Category: Primary 1

Over View Of Learning

We have been learning about Sir Walter Scott as part of our new topic to do with historical people linked to Livingston.  Sir Walter Scott died when he was 61 years old and he was born in Edinburgh in 1771.  He was a famous writer and the street names in Dedridge are named after characters and places in his books.

We have been revising our key words this week and we have been continuing to improve our letter formation, P2 have even been joining up their writing!

In our Numeracy P1 have been continuing to explore the many different ways they can do subtraction calculations.  P2 were dividing using the grouping strategy.

Home Learning

For P1 and P2 try out these problem solving question which will need you to use grouping.

P2 – If there were 20 children in a class how many different ways could the teacher equally group the children?

P1 – For P1 write down as many take away calculations as you can that start with 10.

Pupil Voice

Adam – I really liked doing the problem solving challenge in class using grouping.

Shay – I really enjoyed learning about Sir Walter Scott, I wrote; Sir Walter Scott was a really famous man he wrote books.

Emileigh-Rose – I liked completing our Circle, Heart and Star independent tasks.

Lucy – I like doing the Sir Walter Scott colouring in sheet.

Regan – I liked doing the taking away work.

Sophie – I liked making the snowflakes last week.

Wojtek – I like the Science colouring sheet.

Shakti – I liked doing the keyword wordsearch sheet.

Isla – I liked making Valentines Day cards.

Julian – I love drawing and colouring sheets.

Szymon – I like doing the sheets about mapping.

Kevin – I liked doing the snowflakes.

Overview Of Learning

In numeracy and maths we have been learning about money.

P1 have been identifying the coins up to 10p.  They have been adding up 1ps and 2ps together.

P2 have been identifying the coins to 20p/50p.  They have been adding together different amounts up to £1.

Both groups have also been identifying that there are different variations in which coins you can use to make a given amount.  See the home learning section for some ideas as to how to continue this skill at home.

For Science/STEM topic this week we have been focusing on magnets.  The children have all been given opportunities at Smart Start to explore and discover magnets and magnetic forces.  This week we took this discovery learning a step further and explored the investigation skill of prediction when completing a magnetic/non-magnetic exercise.  The children had to say if they thought a certain object would be attracted to the magnet or not and then actually test it to see if their prediction was correct.  The children very quickly predicted that objects that were made from metal were attracted to the magnet but then they found out that not all metals will do this!  We had a big question at the start of the lesson, will the can of cola be attracted to the magnet?

Home Learning

If you have a magnet at home (even a fridge magnet will work) try out your own investigation of materials that are magnetic and non magnetic at home, don’t forget to predict first.

Practise using money, next time you are at the shop encourage your child to have a go at counting out an amount (within £1) to pay for an item.  It is always good to model some different coin combinations that can make a given amount.

Pupil Voice

Mason and Julian received the HT Golden Ticket this week for their outstanding contributions to our magnet lesson.  They are tasked with visiting either Mrs Smith or Mrs Roy and to explain to them our learning from this lesson. (They will complete this mission next week)

Our Learning

Literacy

We have been continue to consolidate our knowledge of the ai, oa, ee and oo sounds. We have been spelling, reading and ordering sentences with these sounds in them. It can be tricky to distinguish between these sounds but we are trying very hard with this. New sounds will be sent home in sounds folder after the February break. We have started to learn about writing instructions and this week we wrote a set of instructions about brushing your teeth. We were learning that we don’t use the words ‘I’ or ‘my’ when writing instructions.

Maths

This week, we have been learning about measure. We have been learning about measuring height, length, weight and volume. We have been comparing objects using words like taller, shorter, longest, shortest, heaviest, lightest, biggest and smallest. We were using non-standard units of measure such as pegs and cubes to measure our friends and objects in our classroom.

Our Learning Highlights

Lucy: I liked PE and balancing on the mats. I balanced with 1 hand and 2 feet on the floor.

Sophie J: I liked the red rainbow learning and you had to measure how heavy something was.

Max: I liked jumping off the box in PE. I remembered to have squishy knees.

Chloe: I liked the green rainbow learning you had to measure how long things are. We used the pegs to measure. The smart board was the longest thing I found.

Mason: I liked RE and learning about Jesus helping people turn water into wine.

Parental Involvement

This week in our literacy, we completed a word search with some ai and oa words. Have a go at making your own word search using this generator:

https://www.abcya.com/games/make_a_word_search

We enjoyed watching these videos to help us understand the ai and oa sounds some more:

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Davenport and P1

 

Our Learning Highlights

Last week, in literacy we were learning that ‘ai’ sound. Here are some activities we took part in to help us learn this new sound:

• We read words with the ‘ai’ sound in them and had to draw a picture to show their meaning e.g. we would read rain then had to draw a picture of a cloud with rain.
• We played snakes and ladders with ‘ai’ words – try this at home. Write out some ‘ai’ words and put these on your snakes and ladders game.
• We were cutting out different sounds and putting them together to spell ‘ai’ words.
• We also used the letter cubes for the first time and used these to spell ‘ai’ words. We were also word building with the magnetic letters and velcro mats too.

We were introduced to the mighty writer board in our classroom and we were learning how it works. We used the board to help us write a story about a robot. This week, we will be using it write about a train – this will help embed our understanding of spelling words with the ‘ai’ sound.

In numeracy we have been continuing with addition. We have been using a rekenrek to support our addition problem solving. We’ve also been speaking about how rekenreks can help us add on if the addition story was 12+14 – we don’t have enough fingers! We could put 14 in our head and use the rekenrek to show 12 and add on.

Pupil Voice

 

Lennox – I liked playing with the bricks.

Sylvia – I was in the house corner making cakes.

Harry – Outside I was playing tig this week.

Ethan – I was playing toilet tig outside. You tig someone and then someone else flushes you so you can play again.

Sophie F – I enjoyed playing in the house corner, I was putting the baby in her pram.

Carly – We were learning about tricky words this week.

Kian – We have been adding on 2.

Joanna – I was writing my letters ‘oo’.

Lucy – We were learning about gymnastics.

Parental Involvement

This game http://ictgames.com/phonicsPop/index.html was a firm favourite this week. We were focusing on the ai, ee and oo sounds but you could pick lots of different sounds and have a go playing at home.

We have been using numicon to explore how to make 10. How many different ways can you make 10 using something exciting at home? You could use grapes or counters from your maths pack – be creative!

Overview of Learning

This week our Science topic has moved onto Topical Science.  We focused on litter and recycling.  We used the story called The Messy Magpie as a stimulus and learned all about the different things we can do to reduce, reuse and recycle litter/rubbish.

In our literacy we stayed with our recycling theme and created leaflets about the dangers of litter to our environment and wildlife.  We have displayed these in our classroom.

In numeracy P2 have now completed their block of learning about “equal groups of” and next week we will begin to look at how we can share equally (dividing).  P1 everyone has now learned the number stories all the way up to 10 and our adding skills have made brilliant progress, some of us are even adding up to 20!

For our Health and Wellbeing everyone has now finished setting themselves their goals for this term.  P2 have set a Literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing goal.  P1 have all set a health and wellbeing goal and have then chosen if they wanted to make a numeracy or literacy goal.  Check these out on their profiles.

Home Learning

This week for home learning the children were asked to play Sumdog which is our school’s online maths programme.  You do not have to wait for it to be set for home learning to access and play this programme you can do it any time you like.

Next week P1 will be set up with their username and password too so they can have a go too.

At home try to be a Recycling Hero by carefully throwing our rubbish away correctly/safely!

Pupil Voice

Isla – I liked making the recycling posters.

Regan – I liked colouring the recycling logo.

Lucy – I liked when we were doing the I Spy sheet about the Three Little Pigs.

Lewis – I liked making my Lego cargo ship at Smart Start.

Wojtek – I liked making a tanker out of Lego.

Szymon – I liked the true and false questions we had to answer about the Three Little Pigs,

Oliwier – I liked building houses from the Kapla and bricks.

Shay – I liked trying to get my tower made from the pegs taller than Emileigh- Rose’s.

Emileigh-Rose – I like the Messy Magpie story.

Shakti – I liked making the little leaflet about recycling.

Kevin – I liked making the different houses.

Julian – I like to make cruise ships out of Lego at Smart Start.

Our Learning

Literacy

We have been learning the ‘l’ and ‘r’ sounds this week. These sounds can be quite tricky to say but we are working hard to pronounce them properly. We are still using the ‘ee’ and ‘oo’ sounds in our reading and spelling, one of our rainbow learning tasks was to spell words with ee or oo in them using the spelling mats. We were writing silly sentences with ‘ee’ and ‘oo’ words too, one sentence was – The spoon is up the tree. We’ve also had a go at fixing jumbled up sentences this week. The sentences didn’t make sense and we had to put them in the correct order making sure a capital letter was at the beginning and a full stop at the end and making sure the words in the middle were in the correct order and made sense!

Numeracy

We are continuing our addition topic and we have working on putting a number in our head and counting on – sometimes we have counted on beyond 10! We have also been developing our knowledge of different numbers that can add together to make 10, we enjoyed playing a matching game to match up the pairs to 10. We used our fingers to help us with this. We have also started to learn tricky doubles since we are very confident with doubles to 10 e.g. 1+1, 2+2 … 5+5. Now we have started learning the doubles to 20 e.g. 6+6 … 10+10.

 

Pupil Highlights:

Our favourite things this week have been:

Joanna: making a crown to be like a Queen. We made a flag for our castle.

Anaiya: castles have different flags so people know that castles are different.

Riyah: I liked doing number talks we were using 10 frames.

Anna: I liked learning about castles.

Sophie F: I know that castles can have different flags.

Amelie: I liked PE, we are doing gymnastics. I liked rolling down the slice of cake!

Mason: I liked learning the l and r sounds. L is for lick. R is for rack.

 

Home Learning Ideas

• Listen to the l and r jolly phonics jingles on youtube.
• We played this game as part of our rainbow learning. This was reinforcing our learning about shapes and patterns from last week.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/shape-patterns

• Use this link for an interactive 10 frame and find as many different ways as you can find to make 5, 6 and 7.

https://apps.mathlearningcenter.org/number-frames/

• In our writing we listened and responded to the story ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’. We then wrote 1 or 2 sentences about what animal we would like to come to our house for tea and what they might eat. You could try to write a different sentence about another animal that might come to your house for tea.

• Here is the doubles song we have been listening to in class.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Davenport and P1

Teacher Voice

I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!

In class this week we have been learning all about Science through the context of the story about the Three Little Pigs.

We started off by testing four different types of material to see which could withstand the Big Bad Wolf blowing on it; feathers, straws, tissue paper and Kapla (wooden) bricks.  Our wolf was actually just a hairdryer!  We discovered that only the Kapla blocks didn’t blow away.  We then created some tent structures from card and used the material that blew away to decorate these.  After this we used a wide range of construction equipment to create our own designed houses.  Some fabulous imagination was on display and excellent engineering and problem solving skills were developed.

In our Literacy we also used this story in our writing.  P1 had to write about their favourite part and P2 had to remember the beginning, middle and end and write at least three sentences.

In numeracy P1 have continued to develop their addition within 10 and 20 using a wide variety of resources such as pictures, beads, numicon and cubes.  P2 have been developing their repeated addition calculations and now all understand the X sign in a calculation.

Home Learning

At home try to build your own house using different materials.  Include a door, window and roof.  You can take a photograph of it and put it on your wider achievements page in your profile.

Check in with your profile to see some of the photographs from our Science learning.

Pupil Voice

Shay – I enjoyed making the three pigs house.

Shakti – I enjoyed feeling the different materials that we tested.

Isla – I liked making the card houses.

Oliwier – I liked checking the different material to see if it would blow away.

Emileigh-Rose – I liked when then hairdryer blew away the feathers.

Lily – I liked when the Kapla didn’t blow away.

Szymon – I liked building the houses.

It has been a wonderful festive week in P1/2.  We started this week with our class party and we are finishing with a whole school panto!

I wish everyone in P1/2 a happy and safe Christmas holiday.

Thank you to Julian’s mum who alerted me to a problem with our OneNote profiles; all of the posts the children and I had made since the end of November had not syncronised with the system.  I have manged to find a work around solution and all the posts should now be available for you to see.  These include Learning Conversations from Term 2, enterprise photos on the WOW wall, information about their contribution to the Nativity performances as well as a photo of meeting Santa during our Christmas party on the Wider Achievements section.

Have a lovely holiday,

Mrs Currie.

Weekly Overview

It was show week!  Our Nativity performances were outstanding. What a brilliant experience it has been to learn lines, songs and dance routines.  It has definitely created memories that will last a lifetime.

In class we used the theme of Christmas to help us learn about shapes by creating different shaped snowmen and labelling the shapes correctly.

We also completed some free writing where we wrote about anything we wanted to about Christmas/Winter, this allowed us to showcase our learning from this session so far.

We completed some Christmas decoration art by making a class paper chain to hang from our classroom ceiling to make our room feel festive.

Next week we have our Christmas party on Monday and this will allow us to showcase our Christmas dances we have learned in PE with Mr McCurdy.

Home Learning

As there will be no home learning next week please ensure all reading books and folders are returned to school.

Next week we will be completing some festive baking with Miss Lydon, while Mrs Currie will be teaching us some cool shading.

Don’t forget to check out your OneNote Profile for your photograph in your costume from the Nativity, this is in your Wider Achievement section.  Also if you have completed your Learning Conversation with Mrs Currie already this will also be available on your one note profile.

Play Voice

During our Learning Conversations the pupils have been asked for highlight from term 2, here are some responses;

Isla – I really liked making the Hot Chocolate Reindeer.

Lewis – I think the daily mile is the funnest thing ever.

Lily – I have liked doing the Christmas Art.

Mason – I thought doing the Me On The Map lesson was great, I liked colouring in Scotland and the Earth.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Currie

Overview

This week we have been rehearsing really hard for our Nativity Show.  We cannot wait to share our hard work and enthusiasm with you all next week on Wednesday and Thursday…on Monday we are performing for the whole school, this will be the first time we have ever had an audience!

It was also a busy week preparing for the Christmas Fayre.  Our class made Hot Chocolate Reindeer with extra marshmallow toppings (we sold out within 40 minutes!).  This enterprise project has been a super vehicle for learning about different skills required in business.  We had to use our Numeracy skills to work out how much to charge for our Reindeer Bags and we learned the vocabulary profit when discussing this.  P2 also developed their literacy skills, they learned how to write a list (this was for the ingredients and resources that we needed), they labelled a diagram (to show where all the different parts of the resources went to make the final product) and they wrote a set of instructions on how to assemble the Reindeer Bags.  P1 used their literacy and art skills to create posters to advertise the product, they learned these needed to be bright and clear to be read from a small distance.

In numeracy P1 have completed their first block of addition work, they have shown that they can use pictorial representations, concrete material, fingers and heads to work out their answers.  P2 rounded up their learning of addition and subtraction by looking at word problems and turning these into number sentences.

At Home

Over the next two weeks our focus in class will be shape, symmetry and pattern.  At home look for shapes in our environment (P1 – circle, square, rectangle and triangle, P2 – pentagons, hexagons and octagons).  have a go at repeating shape patterns and play the game of what should come next, look at the example below;

Pupil Voice

Last week during Ninian’s Natter we had the opportunity to evaluate our learning and this week we have started our learning conversations where we evaluate our goals from this term,

Adam says “I have improved my tidying skills and I now know how to tell the quarter past times on a clock”.

Julian says “I am doing really well at PE”.

Lewis says “I am getting better in numeracy with adding and taking away”

When your child tells you that they have had their Learning Conversation at school check out their One Note profile to see their evaluations.