grasp on this concept, but quite a few of us are not readily recognising the addition and subtraction signs, we are getting tricked when there are different signs! Lost more practise needed. In Money this week we read a lovely book called The Great Pet Sale. Here is a cute clip of a grandad reading it to his grandchild.

We then did our own pet sale where everyone brought in a toy pet, we made price tags and then we had to count out the right coins to buy our pet. It was a lot of fun…we think some of us will be trying this at home!

On Thursday we had a great time for 80’s day! We thought it was the best lunchtime ever as we got music in the dining hall and in the playground! Mrs Gordon also taught us a couple of dances from Fame, we were so good we could maybe stand in for the p6/7’s! Look at our fabulous costumes and the amazing 80’s show and tell items. We really enjoyed learning about the 80’s!

Happy weekend, Mrs Gordon and P1a.

What a busy couple of weeks in P1a. We enjoyed a lovely wee break in the middle, but have been learning lots of things…

Last week in phonics we were learning about ee and ea…this was so tricky, as there is no clear rule of when to use each one…we just need to learn them. Mrs Gordon was really impressed with how we did that. This week we had a revision week and did lots of work on remembering the digraphs that we have learnt so far…Mrs Gordon was very impressed with how much we remember…We really like this wee song which has a couple of extra digraphs that we haven’t done yet, but is really fun… especially the bit about R doing maths in the bath! Have a sing along with us!

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFQ2g_AZW4c

In numeracy we have been working on the very tricky fact families, which show the links between addition and subtraction. We know that in a fact family the 3 numbers are linked. For example with 5, 3 and 2 we start with 2 addition facts : 3+2=5 and then the switcher 2+3=5, then we look at the subtraction facts (always starting with the largest number), 5-3=2 and 5-2+3. We will be continuing to work on this next week, but if you want to play a wee game at home try this…

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/number-facts/number-fact-families

Mrs Hocknull introduced us to some card games this week which is great for our numeracy, we were doing very well matching pairs.

In French we revised our colours and numbers to 20. Mrs Gordon cannot believe how well we are counting and pronouncing our French, c’est super!

In science with Mrs Begarnie we have been exploring light, which is very exciting…we get to close the curtains and try different things in the dark! Have a look at us exploring!

Happy weekend, Mrs Gordon and P1a.

As this week was “Scotland Loves Languages” week Mrs Gordon was very excited (and so were we). We did lots of little language activities through the week including : stories in French and Spanish, a poem in Polish by a child in P1b, “poissons pêcheurs” game with the language ambassadors, writing our favourite word in another language and practising our family words in French with Camembear. We are getting so good at ordering lunch with Mrs Gordon that we even sometimes speak to the dinner ladies in French…fantastic!

This week in phonics we have been learning the digraphs ai and ay. We have worked hard to remember which is which. We know that ai as in rain, pain and sprain is normally in the middle of words as “shy i” likes to be surrounded by his friends. We also know that ay as in pay, say and spray is normally at the end of words since “toughy y” can be on his own at the end. We need to keep practising this, as it is very tricky to know which one to choose. Mrs Gordon helped us to write sentences with both digraphs in. We also learnt 2 new common words “are” and “they”. We see them lots in our reading books so felt quite confident with this.

Numeracy was a continuation of subtraction where we are working within 10. We included some word problems this week which can prove tricky. All the children have grasped the subtraction concept and we are encouraging use of concrete materials (blocks, counters etc), number lines (jumping back one at a time) and fingers (putting fingers down as we subtract), to ensure they have different ways to solve the problems. In money we did more coin recognition. We have really improved with this. Mrs Gordon added a till and money to the home corner and now we have a wee shop (created by the children).

In PE we are doing a block of football with Mrs Reid (our PE teacher) and with Mrs Gordon we are working on a block of movement skills including balance, coordination and ball skills. This is done through various games focusing on different themes/skills each week.

Our transport focus this week was on looking at timelines and understanding how transport has evolved over time. We enjoyed making our own timeline where we had to order types of transport. We also made shape trains, this was great fun, and we could easily identify the shapes we were using.

Bon weekend, Mrs Gordon and P1a

 

Another very busy week in P1a. This week we learnt 2 new digraphs “th” and “wh” and 2 new common words “she” and “be”. We are finding it quite tricky getting the difference between these digraphs. We also keep saying “f” instead of “th” lots of bafs and pafs. Mrs Gordon taught us to make sure that our tongue sticks through our teeth when saying “th”. Some words to practise making and writing are thin, thick, bath and path. With “wh” Mrs Gordon was getting us to hold up our hand infront of our mouth. If the word blows on our hand it is a “wh” word if not it is a “w” word. Some examples to try are wind, when, wand and which.

In  numeracy we continued our subtraction journey. We played lots of board games with partners where we had to roll dice and subtract numbers from eachother. We are getting better at finding the answer to subtraction problems, but still sometimes get tricked when subtracting zero…

We started a focus on money this week which was very exciting. The first step was to start to recognise the coins from 1p to £2. We loved playing guess the coin where Mrs Gordon hid a coin and we had to ask her questions to guess which it was. She could only answer yes or no. We had some great questions like is it bronze?, does it have 7 sides? etc It would be great if we could practise as much as possible with real money at home.

H got a chance to practise money skills when she held a mini bake sale for the class. She was raising money for Bethany Christian Trust who help homeless people.

M lent us her fabulous storybook called “My Little Orsay”. It is a fabulous book about works of art in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. Each part is about a different work of art. We let the children choose between 3 different pieces and they recreated their own versions. Mrs Gordon was blown away by how well we did. Have a look at our art gallery below, It is full of wonderful work!

In French this week we learnt all about “ma famille”, we learnt how to say ma mere, mon pere, ma soeur et mon frere. This was quite tricky so we will keep practising. We can now order our lunch in French too which is pretty impressive for P1. This week our S6 Language Ambassador from Linlithgow Academy came along to do a little Spanish lesson with a few of us. We learnt some colours in Spanish.

We also launched our new topic….transport. We were very excited about this and drew our favourite mode of transport. We can’t wait to find out all about different modes of transport through the ages.

Bon weekend, Mrs Gordon and P1a

T

We have had another very busy week in Primary 1.

In French we revised our numbers to 5, and now count up to 10. We also learnt “Jacques a dit” Simon Says in French. That was a fun game.

We got a surprise today to receive a letter all the way from France. It had “Bonne Annee” “Happy New Year” cards, from our French penpals. They live in Fontenay Le Fleury which is near Paris. They are P2 children who enjoy learning English. Listen to us singing a song to them in French.

In Numeracy this week we started our subtraction journey. We have learnt that there are lots of ways to say subtraction like minus and take away. We know that when we subtract the number gets smaller. Our favourite part was probably when we had to subtract marshmallows from 10…by eating them…we may need some more practise at home !

We also enjoyed playing some subtraction games like subtraction 4 in a row and subtraction smash with the play doh.

We really loved playing this smoothie game which helps us practise our subtraction within 10. When playing this select “subtraction facts for 10”.

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/smoothie/index.html

We also did a little bit more on time by learning how to tell o’clock times. Mrs Gordon couldn’t believe how quickly we picked this up, we didn’t even get tricked with 6 o’clock. Show us a clock or a watch and see if we can tell you an o’clock time.

In Literacy this week we learnt about digraphs. A digraph is when 2 letters join to make one sound. This week that sound was sh. We learnt about words like ship, shut, mash and fish. We read a story about Sharon the shark and when Mrs Gordon said sh we had to put our fingers to our lips…there were a lot of sh sounds in that story! Our new common words this week are “go” and “we”, look out for them in our reading books.

Happy weekend, Mrs Gordon and P1a

 

Well we have certainly had a lot of fun in P1a this week. Mrs Gordon made sure we worked hard before the fun as we had to do some reading, writing and numeracy assessments on our initial sounds from a-z, our common words and addition to 10.

We learnt our doubles this week in numeracy and we really like this song to help us remember them.

On Monday we had our Christmas Party with lots of fun games. Santa even came and brought us some lovely Christmas stories for the classroom.

Today we got a letter from Santa saying that his sleigh had broken and he needed our help to design a new one. We worked in teams with our P7 buddies to design a sleigh. We then presented our finished drawings and design ideas to the class. Mrs Gordon was so impressed at how confidently we spoke, and with our fantastic ideas…we had everything from hot chocolate machines, portals and magic dust to bouncy castles! Here are the designers.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! Love from Mrs Gordon and P1a. x

P1a have been very busy over the last few weeks. We have now learnt all of our initial sounds from a-z. Mrs Gordon is very impressed with how well we have been able to write, read and say them all. We have also learnt a few more common words was, no, saw, want and no. We now have 12 common words on our word wall. In writing we wrote about what we would do with a stickman, that was a lot of fun.

In numeracy we continued to work on our addition to 10. We have enjoyed doing addition problems in our number talks. This week the main focus has been on number bonds to 10 (all the different ways you can make 10). We are really good at finding switchers eg 2+8=10 and 8+2=10. Here you can see us busily adding using blocks, number lines and our fingers.

Christmas fun has been had by us all. We loved the Christmas Fayre last week, and here we are enjoying our Christmas dinner! Christmas party on Monday!

We were superstars in our nativity “Lights, Camel, Action” this week. As a treat from your very generous donations we got to have a party today! We played party games like pass the parcel and Christmas corners, and we had lovely snacks. We also watched a Christmas movie with popcorn. What fun!

Have a wonderful weekend, and don’t forget we need our party clothes to change into on Monday afternoon for our Christmas party.

Mrs Gordon and P1a