Our school chess team won the gold award at a chess competition for Linlithgow primary schools today.
We are absolutely delighted! Thank you to Mr Clarke and Mr Woodhouse for their support with our Chess Club.
Miss Baillie x
Primary 1B – w/e 15th March 2019
This week in Literacy we were have been learning ‘oa’ as in coat and ‘ow’ as in glow. We have found that ‘oa’ is mainly found in the middle of a word and ‘ow’ is mainly found at the end. We have also been practising our new tricky words – one and you.
In Numeracy we have been continuing our learning about subtraction and have also looked at double numbers this week. We noticed a pattern in the answers to the double number questions as they move up in 2’s (e.g. 1+1 = 2, 2+2 = 4 etc). We enjoyed splatting this number pattern on our online hundred square. You could play with this at home – https://www.primarygames.co.uk/pg2/splat/splatsq100.html
We continued our work on Money, adding coins to work out the cost of an item and choosing a range of coins to make up an amount to buy something. We are getting very good at identifying coins now!
In Health and Wellbeing, we were learning about the plant life cycle. We talked about plants and what they need to grow. Everyone created their own plant life cycle, learning that seeds become seedlings which then grow into plants. We investigated some parts of flowers and plants on our light box and loved using the magnifying glasses to see these up close. We had fun planting our own class sunflower and we are going to take turns to check if it needs watered each morning. We’re looking forward to watching it grow!
Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Reid and Primary 1B
Family Learning Event: Problem-Solving
Thank you so much to Mrs Matos who delivered an informative presentation to parents last night on our approaches to teaching problem-solving.
Please see the attached presentation for your convenience.
Problem Solving parent presentation (1)
Many thanks,
Miss Baillie
Fairtrade and World Book Day P3B
Phew, what a busy week! A big shout out to P3B as they have worked incredibly hard, producing some excellent work and having a lot of fun along the way.
At the beginning of the week we were product designers, we had to name and design the wrapper for a new Fairtrade chocolate bar – what would make people buy our bar rather than the many others on the shelf? The children really rose to the challenge and I was so impressed with every design. Each one was eye catching and fitted the design brief really well. They are now proudly displayed on our classroom wall.
On Wednesday we created a character profile for Elsie from our book The Ice Monster. We used describing words to write about Elsie’s appearance and personality and we used our knowledge of the story to write about Elsie’s life so far. Again, we worked incredibly hard, taking time to choose the best words to describe Elsie. Our sentences were well written, we are getting so good at remembering capital letters for proper nouns 😉 The sketches of Elsie were also very detailed and some even labelled their pictures to describe her appearance further.
It was World Book Day on Thursday and we watched the premiere of a new show on the Puffin Virtually Live website: https://puffinvirtuallylive.co.uk/ You can search for the link if you’d like to find out more. We particularly enjoyed watching the interview with Humza Arshad and drew along with former Waterstones Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell. It was tricky drawing along with an illustrator but we all gave it a go. We were very complimentary to each other.
After the video we could choose what other World Book Day activities we would like to do; design a bookmark, do a World Book day word search, create a new front cover for your favourite book, write and illustrate your own book or sketch a woolly mammoth in the style of Tony Ross, the illustrator of The Ice Monster. Everyone was very busy, some of us chose to work together to write books and some worked in small groups following the step by step instructions to draw woolly mammoths.
On Thursday afternoon we enjoyed a paired reading session with P1. We read and encouraged P1 children to read too, we were very helpful with techniques to help if someone is stuck on a word. It was a lovely quiet session and all children were completely engaged in reading, it was lovely to see and hear.
We have also been busy in maths. All of us are now subtracting bridging the tens number. We have begun by subtracting a single digit from a 2 digit at the moment, e. g. 65 – 8, this will increase confidence before we move onto larger numbers. We also used our subtraction skills to work out change from 50p. If anyone has coins out at the weekend maybe they could practise this.
We also had PE with Mrs Reid and Mrs Kennedy, with Mrs Kennedy we have begun a block of tennis lessons.
Have a good weekend everyone, let’s hope the rain stops for a bit.
P3B and Mrs Kennedy 🙂
Springfield and Bonnytoun News
We held an assembly today to celebrate World Book Day. We talked about the pleasure that can be found in reading and how much we can learn from books. Did you know that reading can be thought of as ‘exercise for the brain?’ It helps us to make links with what we know and these links help form neural pathways in our brain.
Children shared their favourite books and authors. What a diverse range of texts we enjoy!
Our nursery children had great fun yesterday, dressing up as characters from their favourite books. All staff were dressed up too!
Achievements for this week:
– Well done to Z in P3 for gaining a trophy for Irish dancing! What a brilliant hobby Z!
Have a lovely weekend everyone! Read lots!
Miss Baillie xx💖💫📚
P2B -Questions, Number Families and New Lanark
In Phonics this week some of us have been revising our common words and some of us having been learning the sounds ‘aw’ and ‘au’. We have then done an assessment, which will be used to decide on our next progression of learning. Well done everyone.
We have been learning how to recognise sentences that are questions and that we use the question mark at the end of the sentence, so don’t need a full stop. First time Mrs.Burton has said we don’t need a full stop at the end of a sentence! We have also learnt which words are usually used at the beginning of a question sentence.
In Maths we have been learning about number families. For example 6×3, 3×6, 18÷6, 18÷3. Some of us found it a little tricky but with practise we got there. Our next challenge is Fractions- both of shapes and numbers. Halves and quarters initially.
We have looked at pictures and information on New Lanark in preparation for our trip next week and have made up some questions to ask. Some great questions which we have really thought about.
Today as it was World Book Day, we have done some activities related to this and also watched a” Puffin Live” programme where various authors talked and then there was a drawing activity with Chris Riddell, an author, where the children drew their own” Banda Bear’s” – a character in some of his stories. Some brilliant results P2B.
We did Cosmic Yoga this week and did a 
dragon related exercise programme. We have also been looking at designing our own dragons as we are going to enter the National Gallery’s Art Competition. The theme being dragons. So will continue with that next week.
For next week:
New Lanark Trip next Tuesday 12/03/19
Please can your child bring a packed lunch and waterproof jacket as weather forecast not so good.
Wednesday 13/03/19
P.E with Mrs.Reid will be outside so suitable clothing and again waterproof jacket.
Thank you. Have a lovely weekend everybody.
Love from P2B and Mrs.Burton
D’s Chess Win!
Well done to D in P6 who recently played very well at the Lothian Junior Congress Chess tournament. His award was given for making the best progress in score among the 50 participants (P6-7) at the tournament.
Brilliant news D! We are proud of you!
Miss Baillie x
Victorian toys and Instructions in P2B
Well this week we have been looking, talking, creating and identifying the differences in Victorian Toys compared to nowadays. We made Thaumatropes, which Mrs.Burton has struggled to pronounce all week. We tried to make them using string but found that they worked better using plastic straws. The children have brought them home and will give you a demonstration. We have looked at toys today and compared them with toys in Victorian times. The main difference seems to be what they are made of. Some of the children brought in toys that their Mummies and Daddies played with. So we had plenty of discussion about these.
In Literacy this week we planned and then wrote instructions on how to make a Thaumatrope and most of us remembered the order of what to do. It’s been a week if revision in Phonics for one group. We’ve been revising the magic ‘e’ and next week we’ll go onto revision of common words. The other group having being ‘ou’ and ‘ow’.
This week we completed work on division and the children are getting very good at working out division problems. Next week we will be looking at the relationship between multiplication and division. Some of us have already made the connection. A good site to use for division practise is Topmarks – Sharing.
As it’s Fairtrade Fortnight we had to ladies come to talk to us about Fairtrade foods and we even got to taste some Fairtrade chocolate!
So another busy week in Primary 2B. Have a lovely weekend.
Love from 2B and Mrs.Burton
P3B Breaking News
We have had a ‘news’ focus this week. Some of our lessons have been linked to our class novel, The Ice Monster by David Walliams. It is a funny book with lots of very interesting characters. It is quite exciting too, we’ve had quite a few cliff hangers already. We are also learning a bit about science and Victorian London as we read.
School and Nursery News from this Week
Today we held our next ‘Wellbeing Indicator’ assembly focused on ‘we are achieving.’ As you all know, we track each pupil’s health and wellbeing on a daily and termly basis at Springfield and Bonnytoun. We have noticed from the data that we gather, that some children have the false perception that they are not achieving in school or are worried about how well they are doing. This is something that we are seeking to rectify by the messages that we give our learners and we’d ask for your support with this at home. Everyone is doing well and all children in school and nursery are making progress.
We talked today in assembly about ‘achievement’ being about progress. We also learned that achievement can be realised when you believe in yourself, practise a skill until it is mastered and never give up! It was also explained to children that we need to be comfortable with our own strengths and weeknesses and see the beauty in our uniqueness.
We also had a ‘sneaky peek’ at the Glee performance which some of our P6 and P7 pupils will showcase at Howden Park Centre in the next few weeks. The children look and sound amazing and we can’t wait to see them perform on the night. Thank you to Mrs Bell for her support with this.
Pupil achievements for this week:
– Well done to A and K in P1 for their achievements in gymnastics and Enjoy-a-ball.
-A brilliant effort from L in P3 for making progress in swimming.
-Well done to S and O in P4 for gymnastics success.
-Finally to A in P3 and R in P4 also for making progress in swimming.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Baillie xx💖💫
