Numeracy Across Learning – St Ninian's Primary School

Nursery News

What a wonderful fun packed week we’ve had as the children learn through play. As you can see we are adopting the Frobelian principle through out the nursery setting and the children are learning importance life skills and self regulation each day. Eg:

Natural resources were found by the children to complete a number table as we discover the numbers 0-10.

Each number has the corresponding number of items beside it. The children can then identify the number and recognize that they each represent a quantity.

Block play lets them discover shape and size as well as symbolic play, as Zuzzana found as she built a house for the teddy bear.

Mathematical skills and intellectual development are observed here as they use these abilities to plan and create inner images to outer objects.

Children are exploring clay and it’s properties as they create props or shapes in the world around them.

This develops fine motor skills in preparation for writing as well as language and imagination as they discuss what they are creating with their peers.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone!! If the snow appears be prepared for your child sledging and outdoor play.

from The Nursery Team x

NEXT WEEK

MONDAY – P7 children visiting us to make their award wining Ham and Egg pie AM and PM.

TUESDAY –

WEDNESDAY – National Eye Screening AM and PM children. Welly Wednesday in the garden.

THURSDAY –

FRIDAY – PEEPS IS BACK \O/ Beginning of a 3 week block. Please see the sign up sheet in the nursery or Mrs Beattie for further details and spaces available.

Nursery News

Here’s some evidence of the children discovering mathematical language and skills through play in the nursery this week. Maths Week in the nursery ran alongside every other experience and we’ve all had great fun along the way!! Fractions in the play dough, problem solving and measurement with the blocks and a number song with bears at the Smartboard.

NEXT WEEK IN NURSERY

MONDAY – HOLIDAY

TUESDAY – IN SERVICE DAY

WEDNESDAY – STARTING TOOTHBRUSHING

THURSDAY – PARENT COUNCIL AGM 6.30PM

FRIDAY –

Have a great long weekend !! See you all back on Wednesday x from the Nursery Team.

Nursery News

A short week it may have been.. but it’s been action packed nonetheless!

On Tuesday, our staff team joined local area colleagues to receive training from the Educational psychology team about how best to support children in the nursery setting. We were delighted to find that we are already implementing a range of strategies to support children and have been inspired to further develop these. Please always remember to share any ideas, questions or concerns with the nursery team when they arise.

We have fairly been getting involved in our ‘Garden’ learning context – and what better way to celebrate that than our road markings being added to our playground area and our mural being completed in our small garden! On our Monday holiday the road markings were painted to give a bit of structure to our bikes and trikes area of the garden.. along with six new ‘parking bays’ – the team will be back next week to add numbers to these bays, which will correspond with numbers on our wheeled toys to offer a practical number matching and sorting activity in the garden. On Thursday our ideas came to life as our wall mural was painted in the nursery garden. Mrs Martinek spoke to the nursery staff and children to come up with a design for our mural – it includes lots of aspect the children asked for, including a rainbow, dinosaur, snake and aeroplane.. we also added a number line and alphabet. Our nursery motto flies high across the top ‘where adventure, nurture and learning go hand in hand..’ We are very thankful to the parent Council who paid for this from their funds 🙂 what a beautiful addition to our garden!

Welly Wednesday this week was a treat – a new park to play in and explore! Falconer Rise Park is the perfect size and height for our boys and girls, with nothing out of bounds! We slid, climbed, spun, pushed, pulled, bounced – and most importantly – giggled! A short walk from the school, we think this will become a firm favourite! Hopefully the weather will stay bright and dry so we can take a picnic next time!

Next week is another busy week at St Ninian’s – we are asking that the boys and girls dress in their party finest on Thursday as we celebrate the upcoming royal wedding! If you have any wedding related items you could donate to our topic table we would be most appreciative 🙂

Nursery News

What a busy week we have had at St Ninian’s Nursery this week!

The top area is currently ‘under construction’ as the construction area has been created for the boys and girls to explore and play in. We have been so impressed with their focus, maturity and concentration in this area, especially due to the risks involved. The boys and girls show that they are able to to keep themselves and others safe whilst enjoying the difficult tasks of hammering nails and using screws. We have also been working on building our vocabulary in this area by looking at the names for the different pieces of equipment. Can your child tell you anything about this area?

We have been rehearsing our lovely songs this week in preparation for special person/grandparents day next week! We won’t spoil the surprise but be assured you will be blown away 😉

In addition to our lovely singing we have bee preparing some special gifts for grandparents day too. All of our boys and girls were delighted to be involved in planting sunflowers this week! We learned about what happens to the seed when it is planted in the soil and looked after with water and sunlight – we hope to see them grow into beautiful flowers one day soon!

At our May parents night there will be an ‘Art Gallery’ set up in the infant hall which will showcase the work of none other than our very own boys and girls! We have been working hard this week to get all of our entries finished and ready to be shipped off to be professionally framed. By offering the children free choice painting for this activity it has been lovely to get a feel for their interests and capabilities in art. Well done boys and girls, superstar artists!

The PM group had a whirlwind Wednesday with no less than FOUR birthdays to celebrate! The boys and girls made a cake for their friends to share and they all enjoyed the special time they had to have songs sung for them and big birthday claps done. Our food prep Thursday snack was PIZZA this week! A rip roaring success! To make these we chose healthy options by using a wrap as a base, spreading tomato passata on and adding chees, sweetcorn, mushrooms and tomatoes to taste – the boys and girls continue to love our food prep thursday snack days!

Welly Wednesday this week involved watching traffic from the bridge and takin tally marks on a sheet! We partnered up and split the responsbilities of counting as we looked for cars, buses, bikes and lorries. We were very lucky to have lots of waves, flashing lights and beeping horns as we counted and we practised safe road crossing on our way back to nursery. We look forward to the beginning of brighter weather to increase the time spent outdoors on a welly wednesday 🙂

Have a lovely weekend!

Amazing P2/3

It has been another busy week in Primary 2/3 and the children would like to share some of their learning highlights.

Kuba – I liked the Daily Mile because I was running really fast.

Alishba – I liked doing fitness with the Body Coach.

Calvin – I liked art when I drew a chicken. It looked fantastic!

Matthew – I liked doing Sumdog because I finished my challenge and I got a new animal.

Andrew – I liked Big Writing because we thought about what would happen if we had no toilets after learning about Global Goal #6. My story was funny.

Pawel – I loved Ninian’s Natter because my mum was there and I showed her the pink and green in my learning. My mum loved my writing.

Levente – I liked working in groups to make posters showing where food comes from.

Kasia – My highlight was maths because we were adding and taking away within 100.

Chloe – I liked doing fitness with the Body Coach.

Annayah – I liked the Daily Mile because I got a dojo for running so fast.

Maeve – I liked writing a story because we were writing about the toilets closing and mine was really funny.

Zuzanna – I liked maths when we were doing bigger and smaller numbers. I hit a dip but I used a number square and I asked a friend for help and I got out of the dip.

Matthew and Maeve – we liked talking to the Rights Respecting Assessors and we heard at assembly today that we might have a chance of getting our Level 2 Accreditation!!

Rachel – I liked when we prayed together.

Harry – I liked doing the Daily Mile because I was fast!

Brooke – I liked getting ready for the Talent Show.

Have a lovely weekend.

From P2/3, Mrs Keegan and Mrs Howley

P2/3 Weekly Update

It has been another fantastic, busy week in Primary 2/3.

The children would like to share some of their highlights:

Angel and James – I liked looking at our Local Area. We thought about how land is used in our local area and made maps. We used Google Maps to help us.

Alishba and Aaron – I liked Big Writing because we wrote about how milk comes from cows. We made posters in groups too.

Andrew and Jakub – I liked PE because we played a game with the parachute. It was really fun! We played another game called Sharks and Lifeguards too. When you’re a shark you have to pull someone under the parachute and they become a shark. Then the lifeguard has to save you.

Harry and Matthew – I liked playing dodgeball in PE.

Zuzanna – I liked creating a character in literacy. I named my character Teresa.

Maeve – I liked making a character description. I called mine Yana.

Brooke – I liked the assembly when we found out the results of the elections for house captains.

Chloe – I liked the P1R assembly because it had Spanish songs.

Levente, Annayah and Pawel – I liked learning about Global Goal #6. We learnt about a school in Kenya where they didn’t have clean water and we listened to a song about clean water too.

Oma and Calvin – I liked doing Sumdog because I got more coins and a pet and I completed in the West Lothian contest.

Carly – I liked Spanish because we were learning high numbers up to 30!!

from P2/3, Mrs Howley and Mrs Keegan.

Nursery News

Its been a very short week in Nursery but we still packed in lots of learning experiences. Transition continued this week with both nursery sessions joining the Primary 1 classes to take part in either a numeracy or literacy carousel. The children got the opportunity to join in with a reading carousel listening to a story on the smartboard then moving onto working with a Primary 1 friend on a literacy app on the iPads . They also got a chance to make a Gruffalo story wheel which we will use to retell the story. In the numeracy carousel the children learned about time and made their own watches. All the nursery children showed a great attitude towards learning and were little superstars. Next week the children will be joining in with more carousels.

The children have continued to enjoy The Gruffalo topic and they got the chance to make their own Gruffalo masks. We will continue with this topic next week as the children have came up with lots of super ideas which are written in our talking books. Please feel free to have a little read when you are in nursery.

In P.E. with Mr McCurdy we have been concentrating on athletics. We enjoyed improving our running and jumping skills and next week we will be working on our throwing skills.

PEEP classes continue with group 1 learning about stopping, getting ready to think and go. They then got to take red, amber and green plates to take home to reinforce this learning. Group 2 have been working on their numeracy skills. They have had fun making their own skittles and using different sized balls to knock over huge tins and working with each other in order to listen and take turns. What fantastic fun they are having!

It is the turn of our AM children to share their learning experiences with us this week.

Dylan” I like being outside at Nursery.”

Carter” I played with the bricks and made a tower with my brother.”

Liam ” I was playing with the bricks and the magnets and I made a rocket. It was easy!”

Sophie” I played with the wee girl Celine.”

Micha ” I liked playing the bricks with my friend Oliver.”

Roma” I played with my friend Lucy”

Blake ” My favourite was playing outside with my friends.”

Just a little reminder that as the children are outside every day and hopefully the sun may shine can we please ask that suntan cream be applied before coming to nursery and that appropriate clothing is worn eg sun hat, long sleeve top. Thank you for your support with this.

For parents of preschool children a letter has been given out detailing parent meetings to provide you with important information before your child starts St Ninians. Please let any of the team know if you have not been given one of these letters.

Snack money is now due either £1 per week or £11 till the end of this term. This can be paid by iPad impact. If you are unsure of your payments please ask any of the team and this can be checked for you.

For more photographs please check our Nursery parents Facebook page.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery team.

Weekly update

Another busy week in P1R.

In phonics we met a rude clown who taught us about the ‘Th’ sounds, Mrs Roy made us all stick our tongues out when practising this sound, have a go at home. We played a cool game on the smartboard which revised sh, ch and th where we had to fill the rocket tank with fuel. The game was called Letter Planet and it is on the Topmarks website if you want to play it again. We also made th books and practised spelling th words using magnetic letters.

Subtraction was the focus in numeracy this week and we learned more about mathematical language, did you know there are different words that mean the same as subtraction? We enjoyed playing the Lego subtraction board game with a partner to help us in our numeracy learning and also made subtraction ice cream cones. We also went on a visit to the local shop to finish off our money topic. Everyone had 20p to spend and had to look at the price labels before making our choices. Klaudia and Isla had a great idea to team up and put their money together as they saw something which was 30p, well done girls, good problem solving and teamwork! Nathan found it tricky choosing as there were so many things he liked. Dexter was able to buy 4 things with his 20p, he added the prices together to make 20p.

In RE we were looking after the new life we had planted and we were delighted to see how our seeds had grown. We’ve taken them home now to show our families. We decided to make our Lenten promises and came up with some lovely ideas – Ephraim will help look after his little brother, Brooke will give to the poor, as a class we decided to say an extra prayer every day in school. We also learned about St Patrick while listening to some traditional Irish music – Mrs Docherty visited us to show us her Irish dancing!!

Our pirate adventures continued this week and we all made pirate masks to use in some role-play activities. Isla enjoyed taking videos and pictures as we acted out our pirate adventures. We also wrote stories about being marooned on a desert island which we are going to submit to the Young Writer’s competition. There were some great imaginative ideas and a selection of WOW words.

Continue reading “Weekly update”

Nursery News

This week was Stay and Play at Nursery. The boys and girls were very excited to share their learning adventures with their families. They were so confident at showing them round all the areas of the nursery and were then able to join in with their learning. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came along to these sessions and hope that you all enjoyed your time with us. We look forward to welcoming some more visitors to our Come back and Play sessions which are next week.

We have been discussing and looking for signs of Spring in our learning and to help us with this we had some new additions to our nursery family. It was some caterpillars! We talked about how they grow and we noticed their special food in their tubs. We learned the special name for the home they make for themselves before they turn into butterflies. We also read the story of The very hungry caterpillar. We now have our caterpillars on display with an information board which explains how they grow. We are all super excited to watch the changes over the next few weeks and be able to talk about them. Please have a little look at them the next time you are in the nursery.

We have also been very busy this week making invitations for our Grandparents day which is on Thursday 30th March at 10am and 2pm. These will be making their way home next week. We would appreciate it if you could give us an idea of how many will be coming along to this event for catering purposes and also would be grateful for any donations of cakes or biscuits nearer the time.

Our numeracy and literacy skills have been developing too this week as at small group time we have been counting up to 10 and recognising our names. This has been developed further by the children having the opportunity to find their name at the gluing table and putting it on their work and also at the drawing/ writing table where they can try and find their name and practise writing it. What super workers we have.

Our pre school children were given a letter this week with our transition calendar. We will also be issuing a transition booklet soon which further explains some of our planned activities. This is an exciting time for the children who are getting ready to go to school in August . If you have any questions about any of the activities please ask any member of the nursery team who will be more than happy to help you.

We are trying to move towards a cashless nursery and in order to achieve this we would encourage you to pay your child’s snack money on the online payment of iPay impact. This will also be of benefit when your child goes to school as this system is also used there.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery team.

Signs of spring

This week we have been continuing to look for signs of Spring or new life during our RE lessons. Many children have spotted some new flowers growing near our school or in their gardens. We decided to do some planting of our own in the classroom. We made lots of links in our learning when doing this:

RE – new life, Lent, preparing

Science – growing seeds, what will we need, what are the best conditions for growing things, seasons, weather

Literacy – sequencing, writing instructions

Numeracy – counting seeds, measuring soil

In phonics we learned about ‘ng’ and ‘wh’, we all agreed that they were quite tricky. Ephraim has been great at spotting ‘ng’ throughout the week in reading books or on the smartboard – well done Ephraim. We tried a new activity at our choice station this week – the ‘wh word hunt’ – we had to use magnifying glasses to spot the tiny wh words hiding in a colourful picture, it was good fun. We have also been using magnetic letters, playdough and written tasks to help us learn these new sounds. Another station was the peer assessment station, one of us read the words and the other person had to spell the words on the whiteboards, we loved taking it in turns to be the teacher! Next week we are moving onto the rude clown sound -Th.

In numeracy we worked on number names to 10 as this was something we chose as a next step after learning about money. We played games to help us do this, eg. Matching names to numbers, spelling number names games on the spelling bug app, number name wordsearches. We are all more confident now in reading number names and are ready to move onto something new next week. Remember to log onto Sumdog to take part in the West Lothian Contest this week. We will also make time at school next week during Smartstart and numeracy to do it too.

In IDL we learned about mapping and made our very own treasure maps for our pirate adventures. We discussed what you would find on a map: symbols, a key, a compass, a route. This will help us during Outdoor Learning Week where we will have a go at following some maps outside.

Pupil voice:

Dexter- I liked playing the sky phonics app on the iPads.

Klaudia-In PE we were playing hockey.

James-I enjoyed learning about Lent.

Amber- I liked learning about subtraction.

Isla- We made a treasure map.

Brooke- I liked our RE work this week.

Ephraim- I liked learning about number names.

Mark- We were planting seeds.