Springfield Primary School and Bonnytoun Nursery School

In Literacy this week we learned about the vowel sounds – a e i o u. Here is a catchy song that helps us to remember them…

We can find the vowel sound in a word and we can select the correct vowel to make a word. We also know that if you change the vowel sound sometimes it makes a new word – dug, dig, dog. This is something you could play about with at home with magnetic letters or the sound cards in the homework bags.

In Writing we learned how to write a sentence. We know that a sentence needs 3 very important things – a capital letter at the beginning, finger spaces and a full stop. Mrs Bell was very impressed as we all managed to write a sentence in our jotters. We need to remember to use a finger space after every word but we will be getting lots of opportunities to practise this.

In Numeracy we continued our work on addition – number bonds to make 2, 3 and 4. We are getting more confident at writing sums using the + sign and the = sign. We love this adding with a pirate song:

This week we finished our hedgehogs (Mrs Bell is very relieved these got home in one piece!) We also learned about hibernation – which animals hibernate and where they hibernate. Ask us and see if we remember any. Ethan taught Mrs Bell that queen bees hibernate underground. Never too old to learn something new! We also went outside and investigated good places to hibernate in the school grounds. We decided up a tree would be your best option as everywhere else would be too noisy!

Our Nativity Practices are now in full swing. As we are P1s we don’t have speaking parts (it will be our turn in P2). We are learning the songs and we’re looking forward to learning the dance moves… this year’s Nativity has a slight Strictly Come Dancing feel to it!

Next Wednesday afternoon we are going to begin making our Christmas crafts to sell at the Christmas Fayre. Any willing helpers are always welcome 🙂

Have a lovely weekend,

Love P1b and Mrs Bell x

This week we completed our entries for the P7 School House competition. The P7’s asked us to design new pictures for the four houses Ochiltree, Hopetoun, Champfleurie and Binns. We looked at various pictures of the houses before coming up with our own designs. The winners will be put on display next to the house “sprig” jars in the corridor.

For our enterprise activity P3 took part in the “Shoe Box” appeal. Between the two classes we managed to collect 60 boxes which were picked up by the charity on Wednesday. A tiggerrific thankyou to everyone who sent in a box or handed in items to make one up. The children from around the world will be delighted to receive one at Christmas time.

In Maths this week we were delighted to welcome so many Mums, Dads, Grannies and Grandads to our class to see us learning using our “Number Talks”. After a short introduction by Mr Ritchie we worked in groups at different maths stations to show the different strategies we used to solve the maths problems. We had Solve the Sum, Target Number, Magic Cup Challenge, Playing Card Challenge and Concrete Challenge. The children all enjoyed working with our visitors.

In reading we have been continuing our work using the new resource called “Reflective Reading”. We have been looking at different texts and playing “Blankety Blank” where we have to work out the missing word and then further challenge ourselves by coming up with an alternative word or words that could be used. We have also played “Silly Words” where we have to identify where an incorrect word has been used and work out what the correct word should be.  It is important that when we choose a new word it is still in the context of the story.

In grammar we have been learning about the difference between common and proper nouns. We are trying to remember that we need to use capital letters when we are working with proper nouns.

As part of our outdoor learning we have been looking at the life cycle of an oak tree. We watched a speeded-up video of how an oak tree grows from the seed of an acorn into a spectacular oak tree. We then recorded this information by making an illustrated life cycle diagram. If the weather is better next week, we will be going on an oak tree hunt around the school to see how many we can find.

Mr Ritchie and the Tiggerrific P3B’s

This week in P1a we have really enjoyed sharing strategies within our Number Talks. We love using the hand signals to show our thinking time, number of strategies and when we agree. In numeracy we have been learning about addition and how it means how many altogether. We also used our addition knowledge to add one more without going back to zero and counting everything again. Mrs Gordon was very impressed when we managed to share some addition strategies during our number talks on Wednesday when we had some parents join us for our open morning. Lots of us have really enjoyed learning how to write number sentences using + and = symbols, and adding together playdough apples, cuddly toys and numicon.

On Wednesday afternoon the second group of children went to the firepit with Mrs Malcolm from the nursery. They loved learning about the fire and toasting marshmallows…Mrs Malcolm said we may make hot chocolate on the fire next…

We continued our hedgehog focus by singing a hedgehog song and learning facts about them. Mrs Gordon even learnt that their babies are called hoglets (she didn’t know that fact before). We also started to make our own clay hedgehogs which we will get to take home. We found it was much harder to mould clay than it is playdough.

In literacy we learnt 2 more new sounds u and b. We are finding b very tricky and keep mixing it up with d. We need to keep practising so we can tell them apart. We also learnt 2 new tricky words the and to. Each tricky word has an action to help us try and remember them. We also used our knowledge of sounds so far to write about fireworks. We drew a picture of fireworks with oil pastels and then wrote what they look like and sound like. Next week we are going to try and write our first sentence…very exciting!

Happy weekend from Mrs Gordon and P1a

This week has been busy in P7. We had photographs, song rehearsals and SNSA’s. Plus all our normal learning- phew no wonder we are all tired!! 🙂

In Literacy we have started to write our short stories using action verbs and adjectives to add more excitement to them. Some of us “forgot” that a short story should only be a couple of pages and have written mini novels, however we know they will all be amazing and next time we will focus on what short means 😉

In Numeracy we have been solving and simplifying equations, some of us found these tricky to begin with, but we used our growth mindset tools and managed to work through the equations- our minds are getting stronger every day.

In Science, and in class, we started our Jaguar F1 challenge. We have sorted out our groups and written information on who we are and why we have been chosen for each role. Next week we will be looking at logos, team names and the shape and design of our cars.

Our Enterprise groups have now decided what they will all be doing and next week we will work with Mrs Newton and Mrs Durano to find prices for the products we need and then work out a selling price and estimated profit.

Our class photographs are being taken next Monday or Tuesday, we are  having our Flu sprays on Wednesday, SNSA’s will hopefully be finished by Thursday and Friday is a Purple for Polio dress down day (so another normal week in P7 🙂 )

Have a lovely weekend, fingers crossed the sun shines.

P7a and Mrs Newton