Category: Buckstone Primary School

Welcome to the Primary 1 Lion’s blog!

The Lion’s have had another fantastic week in Primary 1! We have had lots of fun playing with our friends and exploring new areas of the playground. Please ensure that all children have a waterproof jacket, so we can go outside to play in all weathers.

The Primary 1s have done so well at learning our daily routines and they are beginning to do more without support. I am so proud of them for trying and working really hard in school!

Literacy

This week we continued to read some of the Oxford Reading Tree stories. We learned more about the main characters and continued to answer questions which connected the stories to our own lives.

We also finished hearing about everyone’s memory boxes! This has been such a lovely way to get to know a little bit more about the other pupils in the class! Well done to all the Lions for being brave and sharing their favourite and special things with the class!

This week we have also been practising our sounds with Miss McGillivray and Ms Leach! We are very excited to start teaching the sounds from next week.

Numeracy

This week we have continued to use our number fans to help us with our counting. We have been playing lots of maths games as a class on the smart board, which have helped us to develop our number recognition and counting skills up to 10 and beyond. We also have been practising our knowledge of ordering numbers by using a washing line to sort the numbers into the correct order.

Other Areas

P1 has also been having lots of fun playing outside in the playground. In P.E we practised listening to instructions by playing games, getting into groups of a particular number and working on our spatial awareness when running around the playground.

This week we also did a mini Bear topic! We learned about Brown Bears, Black Bears, Polar Bears and Panda Bears! We also linked the topic into our Outdoor Learning! In pairs the children had to look in the playground and find natural materials to create a picture. We also had lots of fun drawing Pandas! Here is our artwork from this week!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

We have had lots of fun developing our social skills by playing with our peers in the classroom. We have lots of fun drawing pictures and making crafts, playing in the home corner and reading in the book corner. We also have lots of fun building castles and towers with the construction blocks. Every Friday we draw our favourite moment from the week in our Reflective Friday Journals and an adult will scribe what their drawing is about.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Things to Try at Home

We would love it if the P1s could continue to practice their independence skills. These have improved greatly over the week but could still be quicker and smoother. Try and practice: Changing shoes (fastening buckles and Velcro themselves, making sure they are on the right foot), putting on, zipping up jackets (and turning sleeves the correct way round), opening snacks themselves and tidying up after play.

Ask your child to give you X amount of various things. For example sticks, leaves, stones. Whatever you can find. This will help with our counting skills.

Practice recognising their name and practice writing their name with playdough, sand and other natural materials you can find. They could also use these materials to practice writing numbers.

P1 Lion’s Favourite Things of the Week!

“I enjoyed playing in the brick corner.” – Kieran

“I enjoyed playing Police station in the home corner.” – Logan

“I enjoyed playing with my friends and having fun.” – Isla

“I enjoyed learning about different types of bears.” – Alex

“I enjoyed drawing my Panda.” – Georgie

Happy Weekend!

Next week Ms Leach will be teaching the class on Monday.

P.E will be on Mondays and Thursdays – please come dressed and ready for P.E.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you on Monday!

From Miss McGillivray

Our Learning this week in P6NM

We have had a very busy week!

You might have noticed that reading books have now been assigned to groups. Over the coming weeks we will be revising the Literature Circle roles using our whole class novel before starting literature circles independently in our groups. For more information on literature circles you can access an overview here: http://www.litcircles.org/Overview/overview.html

We have been enjoying our whole class novel – A Kind of Spark. It has elicited a lot of conversation about some of the themes – fitting in and being different.

In the novel, the main character, Addie is campaigning for a memorial for the historic witch hunts which took place in her village. We heard some information from a local historian online about the Edinburgh witch trials and made some flyers to support Addie’s cause. A home learning opportunity to could find out more about the witch trials in Edinburgh. Please note that parental guidance may be required for some of the more gruesome details.

Children have also been involved in the planning of our new topic, Living Things and their Habitats. We have identified some key questions that we would like to explore:

What is classification?

How can we encourage wildlife in the playground?

What are microorganisms and what do they do?

How do plants and animals benefit society? In particular, what is the importance of bees?

Could we make a food chain/ web?

What are fertilisers and how do they work?

What are the pros/ cons of fertilisers?

We are also exploring the possibility of starting the RSPB’s Wild Challenge Bronze Award. Watch this space…

We started with the key question, what is classification and have started to explore ways to classify groups of animals. A possible home learning activity could be to research different methods of animal classification.

Other areas of learning:

Maths

– multiplying and dividing whole numbers by 10, 100 and 1000

– rounding whole numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000

– sequencing 5 and 6 digit numbers

– solving word problems

Home Learning:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/rocket-rounding

Create questions using your knowledge of multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000 to the answers:

A – 76 B – 760 C – 7 600 D – 76 000

Literacy

– discussing the themes ‘fitting in’ and being ‘different’ in our whole class novel – A Kind of Spark

– creating flyers

– practising our new spelling rule – G is soft saying j when it comes before e, i, y

– story writing using the clock tower as a stimulus

– summarising

Home learning:

Make up a Silly Story using as many of your spelling words as possible, make sure to check your spelling against the list.

Health and Wellbeing

– working in partners and teams

– developing our fitness

-identifying the traits of a great class mate

Well done for your hard work this week P6NM, have a great weekend!

Mrs Nicholson

Hello everyone,

This week we have been learning:

Maths and Numeracy

In mental maths we practised counting in 3s and 4s, we played games and sang songs to help us do this. Please keep practising at home. If your child is finding counting in 3s and 4s tricky, practise counting in 2s, 5s and 10s.

This week we looked at place value and reminded ourselves about hundreds, tens and units. Some of us looked at even bigger numbers. We completed some written work on adding one more, ten more, one hundred more to two digit and three digit numbers. We also took one less, ten less and one hundred less away from two and three digit numbers.

literacy

We all got a new reading book and thought of a name for our reading group. Please make sure your child has their purple folder with their reading book and purple reading jotter with them every day. Some children have not yet brought their purple folder to school, please could you give them to your child to bring in.

We did a variety of activities to help us to learn our spelling words and we had dictations today.

As part of our reading activities we wrote a different ending to ‘Operation Night Monster’ and spoke about the beginning, middle and end of the story.

We are really enjoying our class novel and we created our own character who could be a new member of the Secret Seven.

PE

We are continuing to work on our fitness levels and are playing games to help us warm up.

LOOSE PARTS

We got the opportunity to play with the loose parts materials today.

RME

The class discussed what religion is and what we know already. We watched two stories from the Muslim religion and talked about the terms: Allah, prophet, Quran.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Happy Friday! Primary 5M have had a busy week this week learning about lots of different things:

Literacy

Following on from last week we have been working to improve our descriptive writing skills by ‘up levelling’ our sentences. To do this we have been working in small groups and changing the vocabulary in simple sentences to make them more interesting and descriptive. For example, ‘The horse rode through the field’ became ‘The horse flew through the field as fast as lightening’. We also looked at identifying different connectives in a text (such as; and, also, but, however and because).

To show off our new skills, we focused on describing a haunted house. We looked at all the spooky features on the house as a class and then used our senses to help us ‘set the scene’ by describing the picture.

We enjoyed taking our spelling practice outside this week. We went into the playground and used any natural resources we could find to spell out our spelling words.

During the week we started our class novel ‘The Creakers’ and are all looking forward to finding out where all the parents in Wiffington Town have disappeared to.

Things to do at home –

Practise expanding your vocabulary by trying to ‘up level’ any sentences you read to make them more interesting and descriptive (more detail)

Keep spotting connectives in any reading you do

Please see spelling document posted on Monday

Maths and Numeracy

This week we have been learning about 2D shapes. We took our learning outside and created 2D shapes in the playground using natural resources.

Following on from last week’s work on understanding the value of digits in numbers up to 10,000, we have been practising writing out numbers in words and reading number lines. We discussed why it is important to be able to read number lines, for example thermometers and scales. Using our number lines, we practised rounding to the nearest 10’s, which we will practise further next week.

We have also been practising counting up in 4’s and 5’s. We have enjoyed playing around the world and buzz to help us with our times tables.

Things to do at home –

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/place-value

Practice counting in 4’s and 5’s (for example this can be done by counting up your steps in 3’s or 4’s)

Have a go at reading any scales or thermometers around the house – you can even try to rounding the number to the nearest 10.

Other curricular areas

• After working so hard last week on our health and wellbeing drama’s, we performed these to the rest of the class and discussed what relationships they were based on
• P5M started to discuss our new environment topic this week. We looked at the different aspects we need to cover and decided what we would like to learn about based on this. We decided that our new topic will be called ‘Free the Forests’
• We have been practising our common phrases and greeting in French this week. To help us remember them we have been trying to do our register in French

Have a lovely weekend!

It has been a very industrious week in P4H again as we settle into the new way of working. The class has been very flexible, coping with any changes admirably!

Reading

This week we started to look at reading and how this will be managed. Next week the children will be given a book and a reading homework jotter.They will record the required reading themselves, with date to be read by and it can only be used for this. When the books are finished they must be returned so they can be quarantined for 72 hours before another group of children use them. Thanks for your understanding.

Our Blog has been written together as we reflected over the week about our learning.

This is our class rainbow which we made together. It is giant with colourful decorations. it is so big it is displayed in the corridor!

Spelling

We were learning how to add ing to words and doubling the consonant.

Super/Fantastic skipping, running, swimming, hopping,stopping, dropping,rubbing, digging,stepping,getting

Spectacular wrapping, trimming,dragging,splitting,scrapping,strumming,quilling, forgetting,planning

Tricky words could , would , should

Literacy

We started The Storm by Kevin Crossley-Holland

We are reading it together as a class. It is an amazing story so far, about a girl called Annie who lives near a Marsh where there is supposed to be a ghost horse rider. We focused on the setting this week and made a bank of words to describe it. We reflected on the story line and predicted what would happen next.

We were developing our story writing by looking at openers such as One day….Yesterday….. Suddenly.…. and have written stories about a Magic Pencil and a Secret Door.

Home learning. ideas

Spelling practice

Try spotting adjectives in any reading.

Go to

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zrqqtfr/articles/zy2r6yc

Numeracy

We continued to look at place value and numbers up to 1000.

We practiced partitioning numbers.

We looked at writing numbers in words and also converting to digits.We found the spelling tricky.

We did quick fire tables for mental maths.

Home learning ideas. Practice partitioning eg 456 = 400 + 50+ 6

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/place-value

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zm982hv/articles/zmr72sg

Practice writing numbers in words.

PE /HWB

We played “Squares” and developed throwing and catching with “Tadpole” and circle catch. We also developed our fitness with relay races and looked at speed.

We used our outdoor Learning time to play friendship games and continues to work together on some learning tasks. We have shoulder partners and Learning partners.

We did a Scavenger hunt outside and had to find different things.

Art

We discussed the scene and setting of the Storm and drew pictures with pastels. They are much softer than crayons and easy to use. ( The end results were very impressive and effective -Ms Hastie)

Have a good weekend from

P4H and Ms Hastie

We have a had a busy week in P6J! Here is a summary of our learning:

Literacy – We have been practising our referencing and dictionary skills.

We have continued to practise our proofreading skills, identifying nouns and verbs, and homophone errors.

We have been planning an adventure story. We have created and planned two main characters and a setting for a story. We then used our planning to write a story with a focus on correct punctuation and connectives.

We have been practising picking out key words to make notes and using our notes to create a new text about the lifecycle of a bee.

Spelling – The spelling rule this week: the g is soft when it comes before e, i, y.

Super: gym germ giant ginger general gentle gentleman generation geography gymnast gymnasium geology geoboard gigantic generate genuine

Fantastic: digit apology rigid tragic magic imagine hinge margin engine allergic

Tricky words: not knot

Reading – We are learning about the roles involved in a Literature Circle. Over the past two weeks, we have been practising the skills of a Character Captain and Vocabulary Vulture.

This week, each Literature Circle set the number of pages they have agreed to read for their next meeting on Wednesday. Here is a reminder of the pages:

• Framed – to page 55
• Who’s a Big Bully Then? – Chapters 1 and 2
• Friday Forever – Chapters 1 – 3
• Our City – page 9 – page 31
• The Accidental Time Traveller – to Chapter 5
• How Kirsty Jenkins Stole The Elephant – to Chapter 5
• Beetle Boy – Chapters 1 – 4

Home Learning:

• Set reading books to be completed by Wednesday. Please bring your book back to school on Wednesday to meet in your Literature Circle.
• A reminder of dictionary skills: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zbmv2sg/articles/zjyyb82
• Look for tricky words in your reading book and find their definitions in a dictionary.

 

Maths – We have been learning to multiply and divide numbers by 10,100 and 1000. We discussed moving the digits along the place value frame to make the number 10/100/100 times bigger/smaller.

We have been learning to round to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. We discussed which digit we need to look at to see if we need to round up or down (e.g. if we are rounding to the nearest 100, we look at the tens digit).

We have been practising doubling and halving numbers quickly and accurately.

Home Learning:

• Further multiplying and dividing practice: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z7r492p 
• Practise doubling or your times tables: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/daily10 

Other:

• We have been learning about the 4 stages of the lifecycle of a bee (egg – larvae – pupa – adult). We have been using scientific vocabulary to write about their process.
• We were inspired by the work of the artist Andy Goldsworthy to create some natural art projects of own. Some of the examples are below.
• We have been identifying the trees in our playground by recognising twigs and leaves.
• We have been testing our fitness in the beep test and developing our fitness during circuit activities. We have also been discussing the importance our warming up and cooling down our muscles.
• We have been learning how to greet someone in German dependent on who you are talking to and the time of day (Guten Tag, Guten Morgen, Guten Abend, Gute Nacht).
• We have been practising our cursive handwriting and improving the presentation of our work.

Have a lovely weekend!

 

 

 

 

Reflective Friday 4.9.20– Eilidh F, Katie, Fergus, Korey, Hazel and Emily 

Literacy 

This week in spelling we looked at the sound ‘eigh’ and chose a spelling task from the activities grid.  

We also worked on Kensuke’s kingdom, our class novel, on how important Stella Artois the dog is and how if Michael hadn’t had to rescue stella they wouldn’t have fall in the ocean. 

We looked at up levelling our sentences with fronted adverbials and we also upgraded our vcop and added in clauses using commas.  

Numeracy/Math 

This week we learnt about decimal scales on a number line. We learnt about the place value of tenths and hundredths. 

We also did triangles we had to draw the exact measurement’s with protractors and rulers. We did numeracy ninja. We revised rounding numbers up and down.  

IDL/other 

In topic we were learning about how earthquakes happen. We did research on some of the latest earthquakes and how it affected people.  

In pe we were doing circuits here are some e.g. running, star jumps, wall sits and hopscotch.  

In RME we were learning all about different creation story’s like the Hindu and the Cristian. 

We were still practicing numbers up to 20 in French. 

Andy Goldsworthy is a popular artist, and he LOVES nature, and we played a game. you get sticks close your eyes and feel the sticks put them in the pile and open your eyes and guess which stick you felt. 

What we enjoyed 

French bingo was a lot of fun. 

Art with sticks was fun we had to collect lots of sticks and blindfolded ourselves. Then our partner gave us a stick and we had to feel it then are partner would take the stick out of in the other partners hands and put it with the other sticks. The partner would open their eyes and guess which one was the stick they were holding. 

Next steps/home learning      

You could ask your mum or dad to test you on your spelling words for the week. 

You could get someone to test you on your tables 

You could practice your division to help you with times tables. 

Hello everyone!

It has been a busy week of learning in P4W.

We have been developing skills across the curriculum.

Literacy

You may have heard the drum-roll as our new class novel was unveiled! We will be reading ‘Ottoline and the Yellow Cat’ to develop our skills.

We are exploring the features of mystery stories.

We are finding information about the characters and asking questions.

Discussing a text with a partner and in a group.

Giving our opinion on a text.

Answering questions about a text, using correct sentence structure.

Developing our cursive handwriting.

Idea for home learning – choose a few great words from a book you are reading. Write them using joined up, cursive handwriting.

Spelling

Adding an ‘ing’ suffix- double the consonant in the root word before adding ‘ing’.

FANTASTIC–  skipping running swimming  hopping  dropping  stopping  rubbing  digging  stepping  getting

SPECTACULAR– wrapping trimming  dragging  plotting  splitting  scrapping  quitting  forgetting  planning

 

Ideas for home learning– find words using the double consonant rule in the books you are reading.

Make a list of words you find.

 

Maths

Adding and subtracting from 3-digit numbers in multiples of 10 and 100.

Problem solving within 3- digit numbers.

Identifying numbers between two given numbers.

Estimating/ calculating the number half- way between two numbers.

Recalling number facts quickly and accurately.

Recalling doubles quickly and accurately.

Developing our knowledge of the 2 and 10 times tables.

Using strategies to make calculations.

Suggestions for home learning.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

Work on developing these skills- doubling, number bonds, 5 and ten times tables.

 

Health and Wellbeing

We are continuing to develop our classroom identity- this week’s focus -our Wonderful Woodland being a welcoming place to be.

We have been sharing a selection of books which help us develop strategies that help us when we have worries.

Developing our fitness, listening and quick thinking skills.

 

Social Skills

We are learning how to listen carefully- what this looks like and sounds like.

Identifying the qualities of a great Learning Partner.

 

I.D.L.

 

Developing our drawing skills.

Developing our design skills.

 

We intend to use our outdoor time for P.E. on Tuesday and Thursday. 

Trainers can therefore be worn to school on those days.

Many thanks!

 

Have a lovely weekend!

What a fantastic week we have had in P5B, here are the children’s reflections and ideas for home learning.

Have a great weekend

 

Hello Wonderful Wolves and Happy Friday!

We have had another fantastic week of learning! The children have settled in really well and we are much more used to our new routines now too! 😊

In literacy we have covered:

• Single sounds of the alphabet
• Sounding out/blending/spelling CVC words
• Re-cap of sounding out and blending
• Digraphs (sh, ch, wh, th)
• Spelling words with digraph sounds (sh, ch, wh, th) independently
• Letter formation
• Reading assessments

In Numeracy we have covered:

• Recognising numbers to 30
• Ordering numbers to 30
• Numbers bonds to 10
• We played number bonds bingo and Around the World which was fun!
• Addition to 10, 20 and 30
• Number formation

P.E:

Our P.E days are a Monday and Wednesday.

This week for P.E the weather was a bit of a challenge, however we focused on:

• Team work, hand/eye co-ordination and listening skills
• Fitness – games/circuits outside (high knees, lunging, jogging, jumping and shape movements), we also tried to run a mile within the school playground!

Morning Starters:

• Monday – Weekend Whiteboard
• Tuesday – Literacy Activity
• Wednesday – Literacy Activity
• Thursday – Numeracy activity
• Friday – Numeracy Activity

How does outdoor learning and P.E help to keep us healthy?

“Exercise is healthy.” Vinnie

“Because you run about and running about keeps you healthy!” Erin

“When we are outside we get fresh air which is good for your lungs!” Sophie and Erin

“We did yoga and it’s good for moving your muscles and being relaxed.” – Jacob

“It can burn fat.” – Jamie

“It keeps your body and brain fit.” Annie and Isabella

“It’s good for our hearts.” Ben

Reading:

• Home reading will start on Monday (07.09.2020)
• A new book will come home on a Monday and be collected on a Thursday – This will allow us to “quarantine” the books over the weekend and swap them with other groups/classes.
• Reading should come to school every day – please use your child’s purple folder to transport reading books to and from school. Books will stay in these folders and only come out at your child’s reading time
• I have set up new groups based on in-class assessments – these groups are fluid.
• Please don’t be alarmed or worried if your child moves groups – changes are only made in order to support your child’s individual development.
• I will re-assess reading over the next few weeks and make any changes/swaps necessary.
• I have attached an “at home reading guide” to support you at home – a paper copy will also be sent home on Monday with your child’s first book.
• At Home Reading Guide: Reading With Your Child at Home
• There will be no reading log book sent home – any reading information you need will be posted on the class blog.
• Please refer to the “at home reading guide” to support you with reading at home.
• Child specific information will be emailed via the Office Admin account.

Extra Information 

• P.E is outside – we are trying our best to work with new guidelines re Covid-19 and deliver quality P.E.
• Windows are open in the classroom from 07.30 – 15.00. They are closed at the end of the day, so we can be organised for home time.
• Once we are more settled I will start to put photographs of our learning on the blog – at the moment with limited time in school this isn’t possible. We do have some super photos on our classroom display!
• Please label all items of school uniform as we don’t have access to a lost property box – thank you.

Have a lovely, fun weekend and I will see you all on Monday.

Mrs Williamson x