We have really enjoyed the start of your money topic in numeracy and maths. Did you hear all about our sweety shop that we have set up to help us learn more about money. This week we have been thinking about all the different reasons as to why we need money and the different places we keep money.
Kyle “you need money to pay for a taxi”
Sophie “you need money to get on a bus”
Kaitlyn “grown ups have credit cards”
Kayla “10 pound notes are paper money”
Adam “banks have money”
Jarred “you keep money in a piggy bank and you can open it to get the money out”
Stefan “people keep money in their house”
This week we also started our new play sessions. Here are some of the highlights
Stefan “I was playing on the ipads and reading tricky words”
Rutendo “I was playing a game with tricky words”
Adam “I made a book about pirates”
Marcel “I was painting the j sound. It’s a green because it comes from all of your mouth”
Jarred “we were telling pirate stories. I want to film the stories on the ipad”
This week P1M have been working very hard as well as enjoying all of the 40th anniversary celebrations for our school. We started off our week be refreshing our knowledge of the sounds we have been learning recently – l, r, ee, oo, ai and oa. We were given a challenge to sort out sentences. The sentences were all out of order and we had to fix them. This was a tricky task but we remembered to look for clues – capital letters fro the start of a sentence and a full stop for the end. This left 2 more cards to be put in the correct place, we had to read these cards to check which order would make sense. This is something you could do at home too – write sentences on paper, cut them up and put them in the correct order.
We love reading in our class. We had been working hard on our reading books in class. Please note, we won’t be given reading books as homework next week but we will be practising our reading skills in class. We also really enjoy e-books in our class. Have you used the oxford owl website at home to listen to and/or read books? Miss Meechan sent the login details home a few months ago. We also love listening to e-books on the ipads. This week, Kyle was listening to ‘toy story’ on the ipads. He really enjoyed it because the characters move about.
We are also continuing to work on our spelling. We complete some spelling tasks with a partner this week. One person had to spell a word using cubes and the other person had to try to read the word. We checked if we had spelt the word correctly by looking at the picture on the card. Sophie and Casper completed this task very well together.
We have also being playing fun games on the smart board. Check out some links below for the games.
In maths this week we were working on subtraction word problems and addition number stories. We refreshed our memory of how a subtraction sums looks and acted out this subtraction sum on a number line – remembering that when we subtract the numbers get smaller. We also played ‘dice subtraction game’ with our partner. In a pair, both people rolled a dice e.g. 4 and 6. We then had to make a subtraction sum with both these numbers. This task taught us how to set out a subtraction sum – when you take away the biggest number is at the start of a sum. E.g. 6 – 4 = 2. This another task that you could do at home. We also used play-doh and play-doh mats to read and solve subtraction and addition word problems. Again, below are a list of apps and games we used to support our learning this week.
Finally, happy 4oth anniversary St. Ninians. We had a fun filled week to celebrate St Ninians turning 40. On Wednesday, we celebrated mass with Archbishop Leo Cushley. Before mass, Miss Meechan has showing us pictures on the Archbishop and we had lots of questions to ask about his special hat! On Thursday, we had a superhero fun day! We were given the opportunity to dress up as a superhero. In the morning, we completed some art and craft activities. Before lunch time we had a party in our classroom and we had some of St. Ninians anniversary cake. Finally, in the afternoon we watched ‘The Incredibles’ movie in the big hall. What a fun day. Today we were treated to a sneak preview of the P3-7 Show “Movies Through the Decades” – we were so impressed with the talent of the older children in our school.
Another busy week for P1M. In literacy this week we have been learning more about the ‘oa’ and ‘ai’ sounds. These sounds come from the vowel house. As part of our literacy activities this week we have been sorting out pictures of ‘oa’ and ‘ai’ sounds. This was quite a tricky task as we had to decide what the picture was and then listen carefully for an ‘oa’ or ‘ai’ sound in the word. We have been doing lots of spelling activities using these sounds too. This week we were using the letter cubes to make words. Do you have letters at home that you could use to spell ‘oa’ or ‘ai’ words?
We are continuing with our numeracy topic of subtraction this week. We have a very solid knowledge of subtraction so far and we will be continuing this topic for a while yet. We have been really enjoying the different activities in our numeracy lessons and a favourite has to be subtraction bowling. Have you had the opportunity to play this at home yet? This week we were solving word problems subtraction style as well as ‘acting out’ a subtraction story on the number line. Miss Meechan was very impressed with us during this task as we all remembered that when we subtract the number gets smaller and we had to jump backwards on the number line. Well done everyone!
We started our new Play: Plan, Do, Review session this week – pirate theme. All of the 6 groups are literacy and numeracy based. Here is a sneak peak and what we have been doing this week during play:
Red – Pirate ship design challenge. We use 2D shapes to build a pirate ship and then count how many of each shape we used. We also make addition sums using the information we have gathered.
Blue – Letters to a pirate. At this group we can write letters to a pirate or draw a picture of a pirate. We have a special treasure chest to put in our letters and drawings.
Yellow – Pirate books – at this table we can make pirate books, either literacy or numeracy based. There are maths themed pirate books made up which we can complete and there are also blank books for us to create and write our own pirate stories.
Orange – At this group we build our very own pirate ship. It is important to listen to what others what to do to the pirate ship as well as talking to our friends about what we think would be good on the ship – have a look at the photos below, we’re making great progress already!
Purple – Role play station. At this station we act out pirate stories. We have small pirate puppets to do this or we can dress up as pirates ourselves. We can even make our own pirate masks and then act out the story. There are also the ipads at this station to record our stories too.
Green – Pirate jewellery. At this group we can make our own pirate treasure – bracelets, necklaces, rings! Pirates like their jewellery to be in a pattern so we must make sure we use patterns when creating the jewellery.
As part of our RE this week we listened to the story of Samuel listening to God. We have been learning about how God always listens to us but that it is also important for us to listen for God. We created these listening ears to remind us of this. There is a link for the video we watched below.
Here are some links for the activities we completed this week:
This week we started our new topic in numeracy: subtraction. To introduce this topic we played lots of fun games and participated in fun activities. You could try out some of these at home too. We made a tower of 10 cubes (you could use lego), our partner done the same. We then had to roll a dice and subtract the number of cubes as shown on the dice. The winner was the person who gets to 0 cubes the quickest. Remember if you have 3 cubes left and roll a 6 you can’t take away your cubes!
We also participated in subtraction bowling. Set up 10 plastic cups (ten pin bowling style) and roll a ball at the cups – you only get one shot! Then make a subtraction sum showing the amount of ‘pins’ you knocked over. E.g. if you knocked over 6 cups your sum would be 10-6=4.
This week we have also been using SEAL strategies to develop our understanding of number further. Miss Meechan showed us some counters and then covered them with a piece of paper. Miss Meechan took away some counters and told us how many she had taken away. We then had to figure out how many counters were left. We really enjoyed this task too.
We are continuing with our number talks session and this week we were focusing on dot patterns. We were shown a dot pattern which had 4 dots at the top and 4 at the bottom, we very quickly recognised that this made 8. Kyle was able to show us a different way to make 8: 5+3=8.
This week we were given a box to collect some loose change in. We were very interested in the picture of the little girl on the box. Miss Meechan was telling us about how the little girl is not as fortunate as we are. Here is a link if you would like to discuss this further with your child at home: https://www.unicef.org.uk/?gclid=CNP_i6nX0dECFUkQ0wodkkUKaA&sissr=1
Here are some of the videos/games we used in class this week for you to use at home too.
This week was world religion day. We had a chat in class about the different religions in the world. You could do this too. We used this image to show us the different religions:
Say a quiet prayer to God and remember that he is always listening.
This week we visited the library. We enjoyed returning our old library books and were given the opportunity to choose a new book. We can’t wait to read our new library books. When we were at the library we met Shona who works at the library. She was telling us lots of things that happen in the library. We were also given a bookmark to use with our new library books. Shona also read us a story called ‘Delilah Darling is in the Library’.
Our sounds for this week are ‘ee’ and ‘oo’. We participated in lots of different activities to help us use our knowledge of these sounds. We played games on the smart board; writing ‘ee’ words on play-dough mats; making sentences with ‘ee’ and ‘oo’ words; sorting out ‘ee’ and ‘oo’ words and spelling words too. Find some links below to play these games at home too.
This term we are using a reading scheme called ‘muckle reading’. In our muckle reading lesson this week we completed a task called ‘picture it’. We had to read or listen to some instructions and draw what we read or could hear. When we finished with the instructions we had drawn a picture of a pirate! We have also been working on our tricky words this week too. Mrs Stewart quickly showed us one of tricky words and then she hid it, we had to try to remember the word and write it on our whiteboard. In class, we enjoy listening to stories on the oxford owl website. Have you used this at home yet?
Maths highlights this week:
We have enjoyed taking a break from number lessons to participate in some practical maths this week. Our focus for practical maths this week has been patterns and symmetry. We started our week by creating patterns with colours and then moved onto shape patterns. Our favourite task was creating our own patterns. We made colour patterns by using the pegs and peg boards and we created shape patterns using a range of 2d and 3d shapes. We had to finish patterns, copy patterns and match patterns too.
During our symmetry learning we initially found it quite tricky but soon grasped the concept quickly. In the pictures below Patryk and Poppy had sorted out 6 pictures into ‘symmetry’ and ‘not symmetry’ headings. We were also given the opportunity to finish a picture to make it symmetrical – these were pirate themed pictures.
This week we were introduced to our new Play: Plan, Do, Review where we were given 6 more choices. Ask your child what they completed in play this week and which play task they would like to join in our next session?
Red: Numbers to 50. We have to drive a car around a course ensuring my follow the numbers in the correct order. We try to count out loud to make our car drive even faster! We have to really concentrate doing this task as there are a few different turns we can take on the roads!
Blue: Ordering numbers. We complete pirate themed dot-to-dots at this group. We can choose some easier dot-to-dots or some tricky ones if we can manage!
Orange: We use the smart board and ipads to play our favourite numeracy and maths games and apps.
Yellow: Patterns – we use the peg boards and shapes to create patterns.
Green: Subtraction bowling. We use the game bowling to create subtraction sums
Purple: Jenga. We play the game jenga but on the end of each piece of jenga is an addition or subtraction sum which we have to say the answer to in order to keep the jenga piece.
After we finished our first session of this play we spoke to a partner about what we had been doing and what we would like to do during the next session.
Health and Wellbeing highlights:
We began our new PE block of gymnastics. This week we have been working on balancing – we try to hold a balance for 3 seconds. We have also been working on our strength and ensure when we jump that we land on our feet with squishy knees.
Our GIRFEC focus for this month is active. We completed a page in our talking book where Miss Meechan helped us to write all of the different ways we keep active in our lives.
Did you hear about our letter we received this week? On Monday, we found a letter, in a bottle in our sink! We guessed that it might have been from a pirate, and we were right! It was from a Pirate called Pete Pigeon. Pete is part of the Squeaky Sail Ship and they are lost in the North Sea somewhere and have asked for our help. We thought of lots of different ways we could help. Then, on Thursday we received another letter in a bottle. It was Pirate Pete Pigeon again and we was so pleased with all of our ideas that he asked us to join us crew. Before we were allowed to join the crew we had to write in our Pirate Passport. Have a look for these in our writing jotter!
School-Home Learning: Here are some apps, websites and videos we have used to support our learning in class this week.
We’ve had a busy start to this new term. When we came back to school on Wednesday we had a circle time first thing in the morning. This gave us the chance to tell Miss Meechan all about our holidays. We liked talking about our favourite presents from Santa.
We were also learning about New Year and how this is celebrated around the world. We all made a circle and listened to the song ‘auld lang syne’ we all joined hands during this song. We then made sure we said happy new year to all of our friends in the class. We loved the idea of fireworks athe new year and we worked on our pencil control to create fireworks. Lastly, we made new years resolutions and we know that this is a bit like a promise. We had some super resolutions:
Patryk “say more prayers”
Jarred “write a song about new year”
Kaitlyn “tidy my mum and dads room”
Poppy “help my mummy in the garden”
I hope you all stick to your resolutions. We have displayed these in our health and wellbeing section in our talking book- have a look out for them next time you are in our class.
We are starting lots of new concepts next week in class. We will be learning new sounds; starting a new level with our reading books; beginning a gymnastics block in PE; starting a new topic as well as learning more about practical maths! I hope you all get rested up over the weekend because it’s going to be a busy week!
A very exciting and busy week for P1M. Our week began with our dress rehearsal for our nativity. This was a great opportunity to show off our nativity to the rest of the school. We then completed another 3 performances for our families. We all had a great time showing off our nativity to you and we hoped you enjoyed yourself just as much as we did!
It has been a very Christmas themed week for us and on Wednesday we enjoyed our Christmas lunch at school.
Also on wednesday we were treated to a pantomime! We loved the beauty and beast panto and a favourite part for most of the children was then paw patrol song! Miss Meechan liked this part too!
We continued the christmas theme into Wednesday. We were all VERY excited about our Christmas party but before this we participated in a whole school achievements assembly. Well done to Kaitlyn from our class who was recognised for her hard work. In the afternoon we all got into the Christmas spirit at our party.
Finally, today we had Christmas jumper day! Miss Meechan lover everyone’s jumpers!! We also took part in the christmas house quiz today. Well done to the Whithorn children who won the quiz.
Everyone deserves a rest this weekend after such a busy week!
Literacy: we have been building sounds together to make words. We listen to a word, spell it using bricks, copy it down and then draw a picture to show the meaning of the word. Our reading skills are coming on a treat too. We are all working really hard with our tricky words as well. This week we have been working on alternative endings in a story. We listened to a story called ‘Melting Snow’ (from Oxford owl) but we decided we didn’t like the way the story ended so we made up our own endings. Instead of the snowman in the story melting, our snowman went on an adventure. Ask your child what adventure their snowman went on?
Numeracy: This week we have been working on number stories of 6, 7 and 8. We have been finding out how we can make these numbers in different ways. e.g. 5+2=7 and 6+2=8. We are fantastic at doubles now and we can tell you our doubles as quick as a click. This is a great song to help us practise.
Mathematics: Our topics in maths at the moment is measurement, shape and pattern. We have been working on measure, shape and pattern through our ‘play: plan, do review’ sessions. We will be furthering our knowledge on shape more next week.
We are really enjoying practising for our nativity and we can’t wait to show this to you. Please remember to bring in your child’s clothes for the nativity by Monday. We need this for our dress rehersal.
We have been so busy this week that we don’t have much photos! Have a lovely weekend,
We have been lending a helping hand this week. Can you remember one of the letters we received from Santa asking us to become honorary elves and help him prepare for Christmas in his workshop. So… meet the P1M elves…
We have been helping Santa through our Play: Plan, Do, Review sessions. Read on to find out about how we have been helping Santa.
Just Play?
Red: (Maths: Measurement and Pattern) Santa has needed us to help him wrap up presents. We have to estimate how much wrapping paper we need to wrap up presents, we have been very good at measuring out the correct amount of paper. Santa doesn’t have much wrapping paper though and he has needed us to design some wrapping paper. He likes his wrapping paper to have a pattern though so we must make sure we create a pattern. We also must remember to write a label on the present after we have wrapped it.
Blue: (Literacy: Writing) We MUST write our letters to Santa! How will Santa know what presents we want if we don’t write him a letter? We know how to format a letter correctly (where the address goes). After we have wrote our letter we need to put it in an envelope. We have also been learning about stamps, if we want our letter to get to Santa really quickly we know to look out for a number 1 on a stamp. It is also very important to write Santa’s name and address on the envelope before we post it in the special Santa’s postbox.
Yellow: (Literacy: Writing) Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a Christmas card! At this station we design, create and write our Christmas cards. We each have a special folder just outside our classroom, if we receive a card, the sender posts the card in our special folder. This is quite tricky as we have to try really hard to read our peers names. We love checking our folders at the end of the day to see if we have been given a card.
Green: (Maths: Patterns) Santa has been so busy that he hasn’t had time to decorate his workshop. He has asked us to make decorations for him – Christmas cracker and baubles for his tree. But remember, Santa loves patterns! We need to make sure our designs follow a pattern. We have been using a range of different materials at this station – foam shapes, pom-poms, stickers, glue, crayon, glitter – it has been a bit messy! I’m sure Santa will love his decorations!
Purple: (Literacy: Listening and Talking; Imaginative Story Telling) We have been pretending to be Santa and his friends. At this station we can make a Christmas themed mask and act out a story with our peers. It is important that we take turns and allow each other to have a turn at talking during story telling. Miss Meechan has been enjoying listening to the different stories we have created.
Orange: (Maths: Data Handling) Santa needs to know all about toys that people want this Christmas. We need to separate the toys into categories for him. We look through toy catalogues and pick out some toys and stick them into the correct category. Kerr was sorting out girls toys and boys toys. Adam and Sophie were sorting out big toys and small toys. We hope this helps Santa get ready for Christmas.
In the Christmas spirit now? This week we have started rehearsing for our nativity show! We have all been working so hard during our performances. We can’t wait to practise on the stage next week! Well done boys and girls, I have been very proud of how hard you have been working rehearsing your songs and lines.
Even with all of this going on we have still squeezed in lots of other learning tasks! We are working extra hard with our addition. This week we have been working on ordering an addition number sentence. We know that the biggest number in an addition sentence always goes at the end (after the equals sign) because when you add two numbers together the total is always more. We played this game on the smart board to help us understand this concept more:
We have been working on our imaginative writing this week. Our stimulus for our writing lesson this week was this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEpiCEPkX7o
We then had to think about if we were that little girl, where we would like a bubble to take us. Stefan wanted his bubble to take him to see the Mona Lisa! Jakub wanted his bubble to take him to the dessert. Kyle wanted his bubble to take him to the sky. Ask your child where they wanted their bubble to take them?
We enjoy having learning conversations with our teacher. During this time we look at our dreams, check if we have achieved these dreams and set a new one if we need to. We also talk to Miss Meechan about what we enjoy at school and we can tell her if there is anything that is concerning us. One of our focuses for this month has been ‘achieving’. We have been self-assessing how we feel about our achievements, we keep this sheet in our special yellow folder in our classroom. Here are some of the dreams we have set this week:
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