How can it be September already? We are fortunate that the weather has been so good lately, but please bear in mind that in Scotland a sunny morning doesn’t necessarily mean a dry lunch break. Please send the children to school with a jacket every day to allow us to spend time outdoors each day regardless of the weather.

STEM

(Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths)

STEM ( Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths)

We really appreciate your ongoing donations of clean recycling – yes, we really do need more boxes!

Our STEM area is a core part of our play curriculum in school. The end product may not look like much, but it is the process that matters. ‘Junk’ modelling helps to develop their imagination and creative abilities while challenging them to explore, investigate and problem solve as they bring their ideas to life.

Children can work on their own or co-operate with others, learning to negociate and share ideas. When they create something new it can give their confidence and self-esteem a big boost. They can also consider how their plans have worked out as they think about what they might have done differently or how they might improve their model.

With these materials they practice complex skills from fine and gross locomotor skills to higher order executive functioning; higher order thinking skills such as sequencing, hypothesis testing, divergent problem solvng, analysis and evaluation.

If they don’t take their model home at the end of the day it doesn’t matter – the learning has already happened. If it does come home, please value the process your child has gone through more than the product itself. Thank you.

Independent learning

The children have been developing their skills through independent learning opportunities in class. Here are just a few photographs of what they have been doing.

Literacy

Our literacy focus this week has been on hearing and creating rhyme. We have listened to lots of books by Lynley Dodd, the author of the Hairy McLary series of stories.

We have also continued to share the rest of the memory boxes together.

Numeracy

This week our focus has been on counting to 10, starting and stopping at different places. e.g. start at 3 and stop at 8

We have also been learning to recognise the numerals 6-10

Other areas of the curriculum

In both indoor and Outdoor PE we have been continuing to focus on our skills in different ways of travelling e.g. jumping with both feet together, skipping, hopping and side stepping.

Things to do at home and other information

• Promote independence in dressing – changing/tying shoes, opening snack packets, zipping up coats, sorting inside out sleeves etc
• Count forward within 10, starting and stopping at different points
• Look around the environment for examples of written numerals 0-10
• Encourage your child to write their name using correct letter formation. You may wish to refer to this sheet for letter formation routes.

Purple folder. Thank you for your support in emptying the purple folders each day. Some children like to attach a keyring or similar to their folder to help them easily identify their own one. This is a great idea, but please only one small – medium sized keyring, as lots of bulky ones make the folder tricky to store in the class basket. Thanks.

A reminder to name all items of clothing and shoes, and to check names on items brought home in case your child accidentally acquires a jumper belonging to someone else.

We would greatly appreciate donations of any unwanted empty or partially used notebooks or diaries ( used pages can be removed). Also any enticing writing implements ( ie glittery pencils/gel pens/ pencils with feathers etc – basically anything other than standard school issue type pencils/pens) These will be used in our ‘message trolley’. The children enjoy choosing resources from the trolley to use in their independent learning, promoting markmaking and early writing skills.

Please also see a request in the home link for some donations of resources for our outdoor loose parts learning (messy play) sessions