Hello and Happy Friday.

This is the last blog of the year. It is wonderful to see how much the children have grown during their first year at Buckstone Primary School. What a lovely class they have been. I am so proud of them and just delighted. ❤️

Literacy-

Tricky Words –

Our tricky words this week are where, what and why.

Writing –

Our writing prompt this week was “ My favourite minibeast.” We discussed all the minibeasts we have seen in out playground over the week to give us some 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 w letter shape. We also practiced writing our tricky words including what, where and why.

Maths –

We have been recapping a variety of Maths topics from over this year. We focused on numeral recognition, one to one correspondence and counting groups while playing ladybird bingo. We explored symmetry and pattern through looking at and then creating our own butterflies and snails.

Other curricular areas:

Health and Wellbeing –

• We continued with our focus on dance and fitness in PE. We also recapped ball skills this week.
• We continued with our transition activities. We discussed change and did some transition activities. This is to make the transition to P2 as smooth and fun as possible. We understand this can be a worrying time for children as they anticipate a lot of change, but as always, we are here to help and support.

Love my Bus –

We enjoyed a visit from love my bus where we learned all about the benefits of bus travel.

Summer Reading Challenge –

We enjoyed a visit from the library. We learned all about the Summer Reading Challenge. Lots of us are excited about taking part in this. Please see the link below for more information.

https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/news/general/do-you-live-in-scotland-there-s-not-long-to-wait-now

Outdoor Learning –

• We enjoyed lots of Outdoor Learning with the lovely weather this week. We especially enjoyed finding bugs in our playground and using chalk and natural materials to create our very own bugs.

Charity Focus –

• Thank you for all the donations. We are very excited that Edinburgh Live are coming to visit on Monday to hear more about our work on this.

Music –

• We enjoyed another music session with the YMI.

Loose Parts –

We enjoyed a loose parts session. Lots of great designs.

Minibeasts Topic –

We have been learning about minibeasts this week, focusing on a different bug each day.

 On Monday we learned about ladybirds.

 On Tuesday we focused on caterpillars and butterflies and looked at the butterfly life cycle.

On Wednesday we looked at slugs and snails and the differences between them. We also looked at the parts of the Snail. We have been finding lots of Snails around the playground over the last few weeks so we enjoyed identifying these on real life Snails!

On Thursday we learned about Dragonflies. We created some amazing dragonfly art.

Ideas for supporting learning at home.

• Can you write the tricky words of the week.
• Can you tell me how many spots a ladybird has?
• Can you tell me what a caterpillar turns into?
• Can you tell me about the different parts of a snail?

Important information:

• Please, if you can, continue to provide junk for our STEM area. Thank – you to everyone who has provided some so far.
• We will have a loose parts session on Friday.
• P1 will be taking a trip to the woods on Monday afternoon. Please ensure that your child is dressed appropriately.

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

Thanks for your continued help and support. Have a lovely weekend, see you all on Monday!

Mairi Wyatt   

Hello and happy Friday!

Sounds and Tricky Words –

Our new sounds this week are nk and mp. We enjoyed making things out of pink items, junk modelling and stamping and jumping. Our tricky words this week are should and could.

Writing –

Our writing prompt this week was “My new teacher.” 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 k letter shape. We also practiced writing some words linked to our sounds and tricky words including pink, ramp, should and could.  

Reading –

This is our last week of reading before the summer. Please return the title to school on Monday.

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 –

We started our fractions topic this week. We discussed the terminology of whole and half. As a challenge we also looked at quarters. We also looked at halving numbers. We especially enjoyed making and eating pizzas.

We also continued with our focus on SEAL.

Challenge

• Subtractive tasks using a row.
• Describing visible arrays
• Building visible arrays
• Counting the number of jumps backwards from b to a.
• Doubling numbers to 20
• Counting forwards and backwards within 100.
• Partitioning into equal shares.
• Saying the number word before up to 30.
• Counting backwards from 30.
• Numeral identification to 20.

Core –

• Counting items in two collections
• Identifying numbers to 10.
• Saying the next number word backwards from 20.
• Saying the next number word forwards to 20.
• Using finger patterns to keep track of temporal sequences of sounds.

Other curricular areas:

Health and Wellbeing –

• We continued with our focus on dance and fitness in PE.
• We discussed change and how to manage our emotions and feelings when we might feel nervous or uncertain. We discussed strategies that might help us out such as talking to an adult or a friend.
• We enjoyed meeting our new teachers this week and exploring our new classroom.

Outdoor Learning –

• During Outdoor Learning we enjoyed going outside to create pizzas out of natural items. We then practised halving and quartering these. We also practiced writing words with our new sounds using chalk in the playground.

Charity Focus –

• We created cards to send to the Edinburgh School Uniform bank to thank the volunteers for all their hard work. We would greatly appreciate donations of new plain white school polo shirts in any size from age 5-13 or school socks of any size. These can be bought from most supermarkets this term. Please send any donations to school with your child by Friday 24^th June.

Music –

• We enjoyed another music session with the YMI.

Loose Parts –

Ideas for supporting learning at home.

• Can you write the tricky words of the week.
• Can you cut a food item in half. Or into quarters as a challenge.
• Can you tell your adult about your new classroom and teacher.

Important information:

• Please, if you can, continue to provide junk for our STEM area. Thank – you to everyone who has provided some so far.
• Reading books must be returned on Monday.
• We will have a loose parts session on Wednesday.

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 Happy Friday!

Independent Learning-

Sounds and Tricky Words –

Our new sounds this week are tw and ng. We enjoyed making rings, singing some songs counting out twelve and two pompoms using tweezers and creating tw words using twigs. We are also very lucky to have some twins in our class! Our tricky words this week are only, over and would.

Writing –

Our writing prompt this week was “ My house.” 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 g and t letter shapes. We also practiced writing some words linked to our sounds and tricky words including would , only, over, twin and song.

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. .

Challenge

• subtractive tasks using a row
• building visible arrays
• partitioning flashed patterns to 6
• organising equal groups
• counting the number of jumps forwards from a to b to 100
• counting the number of jumps backwards from b to a to 100
• combining two numbers using flashed frames and recording
• partitioning ten fingers
• counting items in a row with some items screened
• partitioning numbers into equal shares
• saying the number word before up to 30
• saying short BNWS to 30
• counting items in two screened collections

Core –

• saying the number word after up to 20
• saying the number word before up to 10
• recognising and ordering numerals to 10 and 20
• counting items on two collections
• using finger patterns to keep track of temporal sequences of sound
• copying and counting arhythmical sequences of sound

Other curricular areas:

PE

We enjoyed working on our fitness and dance skills

Loose Parts

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.

Music –

Over the next few weeks we will be having music lessons provided by the Youth Music Initiative. We enjoyed our second session on Tuesday morning. We learned some songs. We especially enjoyed singing Old MacDonald had a Farm!

Science/ Social Studies –

We have been learning about where our food comes from this week. You can see our work on this in our Learning Stories that went home on Wednesday.

Charity Focus –

Primary one classes are supporting the work of Edinburgh School Uniform Bank. We learned about what this charity does. We are creating cards in school to give to volunteers who help to pack items at the hubs.

Please watch our video here

We would greatly appreciate donations of new plain white school polo shirts in any size from age 5-13 or school socks of any size. These can be bought from most supermarkets this term. Please send any donations to school with your child by Friday 24^th June.

ESUB is a local charity which distributes bespoke packs of new school uniform to hundreds of Edinburgh families each year. Every child deserves to look and feel smart at school, to feel that they belong, and to avoid the negative effects of hardship on their wellbeing and education.

Outdoor Learning –

We created a ring using outdoor items and used twigs to make tw words.

Ideas for supporting learning at home.

• Can you tell me a food that comes from a plant and a food that comes from an animal?
• Can you sing one of the songs we learned in music this week.
• What charity are we supporting?
• Can you tell me a word that begins with tw and a word that ends with ng?

Important information:

Thank you for the returned parent comment sheets received so far. If you are yet to return the sheet, please do so on Monday. The main body of the report is yours to keep at home as we already have a copy in school.

Please continue to collect and send clean recycling to help resource our STEM area. thank you.

Loose parts learning on Friday 17th

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 sunshine

Miss Wyatt

Hello! We have had a short but fun and busy week in school.

Sounds and Tricky Words –

Our new sounds this week are sw. We enjoyed creating swans and designing a sweetie house. We also recapped all the Block 1,2 and 3 Tricky Words we have covered so far.

Writing –

Our writing prompt this week was “ My castle.” We designed lots of castles that were fit for royalty. 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 w letter shape. We also practiced writing some words linked to our sounds and tricky words including sweet and swim.

Reading –

We are not sending home reading books this week.

Numeracy and Maths –

In Maths this week we continued with our SEAL programme.

Challenge

• Subtractive tasks using a row.
• Describing visible arrays
• Building visible arrays
• Counting the number of jumps backwards from b to a.
• Doubling numbers to 20
• Counting forwards and backwards within 100.
• Partitioning into equal shares.
• Saying the number word before up to 30.
• Counting backwards from 30.
• Numeral identification to 20.

Core –

• Counting items in two collections
• Identifying numbers to 20.
• Saying the next number word backwards from 20.
• Saying the next number word forwards to 20.
• Using finger patterns to keep track of temporal sequences of sounds.

Other curricular areas:

PE –

• We have been working on improving our fitness skills in Outdoor PE.
• In Indoor PE we have been focusing on dance. We have been practising for our Jubilee dance performance.

Jubilee-

• We loved showing off our dance moves and singing along at our Jubilee Party.
• We drew pictures for our time capsule.
• We have been learning about the Royal family and took part in a quiz.
• We created some bunting for our windows.

Science –

We measured how tall our tomato plants have grown and re- potted them.

Music –

Over the next few weeks we will be having music lessons provided by the Youth Music Initiative. We enjoyed our first session on Tuesday morning. We learned some new songs.

Ideas for supporting learning at home.

• Can you tell me how long the Queen has ruled for?
• How tall is your tomato plant?
• Can you tell me a word that begins with the sw sound?
• Can you show me a way to improve your fitness?

Important information

As we have many queries regarding class allocation for next year we would like to share with you the procedure for setting up groups from City of Edinburgh Council.

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/26695/composite-class-procedure

SELECTING PUPILS FOR CLASSES
Regardless of the type of class, the same selection criteria must be used for all classes in a given school. Head Teachers will use a range of criteria. The selection criteria include:
• Meeting learners needs
• Age (stage appropriate)
• Friendships
• Gender balance
• Exceptional circumstances
Not all the above criteria need to be used but more than one criterion must be used.
The specific criteria chosen will vary across schools, and professional judgment will be used to best meet the needs of learners in individual schools.
There is no appeals process for parents unhappy with decisions.

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

Hello and happy Friday! Please discuss with your child what they have been learning and what skills they are developing as they play.

Sounds and Tricky Words –

Our new sounds this week are st and sp. We enjoyed painting spots on a ladybug, learning about Spain, creating stars and spiders. Our tricky words this week are every and two.

Writing –

Our writing prompt this week was “ My Crown.” We created our own crowns and shared them with the class. There were lots of wonderful descriptions. 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 letters in our tricky words and in our phonics sounds.

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.

Measure –

This week we continued to focus on measure. We looked at weight and developed the terminology of light and heavy. We also introduced the word capacity. We estimated, compared and measured how much water could fit into different containers.

Challenge

• Subtractive tasks using a row.
• Describing visible arrays
• Building visible arrays
• Counting the number of jumps backwards from b to a.
• Doubling numbers to 20
• Counting forwards and backwards within 100.
• Partitioning into equal shares.
• Saying the number word before up to 30.
• Counting backwards from 30.
• Numeral identification to 20.

Core –

• Counting items in two collections
• Identifying numbers to 10.
• Saying the next number word backwards from 20.
• Saying the next number word forwards to 20.
• Using finger patterns to keep track of temporal sequences of sounds.

Other curricular areas:

• We enjoyed Modern Languages week. We have focused on learning numbers to ten in French and Spanish. We have also been practising French and Spanish greetings. We then created a video which was shared at Assembly on Friday.
• We enjoyed learning a bit about Spanish and French culture this week.
• In PE this week we focused on dance and fitness. We enjoyed learning and sharing some dance moves and coming up with a routine for our Jubilee Party next Wednesday.
• In Health and Wellbeing we thought about what we enjoyed most about Primary 1 and what we would like to do in Primary 2.

Ideas for supporting learning at home.

• Can you count to ten in French?
• Ask your child what were our new tricky words this week.
• Can they show you the dance routine they came up with in PE this week?
• Can you think of a word that begins with st or sp sound?

Important information.

• 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.
• On Wednesday 1st of June, we will be celebrating the Jubilee. Children are invited to dress up in their finery/ party clothes for an afternoon Garden Party celebration!
• We will not be sending reading books home next Thursday
• Please bring a carton next week so your child can repot their tomato plant to take home. Feel free to decorate your pot and please ensure it is labelled with your child’s name.

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 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