Mrs Docherty

Mrs Docherty: Early Years Writing Support Day 1 6.5.20

This week we will focus on another key area of Literacy which will be writing. Throughout the week we will look at fun ways for you to support your child with writing which will build upon all of the previous advice on our other literacy skills: reading and spelling.

Writing is a great way for your child to communicate. We will focus on ways you can make writing exciting from fun activities to daily reading and writing sessions. This will help you to continue to build your child’s skills through our distant learning. Here are some writing tips for home.

Reading

One of the first ways to support writing is through reading. Reading helps to increase your child’s vocabulary and this in turn supports your child in using these words in their writing. Try reading together every day with your younger children.

Materials

Try different materials, fun pens and pretty paper can be motivational.

Space

Just like your reading space create a quiet space for writing and provide some stimulus: this could be a story you have read, a favourite toy, or an experience you have had ex your walk in the woods.

Purpose

You could encourage your child to write for a variety of purposes such as a shopping list, a menu for your evening meal, or even send a letter to someone.

Technology

Technology can be used to support writing. Get your child to send an email or produce a story using word.

I have added a few resources to help stimulate writing through games below. You could create a pirate or fairy adventure or even create your own monster and describe it!! Have fun.

Fairytale-Story-Telling-Prompt_ver_2 (1)

monster-surprise-roll-and-draw-a-monster-activity Pirate-Story-

Writing-Activity_ver_4 (1)

These are a few ideas to help you get started when supporting your child with writing and we will continue with more ideas tomorrow. Please get in touch if you have any questions or would like more ideas/resources for writing.

Have a lovely day,

Mrs Docherty

NHS Speech and Language Advice 30.4.20

Today’s focus from the NHS Speech and Language Facebook page is focussing on Listening and Talking. Listening and attention skills are one of the key parts of our overall Literacy and Language areas of CfE. They are important for your child to help with their social skills, understanding of language, following instructions, learning to communicate, developing speech sounds and all areas of their learning.

The website below shares some great ideas to help support your child with listening and talking and is definitely worth a look.

www.lets-talk.scot.nhs.uk

Please see below ideas suggestions for you to use with your child to help support them with their speech sounds:

Play musical bumps or statues. These are also examples of games we play in Nursery and School.
Get your child to spot the mistake. You could use their favourite song or nursery Rhyme and make a deliberate mistake. See can your child recognise the mistake you have made or the word you have left out.
Play games where your child must wait for you to say go before they take part. An example is building a tower of bricks where your child cannot knock it down until you say Go!
Use a noisy toy and get your child to follow the noise by hiding the toy or object.

As always have a go and try them out. If you have any other ideas that you use at home please share these also.

Have a great day everyone,

Mrs Docherty

NHS Speech and Language Advice 29.4.20

Following on from Monday’s Speech and Language advice I have included ideas on how to support your child with speech sounds. This was shared on the NHS Lothians Speech and Language Therapy on Facebook.

https://en-gb.facebook.com/NHSLothianSLT/

Please see below ideas and suggestions from NHS Lothians for you to use with your child to help support them with their speech sounds:

Hide objects or pictures in a sensory box (a box filled with feathers, leaves, popcorn kernels, ripped up paper etc) – every time your child finds an object/picture they should practise saying the word.
Use any fun turn-taking game – every time your child takes a turn they should practise a word.
Take turns naming a picture and then posting the picture into the box
Take turns to throw a bean bag/ball into a box, choose a picture/object from the box and practise the word.
For all these activities you can use objects around the house or cut out pictures from magazines/newspapers etc, that begin with the sound your child finds difficult.

Please use the comments box if you have tried any of these ideas and let us know how you got on.

Have a great day everyone,

Mrs Docherty

Mrs Currie’s P2 Daily Update: 28.4.20

Home Learning Grid

Hello, P2!

It is Mrs Docherty writing your blog post today. Mrs Currie will be back tomorrow. I can’t wait to see how you are getting on with your learning today. Remember if you are having any difficulty with any of the home learning activities please ask your question in the comments section below.

Literacy

Here is a little fun activity that you can try if you would like to, it will get you thinking.

The purple flower is tricky! Think about a flower that gives off a lovely smell that is said to help you relax.

Numeracy

In class you all really liked the counting in 5s and 10s song, here are the links for two of your favourite ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvincYg0pHo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSdjzFl9H6k

Have a great day everyone and remember I am here if you need anything.

Mrs Docherty

Mrs Currie’s P1 Daily Update 28.4.20

Good morning everyone,

It is Mrs Docherty here this morning. I am covering for Mrs Currie today, so don’t forget you can still ask a question using the comment section and I will hopefully be able to help you and respond back.

Home Learning Grid

How are you getting on with Word Boost this week? I have attached a link to the story being reading online if you don’t have this book at home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Tqokjf7Zw

The boost words for this story are: announce, expect, eager and task.

I have included a picture of the postcard for some ideas for you to work on to develop your understanding and use of the boost words.

Literacy

Use the link below to access a pre-recorded ‘BBC Authors Live’ with Julia Donaldson. In this link Julia Donaldson will perform 3 of her stories (with special characters) – The Highway Rat, The Singing Mermaid and What the Ladybird Heard. Enjoy!

https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors-live-on-demand/heroes-and-villains-with-julia-donaldson

Numeracy

Watch the videos below to practise counting in 5’s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EemjeA2Djjw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r176jXYwct8

Have a go at counting in 5’s at home, can you get all the way to 100? I have attached a counting in 5’s worksheet below for you to have a go at too.

Counting in 5’s Tuesday

Good luck!

P3 Mrs Caskie and Mrs Keegan’s Daily Update 28.4.20

Good morning boys and girls. It is Mrs Docherty this morning online for you all. I hope you are all getting on well and I can see all of the amazing learning experiences your teachers have been putting on for you.

Core-Grid-Week-4-P3-PDF

RRS-Article-of-the-Week-P1-3-27.04

cfe-n-2545674-2d-shape-tiling-investigation-activity-sheet-english

You have a great week’s work on your grid all of which I have included above, so I am just going to provide a few extra activities for you if you need them. Remember only to do what you can. You are doing great.

Spelling

What I would like you to do today is to take your spelling words and add on suffixes. Remember these go at the end of your spelling word or root word. Every week in spelling with Mrs Docherty we look at ways of adding on endings: ing, ed, s, es.

Can you add on an ending for all of your spelling words and remember to look out for those short vowels in case we need to double the last letter! You can post this on your One Note profile.

Maths:

Test someone in your family: Can you write a description for a shape you have been learning by talking about the properties of your shape but don’t tell them the name. See if they can guess your shape.

ART:

Can you draw a castle using lines that travel in different directions for example horizontal, vertical and diagonal. Use 2d shapes as corners and curves and to create turrets and windows etc.

Have a great day everyone,

Mrs Docherty

NHS Speech and Language Therapy Marvellous Monday Post: 27.4.20

Good morning everyone. A very exciting piece of information to share is that NHS Lothian Speech and Language Therapy are this week posting great ideas on how to support your child with Phonological awareness.

They are doing this on their Facebook page:

https://en-gb.facebook.com/NHSLothianSLT/

I will take out the main points as shared below and over the week continue to share their ideas and tips with you. It is also worth going onto the page using the link above as there is a wealth of resources available. Over the coming weeks I will use this site to continue to support you with your child’s speech and language development.

Did you know? Phonological (Sound) Awareness involves listening and playing around with sounds in words. Children can then begin to understand how the sounds join together to form words.

Children benefit from being able to break words down into smaller parts called ‘syllables’. First show your child by clapping 👏🏼 whilst saying 🗣words and then let them try too!

‼️ Remember: these activities are beneficial for all children in nursery and early school years as it helps with early reading 📖 and writing 📝skills. The activities also support children with speech sound difficulties 🗣!

⬇️ Try the syllable activities below using words with different numbers of syllables.

If you have any questions please just post in the comments section above.

Have a great day everyone and please visit the Facebook page it is really informative.

Mrs Docherty

Mrs Docherty POSITIVE SONG OF THE WEEK: 27.4.20

This week’s Positive Song is Rise Up by Andra Day which is a very powerful song with a powerful message. It is a song about courage and strength in the face of adversity. The song has a very special message for everyone and has been used by our special NHS nurses across the country to rally each other and support their patients.

As a school we feel the message of the song is exactly what we would want to say to you as our parents and as our friends. It is a message of working through things and knowing that we will rise up and come out the other end. We will do this together as a team and the lines from the song which stand out for me are:

You’re broken down and tired
Of living life on a merry go round
And you can’t find the fighter
But I see it in you so we gonna walk it out
And move mountains
And I’ll rise up
I’ll rise like the day
I’ll rise up
I’ll rise unafraid
I’ll rise up
And I’ll do it a thousand times again
And I’ll rise up
High like the waves
I’ll rise up
In spite of the ache
I’ll rise up
And I’ll do it a thousand times again
For you

Please listen to the song which is even more powerful when you hear the lyrics with music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMpXtI6Nhskknowing

The song gives a clear message that who we are is demonstrated in what we do to help each other. It is about how we show support and empathy for each other which as a school we see in abundance not just now but at all times, so thank you. The words of the song give us a positive message of how we will get through these times and the positivity and experiences we will have again soon.

Have a great week everyone and please stay safe,

Mrs Docherty

Mrs Wassell P3 Girls Weekly Round Up 24.4.20

Good morning girls,

It’s Mrs Docherty this morning. How are you all keeping. I hope you are all safe and happy.

I hope you have had a great week and got time out in the sunshine in your garden. Today’s focus will be self-assessment of our work as Friday’s are a great day to reflect on what we have achieved throughout the week.

Writing: Magic Potion

Can you use a pink and green pen or pencil to self-assess your writing:

Did you include a title?

Did you use time openers or bossy verbs to start your sentences and to show order?

Did you include some adjectives to make your potion interesting and exciting?

Reading:

What has been your favourite reading activity this week? Was it your online story? Can you share this with a member of your family? Tell them what you have enjoyed about your story, who your favourite character was and what the main events were.

Maths:

Can you write a description for a 2D or 3D shape from what you have learned this week and see if a family member can guess what your shape is. If they can you have been successful at learning the properties of shape.

Have a great weekend girls and enjoy the wonderful sunshine we have been having. Stay safe and see you all back on Monday morning with a new and exciting learning grid.

Mrs Docherty

MRS DOCHERTY POSITIVE THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: Friendship: 24.4.20

At the end of our first week back in our final term we hope you have had a successful week of fun and learning. Please know you are all doing so well and we are very proud of you. I know we have loved being in teaching mode and in contact with you all again this week and following on from our positive song of the week we have appreciated all of your friendship. As I always say Thursday is such an important day to stop, think and reflect especially when we Clap for our Heroes. Some of the things I ask myself on Thursdays are:

What have I felt happy about this week?

What have I done to make someone smile?

What special memory have I made this week?

What has made me sad or worried?

Who helped me when I felt that way?

Most answers involve my family and my friends which again I know we will all be missing. So for today I am sending you all a special message to help you to know we are all here for you and for each other. So from all of us to you we are sending big hugs and a big thank you for your support, hard work and friendship.

And please remember:

Have a lovely day everyone and look after yourselves,

Mrs Docherty