P2D- Mrs DeBonrostro

P2D Reflective Friday 22.03.24

Staff..114

Dear Parents,

We hope you had a great week. We cannot believe this is the last Reflective Friday blog for this term!

Important information:

  • Reading books will be sent home this week but not next ( we will continue to work on reading skills at school) . Please return all reading books that you might have at home, we are missing quite a few of them.
  • Change of clothes: Please ensure that your child has a spare change of clothes at school (including pants and socks); these don’t have to be school uniform. It is really helpful for them all to have them (especially when they get wet). Please label all the items.

This is a summary of our learning this week:

Literacy

  • This week we have started learning about soft g. Soft g When g is in front of an i, y, or e, it is soft and says /j/. For example: giant, gym, and gem. Hard g When g is in front of any other letter, it says /g/. For example: go, gave, and gravel

This is a video that we have used in class and will support learning at home.

We have practiced our reading skills: this week we have focused on comprehension and fluency.

We have continued to learn common words from block 6: idea, answer and usual. Please continue to practice tricky words at home. All children know in which block they are working on.

In writing we are learning to write descriptions. This week we have described a magical house.

At cursive handwriting. This week we have practice our name using cursive. Please continue to practice this at home.

Continuous Cursive letter choice 3 beginners (teachhandwriting.co.uk)

Ideas for learning at home

  • Practice words with g and ask your child to say if it is a soft or a hard g and how they know that.
  • Please continue to read stories to your child every day at home.  
  • Please continue to encourage your child to read at home. It is important that children practice reading every day. Please ensure you do this daily during the holidays. It doesn’t have to be long but daily practice is highly recommended.

Maths 

We have continued to learn money. This week our focus has been recording amounts accurately in different ways using the correct notation. Please continue to practice recognising coins at home as we have noticed that a few children they are still finding this difficult.

We have also worked on numeracy skills: addition and subtraction. Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s (3s and 4s for some). Please continue to practice these skills at home.

Ideas for learning at home: 

  • Practice a couple of calculations every day (please choose accordingly with your child’s ability)
  • If you have coins at home give an amount to your child and ask them to write it. You could write an amount and your child could make the amount with the coins.
  • This is a website that we have used in class:

https://www.doorwayonline.org.uk/activities/cashing-in/cashing-in.html

Other areas

EXA and PE

In gymnastics we are working on landing, balancing and rolling skills. We have improved our forward rolls.

IDL

We have continued to work on Food Chains.

RME

We have learned about Easter.

We enjoyed watching the P4 show about Nessie and our loose parts session.

We learned about Down Syndrome to celebrate Down Syndrome’s day!

Have a wonderful and restful Easter break!

Mrs de Bonrostro

P2MD Mrs McFarlane and Miss Davidson

P2MD Reflective Friday 22.03.24

Staff..226

Dear Parents,

We hope you had a great week. We cannot believe this is the last Reflective Friday blog for this term!

Important information:

  • Reading books will be sent home this week but not next (we will continue to work on reading skills at school) . Please return all reading books that you might have at home, we are missing quite a few of them.
  • Change of clothes: Please ensure that your child has a spare change of clothes at school (including pants and socks); these don’t have to be school uniform. It is really helpful for them all to have them (especially when they get wet). Please label all the items.

This is a summary of our learning this week:

Literacy

  • This week we have started learning about soft g. Soft g When g is in front of an i, y, or e, it is soft and says /j/. For example: giant, gym, and gem. Hard g When g is in front of any other letter, it says /g/. For example: go, gave, and gravel

This is a video that we have used in class and will support learning at home.

We have practiced our reading skills: this week we have focused on comprehension and fluency.

We have continued to learn common words from block 6: idea, answer and usual. Please continue to practice tricky words at home. All children know in which block they are working on.

In writing we are learning to write descriptions.

In handwriting we have practised  our name using cursive script. Please continue to practice this at home.

Continuous Cursive letter choice 3 beginners (teachhandwriting.co.uk)

Ideas for learning at home

  • Practice words with g and ask your child to say if it is a soft or a hard g and how they know that.
  • Please continue to read stories to your child every day at home.  
  • Please continue to encourage your child to read at home. It is important that children practice reading every day. Please ensure you do this during the holidays. It doesn’t have to be long but daily practice is highly recommended.

Maths 

We have continued to learn about money. This week our focus has been recording amounts accurately in different ways using the correct notation. Please continue to practice recognising coins at home as we have noticed that a few children are still finding this difficult.

We have also worked on numeracy skills: addition and subtraction. Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s (3s and 4s for some). Please continue to practice these skills at home.

Ideas for learning at home: 

  • Practice a couple of calculations every day (please choose accordingly with your child’s ability)
  • If you have coins at home give an amount to your child and ask them to write it. You could write an amount and your child could make the amount with the coins.
  • This is a website that we have used in class:

https://www.doorwayonline.org.uk/activities/cashing-in/cashing-in.html

Other areas


World Down Syndrome Day

We found out about World Down Syndrome day which is celebrated on 21st March each year. We learned more about the condition and enjoyed a story called Trudy and Me by Bridget Campbell.

EXA and PE

In gymnastics we are working on landing, balancing and rolling skills. We have improved our forward rolls.

IDL

We have continued to work on Food Chains.

RME

We have learned about Easter.

We enjoyed watching the P4 show about Nessie and our loose parts session.

Have a wonderful and restful Easter break!

Mrs McFarlane

P2MD Mrs McFarlane and Miss Davidson

P2MD Blog 15.03.24

Staff..226

Dear Parents, 

We hope you have had a good week. 

Important Information 

We have loose parts on Friday 22nd. Please come to school dressed for the weather.

Here is a summary of our learning: 

Literacy 

Phonics

We have continued to learn about soft c. When e, i and y come after /c/ it makes the /s/ sound. For example circus and cycle.

Reading

We have enjoyed working on our reading books this week. In particular we have been working on reading aloud with fluency.

Writing

We wrote descriptions about animals.

Spelling

As a class we were introduced to spelling the words those, first and buy. 

Handwriting

We continued to work on the f formation as it is very tricky. Here is the website we use in school to show the correct formation.   

Continuous Cursive letter choice 3 beginners (teachhandwriting.co.uk)    

Ideas for learning at home: 

Odd One Out

Write out some hard and soft c words on small pieces of paper. Choose 3 soft c words and 1 hard c word OR 3 hard c and 1 soft c word. Lay the words out in a row. Ask your child if they can read the words then identify the odd one out.

Examples of words to include are:

  • Face
  • Mice
  • City
  • Cycle
  • Circus
  • December
  • Coat
  • Click
  • Camera
  • Cobweb

Your child will know the block they are working on for spelling, please continue to revise the spelling words with your child.  

Reading books are being sent home today. Please ask your child to read this to you over the weekend. There are useful suggestions for questions to ask your child on the inside covers.

Maths and Numeracy

In our Maths work we are continuing our unit of work on money. Lots of children are still finding it tricky to identify coins and add them together. It would be very helpful if you could revise recognising coins at home.

In Numeracy we have been working on the links between addition and subtraction. For example, if you know that 25 + 5 = 30 then you also know that 5 + 25 = 30. You can also use this knowledge to work out that 30 – 25 = 5 and that 30 – 5 = 25. This is sometimes referred to as a fact family.

You can record these in a triangle as shown below.

Ideas for learning at home: 

  • As mentioned above, as much hands on practical experience with coins as possible.
  • Challenge your child to make a fact family triangle to demonstrate their understanding of related addition and subtraction facts.

Other Areas 

PE 

We have been developing our gymnastics skills in PE. In particular forward rolls and balances. 

RME

We have been learning about Ramadan.

Sustainability

We continued to work on the Tree of Hope story. We have been creating our own ‘trees of hope’ for a display.

Science

We have started to learn about basic food chains.

Eco garden Competition

There is an Eco -garden competition organised by the Eco-Enviros at school if your child would like to design an eco- garden for the school please have a look at the document below.

eco-garden-competition-1Download

https://www.eco-spaces.co.uk/school-eco-gardens.html

https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-action-schools/eco-schools/topics/school-grounds

https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/community-and-place/community-projects/garden-for-life/resources

Here are a few photos the children asked me to add to the blog.

Have a lovely weekend, 

Mrs McFarlane

P1 Pandas

P1p reflective Friday 15.3.24

Staff...685

Ask me –

  1. To name the days of the week in order.
  2. To name the day before/after a given day.
  3. To spell the words ring, sing, wing, bang, hang, long, strong
  4. To tell you about things with wings.

Please continue to send in your clean recycling.

Our learning this week


Here are some photographs of us developing our skills through our independent learning opportunities and experiences this week. Please take time to share these photographs with your child so they can share their learning with you.


Literacy focus

Story Writing

Our story writing prompt this week was “My castle….”


This week we have been learning about consonant blends and the end and beginning of words. This week’s sound was ng

Tricky words

This week we introduced two new words from block 2 – were and there. Please support your child at home with learning to both read and spell these words.

As requested at parent’s night please find below a list for reference with block one and block two words introduced so far

Block one – I the to was saw put he he me is his want

Block 2 so far- she we be all are they come some said one were there

Maths and numeracy focus


We have started to learn about time. This includes days of the week, months of the year, seasons, routines, and reading digital and analogue clocks. This week’s focus was days of the week and daily routines.

We continue to explore subtraction strategies, including using concrete materials, numberlines, and mental counting back.

Other areas of the curriculum

We have been learning about things with wings. we learned that a bat is a mammal which can fly, penguins have wings but can’t fly, and ostriches are the worlds largest birds and they can’t fly because they are too heavy,


In PE we continue to learn about balance , rolls ( teaching safe technique for forward rolls) and revising our throwing skills to develop shoulder pivot and strength.

Looking ahead to next week

Loose parts ( messy play) on Thursday.

‘Homework’ ( things to practice at home)

Practise naming the day before /after a given day. This is a trickier skill than simply chanting the days of the week in order by rote.

Play this Subtraction game – choose the ‘less than’ option and then select from the number range options

Use our class spelling city page to play games which will help you to learn to spell our block one and two tricky words. Follow this link and then choose the list you would like to practise.

Revise your phonics with phonics bloom or balloon phonics

Buckstone Primary School, P1 Koalas

 P1 Koalas Reflective Friday 15.3.24

Staff..469

Hello everyone,

This is what we have been learning this week:

LITERACY

We were blending and building words with the final consonant blend: ng.

Our tricky words this week were: there and were.

In writing this week we were drawing and describing the main character from the story ‘My Big Shouting Day’.

The children took their reading books home on Tuesday, and we started sharing a new book in our groups on Wednesday.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

The final consonant blends are quite challenging and any further practice at home is really helpful.

Some words to use – song long king gang ring sing wing hang hung bang sang rang lung fang.

Write out some words which have the final consonant blend we have been learning this week. The child can try to sound out the word using the pure sound of each letter to blend together to read the word. You could try writing the start of the word and the final blend in different colours then cut them up. If you did this with a few different words and laid them out, the child could then play a matching game, matching the start of the word to the final blend.

The adult can say some of the words we have been learning this week and the child writes them down.

Write down the tricky words on a piece of paper or card, hold the cards behind your back then show them to your child and ask them to read the word you have shown them. Your child could practise writing these words, forming the letters the way they have been shown in class.

(If you are unsure about correct letter formation, please speak to one of us at the end of the day).

NUMERACY AND MATHS

We continued our topic on time. We were using the clocks to make o’clock times and talking about what we might be doing at that time of day. We were practising months of the year and linking them to the four seasons.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

Look at clocks around your home and talk about the different times of day, what time do you get up, have breakfast, go to school, go to bed etc.

Practise saying/singing the months of the year in the correct order.

PE

We were practising different jumps and landings.

FLUFFY!

Thank you so much for all the entries in Fluffy’s journal. It has been lovely to see the children’s enthusiasm and eagerness to take him home. At the moment, we are just allowing the children to keep him for two nights so that everyone can have a turn as soon as possible but if you forget to bring him back to school, please don’t worry.

We really don’t want to give families anything extra to have to think about so PLEASE don’t feel you have to add to the journal. Your child will be given the chance to speak to the class about what they have done with Fluffy.

HWB

We have been thinking about what makes us special and unique and drew pictures of ourselves.

MUSIC

We began our programme of musical activities with the Youth Music Initiative.

LOOSE PARTS

Next date for loose parts is Thursday 21 March.

Some examples of learning taking place this week:

Have a lovely weekend.

P2D- Mrs DeBonrostro

P2D Reflective Friday 15.03.24

Staff..114

Dear Parents, 

We hope you have had a good week. 

Important Information 

We have loose parts on Friday 22nd. Please come to school dressed for the weather.

Here is a summary of our learning: 

Literacy 

Phonics

We have continued to learn about soft c. When e, i and y come after /c/ it makes the /s/ sound. For example circus and cycle.

Reading

We have enjoyed working on our reading books this week. In particular we have been working on reading aloud with fluency.

Writing

We wrote descriptions about animals.

Spelling

As a class we were introduced to spelling the words those, first and buy. 

Handwriting

We continued to work on the f formation as it is very tricky and we have practiced our names using cursive. Here is the website we use in school to show the correct formation.   

Continuous Cursive letter choice 3 beginners (teachhandwriting.co.uk)    

Ideas for learning at home: 

Odd One Out

Write out some hard and soft c words on small pieces of paper. Choose 3 soft c words and 1 hard c word OR 3 hard c and 1 soft c word. Lay the words out in a row. Ask your child if they can read the words then identify the odd one out.

Examples of words to include are:

  • Face
  • Mice
  • City
  • Cycle
  • Circus
  • December
  • Coat
  • Click
  • Camera
  • Cobweb

Your child will know the block they are working on for spelling, please continue to revise the spelling words with your child.  

Reading books are being sent home today. Please ask your child to read this to you over the weekend. There are useful suggestions for questions to ask your child on the inside covers.

Maths and Numeracy

In our Maths work we are continuing our unit of work on money. Lots of children are still finding it tricky to identify coins and add them together. It would be very helpful if you could revise recognising coins at home.

In Numeracy we have been working on the links between addition and subtraction. For example, if you know that 25 + 5 = 30 then you also know that 5 + 25 = 30. You can also use this knowledge to work out that 30 – 25 = 5 and that 30 – 5 = 25. This is sometimes referred to as a fact family.

Ideas for learning at home: 

  • As mentioned above, as much hands on practical experience with coins as possible.
  • Challenge your child to make a fact family triangle to demonstrate their understanding of related addition and subtraction facts.
  • We have used this website in class:
  • https://www.topmarks.co.uk/money/coins-game

Other Areas  

PE 

We have been developing our gymnastics skills in PE. In particular forward rolls and balances. 

Sustainability

We continued to work on Global Goals, our one is Goal 14: Life below water. Last week we read the book A Planet full of Plastic and discussed about plastic in the sea. This week we have linked this learning to food chains and thought about how this can affect us too.

We went outside after break and did litter picking…we were disappointed to see how much plastic we collected. To make a change in our environment we have decided that as a class on Fridays we are not going to use plastic for our snacks unless we can reuse it (like a plastic tub), can you help us?

We did amazing drawings of under the sea creatures using water colours.

Science

We have started to learn about basic food chains.

Eco garden Competition

There is an Eco -garden competition organised by the Eco-Enviros at school if your child would like to design an eco- garden for the school please have a look at the document below.

22.03.24 Eco Garden Competition.pdf

Have a lovely weekend, 

Mrs  de Bonrostro

Buckstone Primary School, P1 Koalas

 P1 Koalas Reflective Friday 8.3.24

Staff..469

Hello everyone,

This is what we have been learning this week:

LITERACY

We were blending and building words with the final consonant blends: lt and ft.

Our tricky words this week were: said and one.

Our writing topic this week was- she/he/they/I left……..

The children took their reading books home on Tuesday, and we started sharing a new book in our groups on Wednesday.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

The final consonant blends are quite challenging and any further practice at home is really helpful.

Some words to use loft, lift, soft, daft, raft, left. Gift.

Belt, melt, kilt, felt, tilt, wilt, lilt.

Write out some words which have the final consonant blends we have been learning this week. The child can try to sound out the word using the pure sound of each letter to blend together to read the word.

The adult can say some of the words we have been learning this week and the child writes them down.

Write down the tricky words on a piece of paper or card, hold the cards behind your back then show them to your child and ask them to read the word you have shown them. Your child could practise writing these words, forming the letters the way they have been shown in class.

(If you are unsure about correct letter formation, please speak to one of us at the end of the day).

NUMERACY AND MATHS

We began a topic on time and started by talking about  mornings and afternoons and the different activities we did at those times. We spoke about the days of the week and tried to put them in the correct order.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

Look at clocks around your home and talk about the different times of day, what time do you get up, have breakfast, go to school, go to bed etc.

Practise saying/singing the days of the week in the correct order.

PE

We had a PE session outside this week, keeping fit using hoola hoops.

At our inside PE session, we were working on cooperation, listening and following rules.

FLUFFY!

Thank you so much for all the entries in Fluffy’s journal. It has been lovely to see the children’s enthusiasm and eagerness to take him home. At the moment, we are just allowing the children to keep him for two nights so that everyone can have a turn as soon as possible but if you forget to bring him back to school, please don’t worry.

We really don’t want to give families anything extra to have to think about so PLEASE don’t feel you have to add to the journal. Your child will be given the chance to speak to the class about what they have done with Fluffy.

HWB

We have been thinking about what makes us special and unique and jumped outside on stepping stones shouting out what we are good at. If we couldn’t think of anything our friends helped us out.

ART ACTIVITY

We each drew a penguin for a corridor display so that others could learn about the ice melting in Antarctica.

WORLD BOOK DAY

We shared some of the books that children had brought in and enjoyed wearing comfy clothes so that we were ready to read. We spoke about the different characters in stories and some of us designed our own characters to share with the class.

LOOSE PARTS

Next date for loose parts is Thursday 21 March.

Some examples of learning taking place this week

Have a lovely weekend.

Reflective Friday Quiz – Friday 8 March 2024

P1 Pandas

P1p reflective Friday 8.3.24

Staff...685

Ask me –

  1. To tell you about the features that keep a castle safe.
  2. To count backwards from 20 and to do some oral subtraction sums
  3. To spell the words soft, left, gift, melt, felt, said and one
  4. To tell you how paper is made.

Please continue to send in your clean recycling.

Our learning this week


Here are some photographs of us developing our skills through our independent learning opportunities and experiences this week. Please take time to share these photographs with your child so they can share their learning with you.


Literacy focus

Story Writing

Our story writing prompt this week was “I left…..”


This week we have been learning about consonant blends and the end and beginning of words. This week’s sounds have been lt and ft

Tricky words

This week we introduced two new words from block 2 – said and one. Please support your child at home with learning to both read and spell these words.

As requested at parent’s night please find below a list for reference with block one and block two words introduced so far

Block one – I the to was saw put he he me is his want

Block 2 so far- she we be all are they come some said one

Maths and numeracy focus


We completed some written addition calculations and have started to explore subtraction strategies, including using concrete materials, numberlines, and mental counting back.

Other areas of the curriculum

Our whole school Building resilience unit is ‘ respect yourself’

We are learning that we are all special and unique. As part of this unit we have been singing the Fischy Music songs Fabbydabbydee and I’m the only I ( and others), You can listen at home too on spotify.

Another whole school focus is ‘Sustainability’ and we have been learning about how paper is made and why we should try not to waste paper.


In PE we continue to learn about balance , rolls ( teaching safe technique for forward rolls) and revising our throwing skills to develop shoulder pivot and strength.

We have been investigating features of castles that help to keep the people inside safe. We noticed that many castles are built on hills or near the sea. Some key vocabulary to discuss includes – portcullis, drawbridge, moat, arrow slits, battlements, crenels and bailey.

Looking ahead to next week

A reminder that PE days will be Monday and Wednesday. If possible, could children who have long hair have it tied back in a low ponytail or pleat and avoid fancy hairbands or hair clips ( doing forward rolls with a high ponytail or hair clips can hurt !) Thank you.

‘Homework’ ( things to practice at home)

Play this Subtraction game – choose the ‘less than’ option and then select from the number range options

Use our class spelling city page to play games which will help you to learn to spell our block one and two tricky words. Follow this link and then choose the list you would like to practise.

Revise your phonics with phonics bloom or balloon phonics