Hello and Happy Friday! We have had a great week celebrating Health week. It was great to see so many parents at Sports Day cheering everyone on! The children all did such a great job and worked really hard.

This week we….

Learned about the SHANARRI wheel and what each letter stands for. We discussed how we can ensure that we are being safe, healthy, active, nurtured, achieving, respectful, inclusive and responsible . We all contributed to a great new wall display.

Learned about plant vs animal foods. We also planted tomatoes so we can experience growing and tasting our own food.

Discussed which foods are safe to eat and which are not safe to eat.

Practised for and took part in Sports Day! It was lovely to see so many of you cheering your children on!

Danced our socks off during a fantastic dance lesson with Simon Says. The children all took a flier home with more information about this as an extra curricular activity.

Thought about, and wrote about what makes us feel like we belong at Buckstone Primary School. Here is our fantastic wall display. The children came up with some great ideas such as our school uniform , our friends and all the different adults who help us while we are at school.

Enjoyed a food tasting session. We tasted lots of fruits including blackberries, mango and pineapples . Lots of us were adventurous and tried new foods.

Scooted around the Playground showing off our scooting skills.

Enjoyed playing some playground games hosted by our friends in Primary 6.

Participated in a whole school keep fit session!

We also enjoyed doing some writing about Sports Day this week.

Independent learning–

Hope you all have a lovely weekend. Please do get in touch via the office or catch me at the door if you have any questions or concerns.

Many Thanks

Miss Wyatt

Hello and happy Friday! Please discuss with your child what they have been learning and what skills they are developing as they play. The STEM area continues to be popular. Thank – you so much for all the donations and please keep them coming!

Sounds and Tricky Words –

Our new sounds this week are sm and sn. We enjoyed painting smiles, creating snakes, sniffing a variety of smells and finding some snails. Our tricky words this week are so and very.

Writing –

Our writing prompt this week was “ It’s not a stick.” We read “It’s not a stick” and then took a walk to the woods where we each chose a stick. We then role played what our stick could be. There were lots of wonderful ideas. Lots of us are becoming increasingly independent and using our knowledge of tricky words and phonetic knowledge to write some great pieces.

Handwriting –

In handwriting this week we focused on correctly forming the s and m letter shapes, We also practiced writing some words linked to our sounds and tricky words including snap, smell, so and very.

Reading –

Mon – Thursday in school we will introduce a new title and any new vocabulary in the book. Alongside the simple reading of the written word, we will be developing the children’s reading comprehension skills, exploring the cognitive strategies of activating, inferring, monitoring/clarifying, questioning, searching/selecting, summarizing, and visualising.

On Thursday the children will bring their book home to showcase their learning. Please enjoy sharing the book with your child and encourage their successes. It may appear that the book is ‘too easy’, but please be mindful of the fact that they are sharing a familiar text. If you wish to give them a challenge, try reading the book from back to front starting with the final word of the final sentence. This makes no sense at all, but the children enjoy this activity and it allows them to read the words without the context of meaning or memory.

Please return the title to school on Monday.

We would ask that you avoid the temptation to buy Oxford Reading tree texts for home use as this can have an impact on the children’s learning activities in class – e.g., it is tricky to predict the outcome of the story if they have already read it at home. Thank you for your support in this.

Other ways to support reading development at home

· reading books of their own choice

· Vocabulary.

· Print Awareness. … print in the environment- ‘reading’ signs & cereal packets etc

· Narrative Skills. … retelling familiar stories in their own words

· Letter Knowledge. … recognising the written letters in a variety of fonts

· Phonological Awareness – do these sound the same/different? exploring rhyme etc

· Blending/word building – using the sounds we know to decode or build words – check the blog for our home learning sheet which will be posted most weeks.

Numeracy and Maths –

In Maths this week we continued with our focus on time. We recapped telling the time using an analogue clock and introduced telling the time using a digital clock . We focused on o’clock and some of us had an extra challenge of using half past. We are focusing on developing the terminology of the minute and the hour hand.

We also started looking at measure through estimating and measuring the length and height of everyday objects using non side -standard units of measures. We have also been focusing on using the terminology of length such as longer , shorter, taller, smaller etc.

Other curricular areas:

• We enjoyed working on preparing for our Sports Day during PE this week. We have been focusing on running, the egg and spoon race and the sack race.
• We really enjoyed our Loose Parts session especially as we are now able to do it with P1CD. It has been lovely to see the children being able to see the children getting to make some new friends.
• We have been learning about gender equalities this week discussing common stereotypes about boys and girls. We read a story called ‘ Pink is for Boys.’
• In Outdoor Learning this week we drew and measured some lines in the playground . We worked in pairs and used our hands and feet to measure our lines. Some of us found other objects around our playground to measure.
• We enjoyed a trip to the woods with P1CD on Wednesday. We found and measured lots of sticks and also found a stick for our writing.

Ideas for supporting learning at home.

• This is a fun time game we have been playing in class to practice time in class. https://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math/time/clock-splat-game/
• Use the blue sound cards to practice sounds and build CVC words.
• Ask your child to find clocks around the house? Are they analogue or digital?
• Ask your child to use everyday items such as paper clips, their hands and feet to measure items around the house or when out and about.
• Ask your child to show of their sports day skills.

Important information:

• Next week is Health Week. Wednesday is Sports Day with P.1’s slot is between 9 and 10. You are very welcome to come and watch your child take part!
• Please come dressed in activewear every day next week.
• A number of children are bringing small toys from home. It would be much appreciated if this was discouraged as it can distract them from the learning opportunities in the classroom and can also cause upset if the toys get lost or broken. Many thanks for your support in this.

• Remember to return your child’s reading book on Monday. Your child needs to bring the purple folder in order to take the reading book home.
• Please, if you can, continue to provide junk for our STEM area. Thank – you to everyone who has provided some so far.

We are here to help and support you, please feel free to send any questions or concerns via the office admin or if you are happy catch me at the door at the beginning or end of the day.

Thanks for your continued help and support.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Miss Wyatt

Hello and Welcome back! It has been lovely hearing about the children’s holiday fun and seeing them enjoying being back at school.

Looking ahead to next week.

As part of our focus on talking and listening skills, we would like the children to prepare a short talk to present to the class next week. The subject is ‘My favourite place’ This can be anywhere of their choosing, from something as simple as their bedroom or back garden, or further afield such as the swimming pool or a holiday destination.

The success criteria for the talk are as follows

• Be prepared
• Speak clearly
• Say where your favourite place is
• Describe it in a few words
• Say why you like this place.

Optional – bring a drawing of your chosen place, or bring one photograph or souvenir to show. (Please no powerpoints or scrapbooks as the target is development of the children’s talking and listening. Thanks)

N.B We will not be sending reading books home on Thursday

Sounds and Tricky Words –

This week we have recapped all the sounds and tricky words we have covered so far. The ‘tricky’ spelling words and sounds are sent home each week on the home learning sheet, and you can also find the whole list on our spelling city homework page .

Writing –

Our writing prompt this week was “ Dear Alien.” We read several stories about aliens over the week and then wrote a letter telling the alien about our life on Earth and asking them some questions about life as an alien Lots of us are becoming increasingly independent and using our knowledge of tricky words and phonetic knowledge to write some great pieces.

Handwriting –

In handwriting this week we focused on correctly forming the s letter shape.

Reading –

Mon – Thursday in school we will introduce a new title and any new vocabulary in the book. Alongside the simple reading of the written word, we will be developing the children’s reading comprehension skills, exploring the cognitive strategies of activating, inferring, monitoring/clarifying, questioning, searching/selecting, summarizing, and visualising.

On Thursday the children will bring their book home to showcase their learning. Please enjoy sharing the book with your child and encourage their successes. It may appear that the book is ‘too easy’, but please be mindful of the fact that they are sharing a familiar text. If you wish to give them a challenge, try reading the book from back to front starting with the final word of the final sentence. This makes no sense at all, but the children enjoy this activity and it allows them to read the words without the context of meaning or memory.

Please return the title to school on Monday.

We would ask that you avoid the temptation to buy Oxford Reading tree texts for home use as this can have an impact on the children’s learning activities in class – e.g., it is tricky to predict the outcome of the story if they have already read it at home. Thank you for your support in this.

Other ways to support reading development at home

· reading books of their own choice

· Vocabulary.

· Print Awareness. … print in the environment- ‘reading’ signs & cereal packets etc

· Narrative Skills. … retelling familiar stories in their own words

· Letter Knowledge. … recognising the written letters in a variety of fonts

· Phonological Awareness – do these sound the same/different? exploring rhyme etc

· Blending/word building – using the sounds we know to decode or build words – check the blog for our home learning sheet which will be posted most weeks.

Numeracy and Maths –

In Maths this week we continued with our SEAL programme.

This included:

Challenge:

• building visible arrays
• numeral identification to 100
• counting the number of jumps forwards and backwards to 100.

Core:

• Number sequences forwards and backwards to 30.
• Numeral recognition to 30.
• Describing equal shares
• Partitioning to 10.
• Counting items in two screened collections
• Number before and after up 30.
• Number before and after up 10.
• Organising equal groups
• Counting items in two collections
• Making auditory patterns to match spatial patterns.
• Using finger patterns to keep track of temporal sequences of sound.
• Copying and counting arhymical sequences and sounds.

Other curricular areas:

• We enjoyed working on our co-ordination and balance skills in Indoor PE. We focused on different balances, different types of jumping and on how to safely do a forward roll.
• In Outdoor PE we played a variety of games to develop our spatial awareness, listening and teamwork skills.
• We really enjoyed our Loose Parts session especially as we are now able to do it with P1CD. It has been lovely to see the children being able to see the children getting to make some new friends.
• This week we started our new Space topic.
  • We visited several different planets and found out about life on them.
  • As part of this we enjoyed creating some constellation space art. Have a look below to see some photos of the wonderful work children created! We also used sand and paint to make pictures of various planets.
  • We enjoyed doing some space themed drama – we pretended to be astronauts and travelled to space. We then explored the moon to find interesting space objects. The children showed great imagination finding moon rocks, space treasure and shooting stars!
• We have been really enjoying our new café area in the classroom. The children have been doing some great role playing and developing new vocabulary.
• During Outdoor Learning we enjoyed going outside to see what we could spot in the sky and thinking about how the sun, moon and stars link to the patterns of daily life.
• We have been really enjoying having the big bricks back and it has been wonderful to see the children coming up with come really complex and inventive structures.

Ideas for supporting learning at home.

• Look around the environment to see if you can see the numerals (buses/ cars). Etc
• Use the blue sound cards to practice sounds and build CVC words.
• Practice writing your tricky words. You could use a variety of materials to do this such as paint, foam and plasticine.
• Show of your new forward roll skills.  
• Please help your child to put their coat, shoes independently. You could start to practise how to do zips and buttons as a challenge.

We are here to help and support you, please feel free to send any questions or concerns via the office admin or if you are happy catch me at the door at the beginning or end of the day.

Thanks for your continued help and support.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and enjoy the extra few days off!

Miss Wyatt