Maths – Page 5 – St Ninian's Primary School

Full timers in P1R

As the title says, P1R were in full days this week and lasted well, the children had bags of enthusiasm and energy for learning across the week. They enjoyed having lunch in the hall with the other classes.

Our phonics focus was ‘m’ and ‘c’ and the children learned about where in their mouth the sounds came from and how to form the letters correctly. They went on a sounds walk around the school looking for objects beginning with ‘m’ and ‘c’ taking it in turns to photograph what they found. Ask your child what colour the sounds are and I’m sure they’ll be able to tell you. They also enjoyed the carousel activities where they were able to use the smartboard and ipads, playdough, strawberry jam and lots more!

using strawberry jam to make the ‘mmm’sound

In maths we continued to practise our counting through games and songs. What great movers we have in P1R! We also used our book study topic in maths and spoke about the size of dinosaurs using mathematical language – tall, short, long, big, small. We had a great idea to then measure our dinosaur drawings from a previous lesson using cubes, I thought this was a good suggestion! We have put our findings on our classroom displays for you to have a look at.

In IDL we also went on a tour of the school as we have some children who went to different nurseries and were keen to have a look around. Mrs Purdie let us all go into her office, it was a bit of a squeeze but we managed to all fit in. Thanks Mrs Purdie! We also made our very own school ties.

The children designed some really nice book covers for Harry and the Dinosaurs and they learned about some of the important features of books – when you’re reading at home see if you can find some of these features.

We wrote our very first stories about our favourite things in big school with a little bit of help from the grown ups, it was great to see all of the children having a go at emergent writing.

PE and the Daily mile was good fun, we only managed half a mile this week but some of us chose to include this in our goal for the term. We played lots of teambuilding games and got used to the big hall. Well done to everyone for remembering their gym kit.

We finished the week with a whole school assembly and then set our personal goals for the term. Come along to Ninian’s Natter and discuss this goal with your child.

We’re all looking forward to next week!

Settling into P1R

What a fantastic start we’ve had to the new school year in P1R! The children have settled in nicely to the routines of the classroom and have kept themselves very busy. Time has been spent getting to know one another and where things are kept in the classroom.

In literacy we have been working on our pencil control making different patterns in preparation for starting our phonics lessons next week.

The children have also been introduced to our book study ‘Harry and the dinosaurs’. We read a story about Harry starting school and shared our own feelings about starting school. We have started a display and played with our class bucket of dinosaurs.

In maths we are developing our understanding of numbers to 10 – counting, sequencing, number formation and lots more.

We went to our first whole school assembly today and earned dojo points for being well behaved and responsible. We then started making our class charter deciding what rights we felt were important to us in our class.

We are all looking forward to starting our full days next week finishing at 3pm, Monday-Thursday.

PE lessons will be on Monday and Wednesday, full gym kit needed on those days.

Here is a glimpse of some of the children in action this week. Individual photographs have also been sent via class dojo – hope you like them!

Strength and determination to succeed!

I can’t believe that our time in P1R is almost ending, we’ve been using the time we have left to consolidate our learning and prepare ourselves for next session.

Monday started off with a fun filled judo session with our friends in P1D where we got to show off our moves. We worked with a partner using our strength and determination to try to defeat one another. I can’t believe how strong everyone is!!

In literacy we have been focusing on the alphabet – revising all the letter sounds/names, putting the alphabet in order. We were very creative with this and made letter shapes using pipecleaners, used the drawing apps and small whiteboards on the ipads to write the alphabet, played alphabetical order games on the smartboard.

Our friends from P6/7 visited us on Thursday morning for some paired reading which we always look forward to, the older children were amazed at how well we are all reading now, some of can even read with expression!

Maths this week has been about addition and subtraction as it has been a little while since we worked on this. Everyone remembered the strategies to use, eg. counting on or back, using the numberline, using our fingers. I tried to trick the children by giving them challenging missing number sums but as always they rose to the challenge and completed them successfully. As the children are so clever they took it in turns to be the teacher at addition bingo, they did a better job than me!!

We ended the week with Ninian’s Natter and our class bake sale. Thank you to everyone who supported this event, the total raised was £172 which will be shared with the nursery as they also donated cakes. The children will decide how best to spend this money next week.

Have a lovely weekend!

Busy bees in P1R

This has been a very busy week for P1R as for two mornings they worked in the P7 classroom to allow the nursery children to spend some time in the P1 classrooms in preparation for next session. The children enjoyed sitting on the ‘big chairs’ and working at the ‘big tables’. As always the children showed how responsible they were and continued with their carousel activities in the P7 classroom.

In literacy we have been revising all the sounds we have learned by doing lots of word building and spelling activities. Next week we will focus on the alphabet particularly looking at vowels/consonants/alphabetical order/letter names in preparation for P2. Mrs Gardner was working with the children on their Fry’s words and they all ‘blew her socks off’ as they know so many words now -well done everyone!!

In maths we have been learning about estimation, which to begin with was tricky. We have been estimating in our carousel activities, here are some of the activities we did: guess how many cubes will fit in our shoes?, measuring with cubes, estimation games on the smartboard, and many more. We all agreed that we are making more ‘accurate’ estimates now.

In IDL we started a mini-topic about minibeasts and enjoyed playing guess who?, writing our very own clues for a guess who game, matching minibeasts, drawing minibeasts and learning about minibeast habitats.

Here were some of the clues the children made up, see if you can guess the minibeast they are describing:

” I have 8 legs and I make webs. I eat insects. I am creepy and black.” Dominic

“I fly beside water. You can almost see through my wings. I have a sharp tail.” James

“I have black spots and I can fly. I have six legs. I am red and black.” Alice

“Butterfly’s are beautiful and pretty and they can fly. They are colourful. They like to go to warm places.” Oma

PE was great fun as we learned a new game, ‘Rounders’. Everyone listened carefully to the rules then split into 2 teams – fielders and batters. I was really impressed at how quickly everyone picked up the rules and we all had good fun out in the sunshine.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!! (Sorry no pictures, technical issues with blog this week)

Fun and friendship

I can’t believe how quickly the weeks are flying by, not long to go now!

In our literacy this week we have continued to learn about ar/or/ir/er words. Everyone is getting really good at identifying which pattern they hear in the words even though they sound very similar. We enjoyed playing the Aar Pirate game with a partner and competed against one another to get four in a row. We also wrote sentences in our jotters keeping our writing neat in preparation for P2, used the magnetic letters to make words and played some games on the smartboard.

In maths we have been skip counting in 2’s and learning about odd and even numbers, we did this through songs, games, written tasks and practical tasks. We also had a visitor to the class, Mrs Gallagher, from the WL Numeracy team who did some fun counting on activities with us using counters, numicon and dot patterns, she was really impressed at how well the children were doing in their maths work!

In our PE lessons we got the chance to go outside and use the running tracks. We did the 200m and 400m races, everyone raced in heats before we then had a boys and girls final. It was lovely to see the children supporting and encouraging one another to the finish line. The 3 winners in each final will now earn points for their houses – well done!

In IDL and HWB we focused on friendship and everyone pointed out that this is one of our school values. We learned about friendly/unfriendly behaviour and we all agreed that we preferred the good friend traits. We were all given a challenge to try and make at least one new friend in school or at home and each day the children excitedly told us about their new friends – well done everyone! In our writing we wrote friendship recipes using lots of WOW words – “a sprinkle of happiness”, “100 grams of love”, ” a pinch of fun” and ” 3 cups of kindness”. We also worked with our friends in P1D to make friendship bracelets out in the school garden, this was tricky but good fun! To finish off our friendship week we decided to have Goldentime with P1D at the park, everyone played together nicely showing what good friends they all were, what a lovely way to end the week!

You are a star!

I am so proud of all the children this week as they have shown how confident and responsible they have become.

There have been various opportunities for the P1 children to support the pre-schoolers this week as part of our ongoing transition work. Every day we went outside in the morning and afternoon for some playtime, the P1 children were fantastic at assisting the younger children by opening their snacks, playing with them, showing them around, etc. We also had some science lessons and again the P1’s had to work with a nursery child to support them in the carousel activities. They went outside for a mini-beast hunt with Mrs Caskie and then worked with myself to do some senses experiments. I can’t believe that almost a year has passed and we are now preparing our current P1’s for their transition to P2. More details to follow in the coming weeks about these preparations.

In class we continued to learn about numbers within 20, with the focus on number names which can be really tricky. The children played some matching games, used flashcards, did some written work and used the smartboard games. All were very successful in these activities.

Mr Hunter took the children for a fun outdoor lesson and the children worked in teams showing their creativity. Have a look at their efforts!

We ended the week with our Achievements Assembly and P1R had the honour of presenting their class assembly to the whole school. I was so proud of each and every one of them as they all stood confidently in front of a large audience. They said their lines clearly and sang their hearts out.

This was the song the children chose to end their assembly with, why don’t you ask them to sing along at home with the link below.

Feeling the heat in P1R

What a lovely sunny week we’ve just had although it’s not as bright today!

This week has been another busy one. In Religious Education we have been learning all about Mary and have been saying a Hail Mary every morning before we start our lessons. We watched a short Bible clip and then coloured in a stain glass window for our learning journals.

In maths we have continued to focus on ordering of numbers within 20 as some of us found this tricky last week, we’ve all got much better at it now. We enjoyed playing the loop card game and working in teams to order the numbers quickly before the timer ran out. The boys were victorious beating the girls 2 games to 1! We also played number bingo and a dice game to help us find the number more or less than. As a reward for everyone’s hard work we went outside to play ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’, we all remembered our o’clock times.

In literacy we continued to challenge ourselves by reading and spelling s blend words, everyone did really well with this. Our spelling and reading continues to get better each day and we love to beat our highest scores in our tricky words.

IDL has been fun this week as we have been learning about the parts of the body and the skeleton. We all made moving people, cotton bud skeletons and labelled the body parts correctly. Have a look at our class display when you’re here for Parent’s Evening. We also listened to some stories and songs about skeletons.

Preparations have begun for our class assembly which is in 2 weeks time. All the children have been issued with a speaking part to learn as part of their homework – well done to the children who know this by heart already! We will try to find some time next week to get the microphones out and practise using these. Congratulations to our friends in P1D who did their assembly today – you were awesome!

Next week as you know will be our annual Health Week, a letter has been issued today and there is further information on our class story on dojo. I will update this daily with the next day’s activities to ensure everyone comes prepared. Get lots of rest over the weekend as we’ll be really busy next week, hopefully the sun keeps shining!!

P1R weekly news

Although it’s been a short week we’ve managed to cram it full of learning!

In maths we have been ordering numbers within 20 and identifying largest/smallest numbers. We worked independently, with partners or as part of a team.

In our CLIC lessons we have been doing lots of counting. Here is the link for our favourite song, give it a go over the weekend!

In literacy things have got pretty tricky as we are now learning initial blends focusing on ‘s’ blends this week, eg. sm, st, sw, etc. The children quickly picked this up and could guess what the word was going to be from its initial sounds. We also got some time to do a Fry’s word spelling test and some us can now spell 32 words independently – good job everyone! Try this game which helps you learn blends. Here is a picture of Ana playing it in class.

http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/bowling_alley_US.swf

In IDL and RE this week we have been discussing our families and how they are all different. It was lovely hearing the children talk so lovingly about their families. We made some lovely family trees using collage materials and different coloured handprints for every family member.

Last week the children made some ‘Me’ bags as part of their IDL homework, we presented these to one another this week and had fun looking at all the things that made the children happy, eg. photographs of memories, sweets, toys, jewellery, etc. Well done to all the children that made these, you earned extra dojo points!

We continued our inter house championship in PE and learned about sprinting this week. We all had a go at racing one another making sure we were using our arms and legs properly. Next week we hope to go outside and try sprinting on the new tracks on the upper field.

To finish off the week Miss Meechan brought some surprise visitors to our class, Jinky and Joey, her pet guinea pigs. Some of us had a cuddle with them. Thanks Miss Meechan!

I hope you are all outside enjoying the warmer weather, hope to see some of you tomorrow at our Summer Fayre 10-12pm!

Feeling happy in P1R

What a busy week it’s been.

In literacy the children have been learning the ng sound. They have been playing sound bingo, reading sentences with ng words and playing games on the smartboard. They are really confident at recognising Fry’s words and punctuation as you can see from these pictures.

In maths we have been counting objects up to 20 and have enjoyed some noisy warm ups with our counting songs.

Feelings have been the theme in IDL and we’ve had some great discussions. We listened to some music and had to guess what emotion it sounded like then drew feelings faces. We then made a feelings wheel using lines and colours for different emotions. These are now on our class display.

The competition continued in PE and this week we learned how to throw a javelin. Ask your child the rhyme which helps them remember how to do this. Kyle and Filip were very good at this and threw their javelins the furthest.

I was very proud of all of the children this morning when they led mass at St Philip’s. They all showed how responsible they could be and the parishioners commented on this. WELL DONE BOYS AND GIRLS!

Counting fun in Primary One!

It’s been a busy week in P1R with lots of learning and fun!

In maths we have continued to develop our understanding of numbers and have been using songs and games to help us achieve this. One of our favourite games has been paint splat, working out numbers before, after and between. Try it out for yourself on our maths resources blog.

We also enjoyed looking for dot patterns and explaining to the rest of the class how we worked out the answer. Here’s what some of the boys and girls said about this pattern:

“I counted the dots one by one”

“I just knew it was 5”

“I counted the 4 on the outside, then added the 1 in the middle”

Image result for number dot patterns

Look at this dot pattern and tell someone how many dots there are and explain how you worked out the answer. Leave us a comment below.

Image result for number dot patterns

In IDL we planned our new topic, “All about me”, the children came up with some really good ideas which we’ll keep you posted about in our weekly blog posts. This week the focus was on ‘We are all different’, the children took part in discussions, listened to songs, wrote personal descriptions, made a torn paper portrait and did an eye colour survey. I think you’ll agree that they managed to cover a lot of subject areas using their IDL theme.

We also started our inter-house championship in PE, this week’s event was high jump. Everyone tried their best to master the scissor jump and the children loved when the bar got higher and higher! Well done to Oma, Alice and Dominic who were our house winners this week for the event.

Next week we will be trying out the new route for our daily mile, watch this space for an update on how we get on. Some of the route will now be on grass so try to remember trainers for next week.

Well done to all the children for participating in Ninian’s Natter this week, all the children have now had a learning conversation with myself to review last term’s goals and set new ones. If you didn’t make Ninian’s Natter ask them about their goals, we will continue to review these as the term progresses.

Last thing to mention is today’s Achievement Assembly, our class winner was Harry who was chosen for showing creativity in his work – well done!

See you all next week, remember our class mass is on Thursday 28th April at 9.30am in St Philip’s (wee chapel), it would be nice to see some parents/families there to support the children.