This week has been fun in P5. We have been busy preparing for the school Christmas Fayre and learning all about enterprise and how to run a successful business. We made sock snowmen to sell! These were a big hit at the fayre and every single one was sold!
We have been doing Scottish country dancing in PE to prepare for our Christmas party and Mr McCurdy taught us some new dances because we are so good at it.
In art, we learned about an artist called Banksy who is a mysterious stencil spray paint artist.
Pupil voice
“I liked making the snowflakes for our stall at the fair. It was fun because when you were unfolding it, it was a bit like a surprise to see the final result!” – Wojtek
“I really enjoyed making the sock snowmen! It was fun making them and choosing what colours we wanted to use! I chose pink and purple!”
“I liked watching a video all about having a successful business and the importance of cash flow!” – Angelina
“I liked learning about Banksy because he is an unknown graffiti artist!” – James
Parental Involvement
Ask your child how to make a paper snowflake and make some together to complete your festive décor!
This week we were inspired by the Autumn leaves. We talked about the Autumn colours and used these in pictures and then P2 started to write poetry about the leaves falling from the trees, this will be completed next week. P1 wrote a sentence describing the leaves using colour or touch adjectives.
In Numeracy P2 have been continuing their work on subtraction and also starting to look at how many more are needed to make an amount. P1 have continued their focus on addition within 10 by focusing on all the different ways they can make the same amount.
As a class we have also been learning about time, this week we focused on the past side of the clock and the vocabulary “quarter past”.
Most children from P2 have now completed their personal talk in class. We all learned so much about some of the important jobs people do in our community. Well done everyone your feedback sheets will be in your home learning jotter next week.
At Home
Practise telling quarter past times.
Highlight the difference between words that begin with f or v and s or z.
When reading at home, once you have read a book try to use three statements to retell the story (beginning, middle and end) in your own words.
Pupil Voice
Khyla – I have completed my numeracy goal (numbers to 100) and I have set myself a new goal (telling the time).
Lewis – I made the boost word scowl out of play dough.
Lucy and Hareem – We earned the golden ticket this week for our writing about Autumn leaves.
In literacy we have completed our work on writing procedures by writing instructions to cross the road. Look out for our fabulous work in our jotters and see how we have included goals, materials and steps as well as using strong verbs, adjectives and punctuation. We loved peer-assessing each other’s work as we took a learning walk around the classroom then had great fun stealing ideas from each other! Handwriting has been another focus this week and we have begun to join easy words – ill, tilt, lit and it. We used our success criteria to self assess this work – look out for the pink and green highlighted work in our jotters. We all love a highlighter in P3!
In maths we have continued our work on addition and subtraction by using fact families and multiples of ten to help us add. We’ve loved using counting beads to help us work and worked really well with our learning partners.
Our health and well-being focus has been road safety week and we’ve been busy writing procedures to cross the road and making safety posters. Road safety was our outdoor learning focus as we designed roads in the playground then helped our friends to cross safely.
We loved sharing our Read, Write, Count bags with our families on Wednesday – it was great to have so many families join us to explore the contents of our lovely bags.
Drama was another highlight as we explored different ways of using our voices and had great fun trying to make our voices sound high and low, loud and quiet, slow and fast.
Pupil Voice
Abigail’s highlight was the visit from the Five Sisters Zoo. The zookeeper told us all about endangered animals and her job.
Road safety week was Micah’s highlight because he learned how to stay safe near roads. He especially loved making a poster to keep others safe.
Riley loved creating pictures of how we look when we feel good, in Smart Start, as part of our work on Resilience
.Next Steps – Home Learning Opportunities
Maths – Work on fact families for numbers to 20. You can use the counters in your maths pack to help you . An example is 3 + 7 = 10, 7 + 3 = 10, 10 – 3 = 7 and 10 – 7 = 3.
Literacy – Explore the contents of the Read, Write, Count bags. You can record your learning on your One Note profile.
Health and Well-Being This week our focus has been road safety. Remember to use your skills when you’re crossing the road with your family. More activities and information are available on the Brake Road Safety website.
This week has marked the end of our Big Build competition entry preparation. It has been a busy few weeks for the children involved, who have given up lunchtimes and any free class time to get it all organised! Mrs Scott has led this project with the P7 group and had Ian from Crudden homes in on Wednesday to discuss the progress and organise a visit to take final photos and have a presentation on the ideas behind the Big Build.
We also had our second transition visit this week with Group B – we enjoyed a science lesson with Dr McAllister and a swimming session in the pool where we made our way across the breadth of the pool and back, then competed in teams to collect the most ‘sinkers’.
In numeracy this week we continue to work on addition and subtraction and discuss, explore and experiment with different strategies, always aiming for accuracy. We finished our week by revising the rules of the standard written algorithm (tower sum, chimney sum) for addition and are beginning to use this mathematical language as we move forward. Perhaps you could have a timed challenge working out 3/4/5 digit addition against each other at home this weekend?
In literacy this week we took part in the Book Week Scotland activities by entering the Scottish Book Trust 50 word fiction competition – we used our writing lesson to recap the rules of a narrative and used the context of a conversation to write our entries. The competition is available to adults and children and the context changes on a monthly basis. If you would like to enter the competition yourself you can do so at this link;
https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/50-word-fiction
Pupil Voice
Mirren At transition we did swimming and science and it was really fun!
Aleks At transition we did lots of fun stuff in science about a bunsen burner.
Brooke We had to plug the rubber cord into the gas tap and then you push it down and turn it then the same person or the other person would light it with the lighter.
Daniel We did the 50 word story and it was fun.
Finlay In maths we used numeracy skills to do tower sums but we are calling them something different
Mirren We used leadership skills to help the nursery with PE.
Daniel We used teamwork in science (transition) when we had to figure out whether cotton, felt or bubble wrap kept the water warm (Brooke an insulator). We used a silver cup which would usually make the water cool down.
Learning at home
This weekend please take the time to read for enjoyment – we used book week Scotland to launch our new class reading challenge – we are going to try to read to the height of Mrs Conway. Every time we finish a book we will draw around the spine of it and add it to the ‘pile’ by sticking it on the wall – Mrs Conway has agreed a whole class treat if we get to the target by June!
Listening to the difference between the v and f sounds. These sound really similar – we sorted out pictures of things with the v and f sounds at the beginning. We repeated this activity with the z and s sounds as these sound familiar too.
We created a wanted poster for the missing three little pigs. We had to ensure our sentence had a capital letter; full stop; finger space; included the word ‘and’ and had a describing word or phrase.
Our numeracy highlights this week have been:
Learning about doubles to help with our mental addition skills.
Creating a bar graph on our outdoor learning morning. We then using our adding skills and use the information we gathered to add different transport types together.
Developing the strategy of putting a number in our head and counting on (see our example video on twitter so you can use this strategy at home too).
Pupil Voice
Harry: the red rainbow learning was a train numbers game. You add 2 numbers, put a number in your head and then count on numbers.
Sophie F: the green rainbow learning was for a competition, you had to draw your favourite part of school. The winner will get their picture painted on the wall in the hall.
Chloe: you need to cut out the ‘b’ and ‘d’ and then stick them in the right place. All of the b was on one side and the d on the other side.
Ethan: you had to put the colour dots into the 10 frame. I made 8, 3 red and 5 yellow.
Kian: we learned the v and z sounds. The z sound starts for zebra for zoo.
Parker: v is for van.
Carly: we made a wanted poster for the three little pigs. I wrote the pig had yellow trousers.
Sophie J: we have been learning about doubles. If you double a number you add the same number, double 2 is 2+2 and the answer is 4.
Amelie: You could put number 6 in your head and show 4 fingers and count on.
Max: we were looking for vehicles for a traffic survey – we saw vans, aeroplanes and buses.
Mason: we got our little bookbug bags with 3 books inside it and pencils. My favourite book was The Unicorn Expert book.
Parker: we had an assembly 5 sisters zoo. They told us that bears are dangerous and they told us about their job.
Parent Ideas
Use the whiteboard and pen in the bookbug bag. Adult to say either f/v or s/z sound and children to write down what they hear.
Use this song to help with your doubles
Use this link to play an addition game – try to put a number in your head and count on. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/mental-maths-train
In maths we have been continuing to develop our understanding of symmetry. We decided to use the outdoor environment to create symmetrical designs using natural resources. We have enjoyed participating in Free Writing Friday again this week. In literacy we enjoyed using the reading comprehension box cards to challenge our understanding of what we read. In PE, we have started our Scottish country dancing block to prepare for Christmas parties.
Pupil Voice
“I liked doing the comprehension box card challenge because you had to try to figure out the answers.” – Alishba
“I liked doing PE because it was fun learning the dances!” – Madison
“I liked doing symmetry in maths because it was fun trying to draw the other half of the picture and it was hard.” – Lennon
“I liked doing art because we got to work in pairs to make a symmetrical design outside!” – James
Parent Involvement
After discussion with the children, they would like parents/guardians to draw one half of a symmetrical design and get your child to complete the other half! Good Luck and enjoy!
This week we have been celebrating Catholic Education week. We have focused on the Gospel Values and the importance of being kind. This tied in very well with our learning about small acts of kindness last week and also with what we have been working on during our Pope Francis Faith Award sessions. We have discussed how our School Values reflect the Gospel Values and what we can do to ensure we are always being as kind as possible.
We have also been reminded about the importance of Road Safety for Road Safety Week. Our newly appointed Junior Road Safety Officers delivered a very informative assembly to the whole school. Well done Ola and Orla! We are looking forward to finding out who has won the competitions!
In literacy we have started a new writing genre – exposition. Can you remember all the sections of the next?
Four our first exposition we were writing about children having protected time to play during school hours. This has caused much debate in our class and also ties in with our new ‘play’ area in the upper area. Family Discussion Point – Should children have additional time to play during school hours? Let us know your views as a family in the comments.
Pupil Voice:
We enjoyed the last week of Rugby because we did a big tournament. We have really enjoyed our rugby block! (Mark, Evie and Adrin)
In bike ability this week we went on the road. We had to follow all the traffic rules and use our hand signals. It was very important to listen to the teacher at all times to keep ourselves safe. (Robbie and Levente)
We enjoyed creating our ideas for the mural competition in art this week. We also enjoyed creating our Beatitudes posters for our kindness display. (Louise and Ailie)
Our first group went to st Margaret’s this week for their transition visit. We took part in a science lesson with Dr McAllister. Unfortunately the pool was out of order so we will return for our swimming lesson.
In numeracy this week we have been going back to basics with our number talks sessions and agreeing the expectations for behaviour, focus and engagement. Can you challenge your parents to see how many strategies they can come up with for addition and subtraction using 3 digit numbers?
In literacy this week we have been continuing our use of the wraparound spelling resource and looking at Blooms Questions to focus our understanding of our group reading novels. Some of us made it to the library this week and are looking forward to Book Week Scotland next week to enjoy some extended time to read our novels 🙂
Pupil Voice
Samuel – I enjoyed lighting the bunsen burner at high school
Harley – I love playing with my buddy at funky Friday
Krystian – I’m really enjoying the big build
Mirren – I loved doing our random act of kindness
Abi – the cinema trip was awesome!
Learning at home
We are beginning our democracy topic and it would be great for our boys and girls to learn a bit more about the political parties in the UK – they will be making their own political parties and standing for election… we cant wait!
It has been a very chilly week but our learning in P2/1 has been keeping us warm. This week we have continued to learn about our topic of Our Community and we have focused on Fire Fighters. We heard the story of Charlie the Fire Fighter, we learned about her uniform and the skills she has to have to be the best Fire Fighter she can be.
In literacy;
P2 – We have rounded up our work on writing descriptions, we have used lots of adjectives and learned that colour and number words can be used as adjectives to describe things. We used our PM Writing programme of work to help us with this.
P1 – We have learned the sounds g and d this week. We have been colouring pictures that show these sounds.
In Numeracy;
P2 – We have been adding this week. We explored how numbers get bigger when we add. We used rekenreks, counting beads and ten frames to help us. We developed our learning of adding on ten and nearly ten, and we could do this in our heads.
P1 – We have been exploring through play and concrete material as well as pictorial representation addition within 10.
We have been learning the ‘d’ and ‘g’ sounds this week. We are using these sounds when we are spelling and reading. Some of our activities this week have been:
Snakes and ladders with CVC words – when we land on a square we need to read the word we land on.
Played ‘I spy’ and found things beginning with ‘g’ and ‘c’. These sounds can sound quite similar so we had to listen carefully for the difference.
Found lots of things beginning with the ‘g’ sound.
Learned and wrote the correct formation for ‘g’ – making sure we kept the tummy on the line and the tail goes underneath.
Developed our higher ordering thinking skills in our reading groups and answered lots of ‘why’ questions about the story.
Used the Velcro mats and magnetic letter boards to spell words using the new sounds we were taught.
Numeracy
We are continuing to learn about adding numbers together. Our number talks focus this week has been ten frames. Some of our numeracy activities this week have been:
Smart board games looking at formal written addition stories.
Recording the answers to pictorial addition stories and formal written number stories e.g. 3 + 2 =
Developing our mental addition by thinking about questions such as “if I have 3 counters and then I get 1 more, how many will I have?”
Putting a number in our head and counting on rather than going back to the start to count again. E.g. 5 + 3. Put 5 on your head, show 3 fingers and count on 6, 7, 8. Rather than showing 5 fingers and then 3 fingers and counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Pupil Voice
Cinema Trip
Kian: We went to the cinema to see How to Train your Dragon 2.
Parker: we drew a picture of our favourite part.
Ollie: we were movie critics.
Chloe: I wrote ‘the film was amazing’.
Sophie F: I wrote ‘the film was OK and sad.’
Nativity Rehearsal
Carly: we are signing songs. I love the one about the little grey donkey.
Kian: we sign a song called ‘we’d like to tell you a story.’
Sophie J: I’m a star in the nativity.
Mason: I’m an innkeeper.
Lucy G: I’m an angel.
Grace: I like being Mary.
Numeracy
Anaiya: we are learning about adding numbers together.
Kian: 1 and 8 is 9.
Ollie: 5+4=9
Literacy
Riyah: we learned the ‘g’ sound. G for gorilla.
Reka: it is an orange sound, it comes from the back of your mouth.
Amelie: an orange sound means a loud sound.
Mason: we learned the ‘d’ sound. D is for dog.
Parker: it’s a blue sound, it comes from your tongue. It’s dark blue and that means it is dark blue.
Home Learning Ideas
Listen to the ‘d’ and ‘g’ songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKW89UcvuCQ
Use the online 10 frame to explore how many different ways you can find to make numbers. E.g. how many ways to make 3?
