RE – Page 2 – St Ninian's Primary School

Time goes quickly in P1R!

Sorry we can’t post photographs this week but there is no media space on the blog, hopefully I can add these later.

As you may have guessed from the title we started a new topic in maths – time. The children have been learning about daily routines, clocks and recognising o’clock times. They have enjoyed taking part in a variety of activities this week to help them learn, eg. making a clock, playing time apps, using small clocks to make times, being teachers and checking others clocks, time bingo and using the time playdough mats. It has been great to see everyone making links in their learning and the children are now using the class clock with ease, especially to remind me when it is lunchtime!!

A game which we used for our plenary sessions was Stop the Clock, Oma is the current class champion with 18 seconds to beat. Try playing this at home and see how quickly you can match the times.

http://www.teachingtime.co.uk/draggames/sthec1.html

In phonics we were learning about ‘sh’ and ‘ch’, these are not easy yet the children were confidently reading and spelling words with these sounds very quickly. Some of the activities which helped us were glitter tray writing, sounds bingo, interactive games on the smartboard and much more! Here is a game to try out which practises sh,ch and th.

http://splash.abc.net.au/res/i/L7855/index.html

In IDL this week the focus was on Scottish produce – we had a great afternoon on Wednesday tasting lots of different Scottish produced food – salmon, tablet, porridge, raspberries, shortbread, oatcakes to name a few! Everyone had to choose their favourite which we then wrote about in Thursday’s writing lesson. It was interesting to see so many different foods being chosen, shortbread was very popular! My favourite was the tablet, delicious!!

PE was good fun as we continued to learn about travelling with objects, we introduced some new equipment this week and we are now using basketballs, footballs and tennis bats/balls. Some of the boys were showing off their dribbling skills they have learned at their out of school football clubs.

We ended the week with some outdoor learning, Mr McCurdy joined us on an environmental walk in our local area. We were able to spot many signs of spring and at the same time increase our fitness levels by walking 2 miles, yes that’s right, 2 miles! We used a map and followed the signs as we walked. It was only fair that the children were rewarded with some time at the playpark on the way back to school.

Thank you also to P7 for teaching us about the Stations of the Cross on Friday, we learned a lot about the Easter story. We will continue to learn about Easter next week.

Successful learners in P1R

This week in literacy we introduced a really tricky sound, ‘qu’, the children enjoyed learning a little rhyme to help them remember the rule when writing qu. If you click on the link you can learn the rule too!

QU rhyme

Here are some pictures of the children showing off their spelling skills!

In maths we decided to revise all the concepts taught so far, the children amazed me at how much they have learned and remembered! They enjoyed revising addition, subtraction and money using a variety of activities during carousel time – smartboard games, money sorting, smartpal worksheets, using the rekenrek, question time, etc.

The theme for Religious Education this week was Lent, the children learned about Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. On Shrove Tuesday we enjoyed learning about celebrations around the world and thought it was really funny that in France and USA it is called ‘Mardi Gras’ which translates as ‘fat or grease Tuesday’. We had the opportunity to try some pancakes with our favourite topping, chocolate sauce!! I was really proud of how well they all participated in our whole school Ash Wednesday Mass, it was lovely to see so many children joining in with their prayers and mass responses.

Technology was a whole school focus and we decided to look at food technology but with a pirates twist! We learned about how to prepare our work surface for making different foods, how to prepare ourselves and how to safely use utensils. We enjoyed making treasure map pizzas and pirate ships. Some of us also did some extra food technology at home and made pirate snacks for Friday morning, thanks to Harry and James for making everyone a pirate cake, they were yummy!!

We also had a visitor called Sharon who works in the construction industry. She showed us lots of pictures of different buildings and we were able to link this to previous learning by telling her about different materials they were made from. She set us a challenge in teams to copy a building she had made using bricks, this was really good fun and all teams managed the challenge! To finish off we had a go at P4 work, yes you heard us right, P4 work!! We were able to build a city using co-ordinates and a grid. Thanks Sharon!

Safer Internet Day was on Tuesday and we watched an animation which taught how us about how to stay safe on the internet, we were all really sensible and identified what we should do if people were being mean to us online.

It was also lovely to see our nursery friends as they celebrated Chinese New Year, they certainly celebrated loudly as we could hear them before we could see them! Next week we are going to visit both morning and afternoon groups to teach them how to use the ipads in preparation for when they come to big school.

Have a lovely holiday weekend and I look forward to seeing all the children back in school on Wednesday!

We’re going on a ………hunt!

Wow I can’t believe it’s Friday again, what a busy week we’ve had in P1R!

In reading this week we have been focusing on revising all the sounds we have learned and blending sounds together to make CVC words. We have used a variety of approaches and resources to do this, Miss Smyth even paid us a visit and spent the morning observing us as we worked. She was very impressed at how well the children used the apps on the ipad and their classroom displays as a tool for learning.

Maths has been great fun as we continued to learn about shapes, this week we looked at 3D shapes and spent lots of time exploring the shapes using our sense of touch and sight. We played games on the smartboard, went on a shape hunt, played shape bingo and dominoes and even wrote detailed descriptions for each of the shapes in our writing lesson.

In IDL we looked at how pirates defended themselves when at sea and how they used different weapons in battles. Everyone chose a weapon they would like to make using junk or recycled materials. We have put these on display for everyone to look at, hopefully we won’t have to use them too often!! On Wednesday we went outdoors for learning on a pirate scavenger hunt, we had to listen carefully to the clues and then go and look for evidence of pirates in our school grounds. We worked in two teams and chose names and captains for our crew – The Jolly Rodger and The Squeaky Sail. It was lovely to see everyone working together and helping one another in their search. The fun continued on Thursday when Mr Hunter asked us to create our very own sea monsters which were often a feature in pirate stories. We again took the learning outdoors for this and the children created fantastic monsters! Harry loved making the weapons and pirate play, Matthew enjoyed making weapons and Angelina liked finding pirate things in the school garden.

For Catholic Education Week we spent time discussing how we could show mercy to others, the children enjoyed watching the Pope Francis animation and all produced their very own Hands of Mercy for a whole school display.

Finally we finished off the week with an Achievements Assembly and our committees. Oma was awarded a special certificate for being a reflective learner – well done Oma! When asked how she felt she said, ” I felt really good.”

Well as I said at the beginning of the entry, it’s been a busy week! We’re all looking forward to next week when we have Technologies Week as our focus and Lent begins.

P1R – All things old and new!

This week P1R started their new class topic which they have decided to call ‘Time Travellers’. Miss Proudfoot had transformed the library corner into a travelling time machine for the children. On Monday we planned our topic together and the children came up with lots of things which they would like to learn about:

Ana – I want to learn about the types of toys and the materials they were made from.

Oma –I want to learn about clothes, what did they look like, what were they made from, where did they get them?

Maeve – I want to find out what my mum and dad played with when they were little.

So far the children have learned about some differences between life in the 1950’s and present day, eg. Clothing worn, music listened to, changes in technology and cars, they enjoyed listening to some classic tunes from the 50’s as they worked!

Matthew – People wore fancy clothes in the 1950’s.

Oma – Ladies wore headscarfs.

Angelina – At school the girls wore hats.

In maths the children have been introduced to the concept of taking-away and they have learned some useful strategies – crossing out, removing an item, using cubes and using fingers. Some of our bright cookies have been able to work out the answer mentally!

James – I know 8-2 = 6

Our new theme in Religious Education is God’s Holy Book – the children have enjoyed hearing some scripture stories this week – The Secret Baby and God Makes a Promise.

Ahmad – God sent the rain to make the World clean.

In literacy we learned 2 new sounds – g and d – they have probably been the trickiest sounds to say and write so far! We read our new books and practised our Fry’s words. Miss Proudfoot and I were very impressed with the children’s imaginative stories they wrote this week using the video clip ‘Dreamgiver’ as our stimulus. We had some super discussions about good dreams and bad dreams. I shared my good dream with the children which I am sure many adults will share with me – a desert island with plenty of food, drink and sunshine, no children allowed, this caused great amusement, Mrs Gardner’s dream was even better, walls made out of money!!!

Harry – The Dreamgiver had wings and gave the children their dream in a golden egg.

We are also about to begin preparations for the forthcoming Nativity which I am sure the children will tell you about next week, we’ll keep you posted!