Author: Staff..294

P1 Koalas

P1 Koalas 3.5.24

Staff..294

Hello Everyone

Here is what we have been learning in P1K this week:

Literacy

We have been working on new reading books this week which will be going home on Friday, as usual. Some of us have been reading in pairs, taking turns to read each page.

We have been working on our handwriting, revising the letters, a,c,d and g, and writing the capital letters D,E,F and G. We have also been writing numerals in the teens, taking care to write the 1 first and to write the other numerals the correct way round.

Activities to try at home:

Share your reading book with someone at home. You may wish to take turns reading a page each or you might like to read the whole book yourself.

You might also try to:

Identify rhyming words or think of words that would rhyme with words in your book.

Talk about your favourite part of the book. Why do you like it?

Decide what you would write on the next page of the book or talk about what might happen next in the story.

P1 Talks – please prepare your talk about your favourite place by Wednesday 8 May. Please have a look at the previous blog post for more information.

Numeracy

Across the class this week, our numeracy learning has included practicing adding amounts as well as saying number sequences forwards and backwards, sequencing and ordering numerals and describing equal groups.

Activities to try at home:

Practice counting forwards and backwards from different starting points (in the 1-30 range, or in the 1-100 range if you feel confident with 1-30).

Choose one of these games to help you practise your addition skills:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/addition/addition-to-10

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Flash.aspx?f=PostSortingcalculationsv2

PE

We have been practising our running and throwing skills this week in PE,

Expressive Arts – Music

We had our final session with our visitor from YMI this week. We sang the songs we have been learning and had some fun using a parachute to help us learn about tempo.

We began thinking about what we would like to find out about in our topic, ‘Looking After Plants and Animals’. We spoke about what animals need and went outside to create shelters for a small animal of our choosing.

IDL

Learning Through Play this week:

Have a lovely long weekend!

P1 Koalas

P1K Talks

Staff..294

We would like you to prepare a short talk on the topic ‘My Favourite Place’.

The place you choose can be anywhere. For example, it might be a room in your house or a spot in the garden. It could be a park you enjoy visiting or a town you have been to.

We will begin listening to talks from next Wednesday (8 May). Not everyone will present their talk on that day, but should be ready to do so.

You can present your talk to the whole class, but there will be an option to speak in front of a small group instead, if you let one of us know that is what you would prefer to do.

Please try to do the following in your talk:

Begin your talk by telling everyone your favourite place. Add a sentence or two to describe the place and explain what it is you like about it. You might also want to talk about who you like to go there with and what you do or look at when you are there.

You should also try to:

Organise your talk in an order that makes sense to your audience.

Speak clearly, and loud enough for everyone to hear.

Make eye contact with your audience.

Try and remember what you would like to say, rather than using a written script. You may wish to bring one visual aid to help you. This might be a picture you have drawn, a photo, or an object that reminds you of your favourite place.

Please be prepared for your classmates to ask you questions at the end of your talk.

We hope you have fun with this task. If you have any questions, please just ask Mrs Munro or Mrs Bailey.

Buckstone Primary School, P1 Koalas

P1 Koalas 22.3.24

Staff..294

Hello everyone!

Here are some highlights of our learning this week:

Literacy

Our new sound this week was ‘nk‘ as in ‘bank’ and ‘sink’. We spoke about how we find this sound at the end of words (just like last week’s sound, ‘ng’ ).

Our new tricky words this week were ‘into‘ and ‘here‘.

We have been reading non-fiction books this week and will bring these home to share on Tuesday. It would be appreciated if these could be returned on Thursday, instead of Friday, next week, before the holidays begin.

In writing, we wrote sentences about a pink pig to help us practise using the new sound we learnt.

Things to try at home:

Try and spot ‘into’, ‘here’ and words with the ‘nk’ sound when you are out and about, looking at books or signs etc.

Take turns to spell the sounds in ‘nk’ words (say alternate sounds with ‘nk’ said as one sound rather than as n and k.

Words to use might include:

bank, rank, sank, tank, thank, link, pink, rink, sink, think, wink

Practise forming the letters correctly in the ‘nk’ sound by writing down some of the words above.

Take turns to read the pages of your reading book with someone at home. Pick some words from your book and se if you can think of some rhyming words.

Numeracy and Maths

We continued our learning about o’clock times on both analogue and digital clocks and looked at half past times too. We often begin the day by looking at the calendar and talking about what day it is, and this week we also used the ‘Days of the Week’ song (see last week’s blog / below) to help us learn the order of the days.

We worked on a variety of skills, across the class, in numeracy including counting forwards and backwards, ordering numbers and describing what we could see when looking at equal groups.

Things to try at home:

Practise counting backwards in short sequences, from different starting points. If you are confident doing this in the 1-30 range, try doing this in the 1-100 range.

You might want to sing along with this song as a starting point.

Keep talking about time at home. What time do you wake up? What time do you eat breakfast? Do you go somewhere the same day each week? How long does it take you to brush your teeth? How many jumps can you do in 10 seconds?

Here are the links to the songs again.

PE

We were practising our jumping, landing and balancing skills and enjoyed jumping onto and then off the springboard.

In our other PE session this week, we were developing our skills in working cooperatively to collect as many bean bags as we could for our team.

Equalities

We listened to the story ‘Trailblazer: Lily Parr, the Unstoppable Star of Women’s Soccer’ by Elizabeth Dale. We heard about how Lily Parr was determined to find a way to continue playing the game she loved despite facing lots of barriers along the way. Some of us drew pictures of Lily after hearing the story.

Music

We enjoyed another session with our external visitor from YMI. We continued working on the songs from last time as well as having fun making our own suggestions and actions when learning a new song. We also worked on listening to and repeating different rhythms.

Loose Parts

We took the decision not to go ahead with loose parts this week due the very windy weather on Thursday afternoon. We will let you know the next date for loose parts after the holidays.

Fluffy

We are continuing to enjoy hearing about all the adventures that Fluffy is having with all the different families from our class. To allow everyone to have their turn, we are asking that Fluffy only visits your home for two days at a time. However, please don’t worry if you forget to bring Fluffy back on time.

As we have previously mentioned, there is absolutely no expectation that families add to the journal. It is completely optional and, if pupils decide to complete it, could involve drawing a picture or writing a sentence or two. We appreciate how busy family life can be!

Here are some examples of what we have been learning through our play this week:

A ticket booth at a football stadium
The football stadium car park
A castle

Have a fantastic weekend!

P1 Koalas

P1 Koalas 1.3.24

Staff..294

This week in P1 Koalas:

Literacy

Sounds and Tricky Words

We were blending and building words with the sounds ‘nt’ as in ‘went‘ and ‘sp’ as in ‘spot’ or ‘gasp‘.

Our tricky words this week were ‘some’ and ‘come’. We were looking at how these words both had ‘ome‘ saying ‘um‘ and we only needed to change the fist sound when we wrote them.

Things to try at home:

Look for words with the sounds ‘nt’ or ‘sp’ in them when you are out or in some of the books you may have at home / in the library.

Ask someone to write down some words that you can use your skills to sound out using the new sounds we have been learning or to read some words for you to write down.

For example: gasp, spent, spark, clasp, spot, spin, spend, spoon, tent, rent, sent, hint,

Practise reading and writing our new tricky words or spell them out loud. Don’t forget to keep practising the tricky words we have previously learnt too.

So far we have learnt: I, too, saw, was, the, put,, his, is, my, no, go, he, she, we, be, me, they, all, want, are. We have talked about some of the patterns we can see in some of these words (e.g. he, she, we, be, me all ending the same way with ‘e’ saying ‘ee’.)

Writing

Our writing this week began with ‘I / we / they all went to……..’ and we came up with our own ideas to finish the sentence.

At home:

If you have been out and about, you might wish to try drawing a picture and writing about where you went. For example, ‘I went to the shop,’ or ‘We all went to see _______ ‘. Have a go at spelling harder words using the sounds you know. You might want to write the first sound you hear and ask someone at home to write the rest.

Reading Books

We took reading books home to share for the first time this week. We will continue to send reading books home on Tuesdays and ask they are returned to school on Fridays so that they can be used for other reading groups.

We have been working on new reading books in school this week and will continue working on these into next week.

Things to try at home:

Share your reading book with someone at home. Retell the story in your own words and talk about what is happening as you read the pages. You might want to take turns reading a page with someone at home or you may even want someone at home to read the book to you whilst you point to the words.

Numeracy

We have been working on our core numeracy skills including ordering numbers, saying forwards and backwards number sequences, counting and adding amounts, describing equal groups and saying numbers before and after a given number. We also tried counting in tens as a whole class.

Things to try at home:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/caterpillar-ordering

With someone at home, practise sequencing and ordering numerals. You could do this using pieces of paper or card with numerals written on them or you could play the Caterpillar Ordering game on Topmarks.

Other Areas of the Curriculum

Health and Wellbeing

We were working on the Building Resilience unit ‘Respect Yourself’ and drew pictures beside our names to help show the things we each like to do.

In PE, we continued to work on different balances.

Topic

We discussed some of the outstanding questions we had about penguins from the beginning of our topic and found out about how penguins lose their feathers. We discussed why penguins wouldn’t go into the water while they are moulting and were able to use our knowledge about how penguins make their feathers waterproof to help us answer this.

A football stadium

Have a lovely weekend!

P1 Koalas, P1 Pandas

P.E. Tuesday 26 September

Staff..294

Tuesday is usually one of our P.E. days.  

Try the activities below:

Warm up by following the actions in this song: 

We have been developing our ball skills and, so far, have been working on throwing, catching and bouncing. 

You will need a ball / bean bag / soft toy / scrunched up piece of paper / light scarf or another object someone at home says is safe to throw and catch.   

Catching 

Activity 1 

Throw your chosen object in the air and try to catch it with both hands.    

Begin by only throwing the object slightly into the air, gradually throwing it higher as you become more confident. 

If you feel really confident, try clapping once, twice or three times between throwing and catching. 

How many times can you throw and catch without dropping the object? 

Activity 2 

Ask someone at home to throw your chosen object to you.  Begin working closely together and move further apart as you begin to feel more confident. 

Remember: 

  • Keep your eye on the ball. 
  • Make sure your arms are outstretched and your hands are ready to catch. 

Throwing 

Activity 1 

Try throwing your object to a target.  This could be, for example, a basket or box, another object placed on the floor, or a mark drawn in chalk outdoors.  Use an overarm throw. 

Before you throw, remember to: 

  • Look to where you want your object to go. 
  • Lift your arm (the one holding your object) back. 
  • Point your other arm towards the target. 

Activity 2 

Throw and catch with someone at home.  Try to throw the object so that your partner can catch it easily.  This means throwing it towards them.  Try to work out how much space you need between you and your partner to throw and catch more easily. 

Cool down: 

Listen and follow the instructions to help you cool down: 

P1 Koalas, P1 Pandas

Literacy – Tuesday 26 September

Staff..294

We have been learning the sounds s, a, t, p, i, n and on Monday we began learning m and r. 

Sing along with the Jolly Phonics songs for the sounds we have been learning: 

s, a, t, p, i, n 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oazoG4t-JX4

m 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOiNSTsIvfA

r 

Here are some suggestions for activities to help you with your learning: 

  • Ask someone at home to write the letters we have been learning onto individual squares of paper (to make flashcards). Get them to hold up a letter and you say the sound the letter makes. Can you point to the correct letter when they say the sound? 
  • Try reading some two or three-letter words like the ones shown in the table. They don’t need to be real words; you are practising ‘blending’ sounds together. 
ma sa pa ta 
mat sat pat tap 
ni si pi ri 
nip sip pat rip 
    
  • Use your flashcards to try and make some two or three-letter words.  
  • If you know more sounds already, practise reading and making words with these. As an additional challenge, perhaps you could try reading some words together in sentence. For example:   A dog sat.   A hen ran.  Sam had a cap. 

If you are out and about, you might want to try some of these activities: 

  • Play ‘I spy’ using the sounds we have been learning. 
  • How many things can you spot beginning with _________ ? 
  • What can you spot? (E.g. a cat) How many words can we think of that rhyme with cat? 
  • Play the memory game ‘I went to the shop and bought a ________’ using the sounds you know. 
  • Look at posters, bus adverts, signs etc – what letters do you recognise? What sounds do the letters make? Can you read any of the words? What do you think the poster / sign / advert is about? How do you know? (Using pictures as clues.)  
P1 Koalas

P1K – 26 September 2023

Staff..294

Bonjour P1K! 

I hope everyone is well today. 

If we were in school today, we would begin our day by looking at our calendar and talking about the date. 

Have a think about the following: 

What day of the week do you think it might be today? 

Can you remember what day it was yesterday? 

What day do you think it is tomorrow?   

Try saying the days of the week, in order, with someone at home. 

Do you know the date today?   

Have a look outside.  How might you describe the weather? 

Class Call 

I’m looking forward to seeing those of you who can make it to our class call at 9.30am this morning.  Someone at home should have received an e-mail with a link to this call.   It’s a chance for us to say ‘hello’ to one another and to talk about our learning. 

Today’s Learning Activities

You will find details of today’s learning in separate blog posts. Today, activities will be focussing on PE, literacy and numeracy.

I hope you all have a good day!

Mrs Bailey

Buckstone Primary School, P1 Koalas

P1M Reflective Friday 2.6.23

Staff..294

This week in P1M:

Literacy

Listening and Talking

It has been fantastic listening to all the talks about our favourite places this week. The effort, enthusiasm and confidence shown by everyone has been amazing! We have enjoyed looking at maps, photos, shells, and various souvenirs and have heard about all sorts of different places people enjoy going to. Well done, everyone!

Sounds and Tricky Words

We have been revising the initial consonant blends sn, sm, sw, st, sp and some of the tricky words we have been learning.

We are not going to introduce any more new sounds this term and are going to continue to practise reading and spelling words with the sounds we have been learning so far. We will also be revising the tricky words and will be learning some new ones too.

Handwriting

We have been thinking about the height and size of each letter and trying to make sure letters are in the correct position in relation to each other.

Reading

We have been practising our skills in using the sounds we know, as well as the tricky words we have learned, to read our books in small groups. Some of us have also been identifying words that rhyme with words in our books.

We visited the mobile library again on Tuesday and chose some new books to read until it is time to return them during our next visit.

Things to try at home:

  • Use the sounds / letters and tricky words that have previously been sent home (as well as the list of tricky words and suggested activities that were sent home today) to help practise your reading and word-building skills.

Numeracy

We have been working on a variety of skills including addition, saying numbers, identifying numerals and describing equal groups.

Next week, as well as continuing to work on our numeracy skills, we will be developing our skills in measure through our play.

Things to try at home:

Play the game below with an adult at home. See if you can type in how many penguins are at each side and then cover them over whilst you are working out how many there are altogether. This is a bit like when you are told how many counters are under the whiteboard but you can’t see them to point to and count. As a challenge, see if you can count on from the first number.

https://www.visnos.com/demos/addition-subtraction-facts

Science

We have planted some nasturtium seeds this week and are going to care for them over the next few weeks to help them grow.

We were learning about where electricity comes from and drew pictures of things we could think of that needed electricity to work. We talked a little bit about safety around electricity and will continue our learning on this next time.

PE

We continued working on our ball skills this week. We have been kicking a ball to a partner, dribbling, rolling, bouncing, catching, and throwing a ball through a hoop.

On Mondays, it is likely we will be outside for PE now, until the end of term.

Music

We enjoyed music with an external visitor from the Youth Music Initiative (YMI). We learned the words to a well-known song from an animated film and then enjoyed singing a song (with actions) about letters being delivered by a ‘postie’ early in the morning.

Art

Linked to our learning on plants, we created sketches of wild flowers using oil pastels.

We have had a busy week! Next week, we will continue learning about plants and animals and have another music session to look forward to!

Loose Parts Play will take place on Thursday next week.

More details about our learning this term can be found in our term overview.

Have a lovely weekend!

p1-term-three-overview-2023-2
P1 Koalas

P1M w.c. 20 March 2023

Staff..294

In P1M this week:

Reading

We have started learning about consonants that go together at the end of words to make a particular sound such as rk (as in bark), nd (as in sand), st (as in mist), mp (as in lamp) and lt (as in tilt) . This week, our focus has been on rk and nd.

Our tricky words this week are ‘she’ and ‘go’ and we also looked at ‘do’.

‘I really enjoyed reading my book.’

‘I love learning new words.’

We have continued working on our reading books in class and everyone should be bringing home their book to share at some point during the week.

Things to try at home:

Continue sharing your reading book with someone at home. You might want to take turns to read the pages or you might want to read it all to someone. Talk about what is happening in the story and how characters are feeling at different points.

Use the ‘Letters and Sounds Home Learning’ sheet to help you practise our new sounds and tricky words.

Writing

This week, we were using our new sounds, along with the sounds and words we have previously learnt, to help us write about a trip to the park.

‘I like writing and learning new words.’

‘I really enjoyed drawing my picture and writing.’

Handwriting

We were practising writing the letter ‘a’ following the correct route this week and we were thinking about its height in relation to tall letters, such as ‘h’ or letters that go below the line, such as ‘g’.

Things to try at home:

Explain to / show someone at home how to write ‘a’ following the correct route. You could draw it in the air or actually write it down.

Numeracy and Maths

We have been working on various numeracy skills this week. Some of us have been counting short sequences forwards or backwards and some of us have been describing equal groups. We have also been looking at the different numbers we can see inside dot patterns (e.g. in four, we can see two plus another two).

‘I like counting.’

Things to try at home:

If you are playing a game involving dice, try and say what numbers you can see inside the pattern you roll. For example, if you roll a 5, then you might say,’ Four and one’.

Practising recognising numerals with this game from ‘Topmarks’. Select ‘Find a Number’.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/blast-off

Practise counting forwards and backwards within the 1-30 range from different starting points:

Here is a link to a song that might help:

PE

We have been playing games to help us exercise and have also been continuing to develop our skills in gymnastics.

‘I liked jumping and doing star jumps and it helped me do some exercise.’

Loose Parts

Our next Loose Parts Play session is scheduled for Wednesday 29 March.

Health and Wellbeing

We have been using the RSHP resource to learn about privacy and personal space. Next week, we will be learning about pregnancy and will be using the book, ‘Before You Were Born’, by Jennifer Davis as the starting point for our discussions.

Other areas:

There has been lots of creativity and use of imagination in our play this week. Some of us have enjoyed painting and creating chalk pictures on the easel in the classroom and others have enjoyed role play involving flying an aeroplane. Some of us enjoy drawing and writing in our play.

‘I liked doing my book but it’s not quite finished.’

Have a lovely weekend!

Buckstone Primary School, P1 Koalas

Primary 1 Master Minds w.b. 20.2.23

Staff..294

This week in P1 Master Minds:

Literacy:

We learnt the new sound ‘sh’ this week. We read words and wrote words using this sound. We also read and wrote the tricky words we have been learning so far.

We have been working on our reading skills and have started taking our reading books home. Some of us said we felt happy when we were reading our books to people at home.

In writing, we made up stories about what we saw inside a shed. This helped us to use our new ‘sh’ sound.

We practised forming the letters g, y, p and q as well as beginning to look at the capital letters A, B and C.

At home: share your reading book with someone at home and talk about what is happening in the story or how the characters are feeling at different points.

Keep practising reading and building words using the sounds that we have learned so far. A sheet with the ‘sh’ flashcard was sent home today.

Maths:

In maths this week, we continued our learning on data handling and created a block graph using the results of our survey about new play areas we would like in the classroom.

We have also been working on our numeracy skills and some of us have started doing a bit more thinking around sequences of numbers backwards within 30.

At home: Practise counting backwards within 30 from different starting points.

Other Areas of the Curriculum

We wanted to know what it looked like inside Edinburgh Castle. We watched a short film. We found the Crown Jewels interesting and the fact that there were several items and not just one large jewel. The armour and the different paintings on the walls were also interesting.

We drew a picture of the castle along with someone who might have been there in the past and someone who might be there in the present day.

In PE we have begun a block of gymnastics. We performed one, two, three, four and five point balances. We also thought about and made different shapes using our arms and legs.

Some of us said we found the one point balance quite tricky.

Loose Parts Play

We were outside for Loose Parts Play on Thursday:

‘I enjoyed doing a cafe.’

‘We did a competition about who can make the biggest sandcastle and biggest piles.’

Next week: As you may be aware, it is World Book Day on Thursday. We are not dressing up this year, but if you would like to do so, bring your favourite book to school on Thursday to show the rest of the class.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!