P2MD Mrs McFarlane and Miss Davidson

PMD Blog 8.03.24

Staff..114

Dear Parents,

We hope you had a great week.

Important information:

  • Loose parts on Friday 15th March.
  • Please ensure that all your children’s items are labelled (including hats and gloves).
  • 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 c. When e, i and y comes after /c/ it makes /s/ sound. We also learned about hard c: when a, o , u comes after /c/ it makes a /k/ sound.

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: both, don’t and won’t . 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 written descriptions about Katie Morag.

At cursive handwriting. This week we have practice f and k.  We have now learned how to write in cursive all the letters of the alphabet. See the link below of the formation we are practicing at school.

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

Ideas for learning at home

  • Practice words with c and ask your child to say if it is a soft or a hard c 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.

Maths 

We have started to learn money. This week our focus has been on revising recognising coins and to work on value.

We have also worked on numeracy skills: addition and subtraction 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, ask your child to make different amounts using coins. Challenge: Use the less amount of coins as possible, e.g. To make 38p use  a 20p, 10p , 5p , 2p and 1p coins rather that 38 1p coins.
  • This is a website that we have used in class:

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

Other areas

EXA and PE

We have played games to work on listening to instructions and reaction times.

In gymnastics we are working on landing, balancing and rolling skills.

IDL

We have started a small topic on Sustainability. We read the story ‘The tree of hope’. You could read the story at home.

Click to access The-Tree-of-Hope.pdf

We are thinking on different ways that we can Reduce, Recycle and Reuse at school and at home.

World Book Day

We celebrated World Book Day by creating our own books and reading at different times of the day wearing comfy clothes.

Here is a school quiz to do at home:

Famous Authors (office.com)

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Have a lovely Mother’s Day!

Mrs McFarlane

P2D- Mrs DeBonrostro

P2D Reflective Friday 8.03.24

Staff..114

Dear Parents,

We hope you had a great week.

Important information:

  • Loose parts on Friday 15th March.
  • Please ensure that all your children’s items are labelled (including hats and gloves).
  • 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 c. When e, i and y comes after /c/ it makes /s/ sound. We also learned about hard c: when a, o , u comes after /c/ it makes a /k/ sound.

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: both, don’t and won’t . 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 written descriptions about Katie Morag.

At cursive handwriting. This week we have practice f and k.  We have now learned how to write in cursive all the letters of the alphabet. See the link below of the formation we are practicing at school.

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

Ideas for learning at home

  • Practice words with c and ask your child to say if it is a soft or a hard c 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.

Maths 

We have started to learn money. This week our focus has been on revising recognising coins and to work on value.

We have also worked on numeracy skills: addition and subtraction 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, ask your child to make different amounts using coins. Challenge: Use the less amount of coins as possible, e.g. To make 38p use  a 20p, 10p , 5p , 2p and 1p coins rather that 38 1p coins.
  • This is a website that we have used in class:

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

Other areas

EXA and PE

We have played games to work on listening to instructions and reaction times.

In gymnastics we are working on landing, balancing and rolling skills.

IDL

We have started a small topic on Sustainability. We read the story ‘The tree of hope’. You could read the story at home.

Click to access The-Tree-of-Hope.pdf

We are thinking on different ways that we can Reduce, Recycle and Reuse at school and at home.

World Book Day

We celebrated World Book Day by creating our own books and reading at different times of the day wearing comfy clothes.

Here is a school quiz to do at home:

Famous Authors (office.com)

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Have a lovely Mother’s Day!

Mrs de Bonrostro

P1 Koalas

P1 Koalas 1.3.24

Staff..294

This week in P1 Koalas:

Literacy

Sounds and Tricky Words

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

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

Things to try at home:

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

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

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

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

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

Writing

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

At home:

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

Reading Books

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

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

Things to try at home:

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

Numeracy

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

Things to try at home:

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

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

Other Areas of the Curriculum

Health and Wellbeing

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

In PE, we continued to work on different balances.

Topic

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

A football stadium

Have a lovely weekend!

P1 Pandas

P1p reflective Friday 1.3.24

Staff...685

Historic Sundays – The following Historic Scotland sites have free admission this Sunday. Advance booking is required. I thought this may be of interest as we are currently learning about castles.

Historic Sundays sites

  • Aberdour Castle
  • Arbroath Abbey
  • Blackness Castle
  • Bothwell Castle
  • Caerlaverock Castle
  • Craigmillar Castle
  • Dirleton Castle
  • Doune Castle
  • Dryburgh Abbey
  • Duff House
  • Dumbarton Castle
  • Dunstaffnage Castle
  • Edinburgh Castle
  • Elgin Cathedral
  • Fort George
  • Huntingtower Castle
  • Huntly Castle
  • Jedburgh Abbey

Please continue to send in your clean recycling.

Many thanks

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


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

Tricky words

This week we introduced two new words from block 2 – come and some. 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

Story Writing

Our story writing prompt this week was a free choice to draw and write anything we wanted.

Maths and numeracy focus


We have continued to work on Stages of Early Arithmetical Learning ( SEAL) developing our addition strategies, in particular the ‘counting on’ strategy of holding a larger number in your head and counting on from there to find a total.

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. You can listen at home too on spotify.

We have been learning how to use a hole punch and split pins to make moving joins.



In PE we continue to learn about balance and we have begun to investigate different ways to roll our body. We learned how to ‘pencil roll’ our bodies – it takes a lot of core strength !

Our House names are all names of Scottish Castles and the children would like to find our more about castles.. Here are some of the questions we have…..

How are castles built ?

Why do castles sometimes have bridges ?

Why do castles sometimes have grass inside them ?

How are flags made ?

What do castles look like ?

Why do castles have pointy bits ?

What do castle windows look like ?

Who lives in a castle ?

Do castles have guards ?

Looking ahead to next week

Thursday is World book day. We would like to ‘ Get comfy and read’ so we invite the children to wear their comfy clothes if they wish, and to bring a favourite book ( please make sure it is named)

‘Homework’ ( things to practice at home)

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

Play this Addition practice game – choose one of the totals options

Draw a picture of a castle or talk with your family about a castle you have visited/seen in the past.


P2MD Mrs McFarlane and Miss Davidson

P2MD Blog 01.03.24

Staff..226

Dear Parents, 

We hope you have had a good week. 

Important Information 

We read our books in class this week but will not be sending them home today. Books will be sent home next Friday.

We have loose parts on Wednesday 6th March. Please come dressed for the weather! 

Here is a summary of our learning: 

Literacy 

This has been the final week in our Magic E unit of work. Magic e working on the vowel e. Examples of words with this spelling are: Pete, Steve, theme, these. 

With our reading books we have been focusing on decoding new words and reading with fluency.

As a class we were introduced to spelling the words eye, even and above. Then we worked in our groups on the particular spelling block which we are focusing on. 

The letters for handwriting were j and y. 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: 

Real or nonsense words 

Write these magic e words down on small pieces of paper. Can your child read the word then decide if it is a real or nonsense word? 

cake 

eve 

fline 

tube 

smope 

make 

pine 

spure 

pole 

clube 

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

Numeracy 

In numeracy we have continued to work on addition and subtraction skills. We are finding subtraction more tricky compared to addition. In order to help with this we are working on counting backwards, stopping and starting at different numbers, and paying close attention to crossing decades. It would be very helpful if you could work on this at home too in order to give extra reinforcement. 

Ideas for learning at home: 

As mentioned above, please work on counting backwards. This can be done in the car, walking home from school, any time you have a spare few minutes! 

Here are a couple of links to online games which will reinforce subtraction skills. 

If your child is finding this difficult: 

https://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math/subtraction/catch-the-stars

For more challenge: 

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/subtraction-grids

Other Areas  

Outdoor Learning 

We enjoyed our session of Loose Parts session on Monday. 

PE 

We have been developing our gymnastics skills in PE. 

HWB – Building Resilience 
We are working on the unit of work titled ‘Respect Yourself’. We have been learning that we all have similarities and differences, but we are all unique. We have been drawing and writing about what makes each of us special and unique.  

HWB – RSHP 

We have been learning about Privacy and the PANTS rule. 

P is for privates are private. 

A is for always remember your body belongs to you. 

N is for no. 

T is for talk about secrets that upset you. 

S is for speak up, someone can help. 

This is a good website with ideas:  

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/underwear-rule

This is the song we have listened to: https://youtu.be/_SzbMEVYiyg 

Have a lovely weekend, 

Mrs  McFarlane

P2D- Mrs DeBonrostro

P2D Reflective Friday 1.03.24

Staff..114

Dear Parents,

We hope you have had a good week.

It was lovely to talk to you at parents evenings.

Important Information

Loose parts on Wednesday 6th March

We read our books in class this week but will not be sending them home today. Books will be sent home next Friday.

Here is a summary of our learning:

Literacy

This has been the final week in our Magic E unit of work. Magic e working on the vowel e. Examples of words with this spelling are: Pete, Steve, theme, these.

In writing we wrote a description of Grandma Mainland from the Katie Morag stories.

As a class we were introduced to spelling the words eye, even and above. Then we worked in our groups on the particular spelling block which we are focusing on.

The letters for handwriting were j and y. 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:

Real or nonsense words

Write these magic e words down on small pieces of paper. Can your child read the word then decide if it is a real or nonsense word?

cake

eve

fline

tube

smope

make

pine

spure

pole

clube

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

Numeracy

In numeracy we have continued to work on addition and subtraction skills. We are finding subtraction more tricky compared to addition. In order to help with this we are working on counting backwards, stopping and starting at different numbers, and paying close attention to crossing decades. It would be very helpful if you could work on this at home too in order to give extra reinforcement.

Ideas for learning at home:

As mentioned above, please work on counting backwards. This can be done in the car, walking home from school, any time you have a spare few minutes!

Here are a couple of links to online games which will reinforce subtraction skills.

If your child is finding this difficult:

https://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math/subtraction/catch-the-stars

For more challenge.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/subtraction-grids

Other Areas 

Outdoor Learning

We enjoyed our session of Loose Parts session on Monday.

PE

We have been developing our gymnastics skills in PE.

HWB – Building Resilience
We are working on the unit of work titled ‘Respect Yourself’. We have been learning that we all have similarities and differences, but we are all unique. We have been drawing and writing about what makes each of us special and unique.

HWB – RSHP

We have been learning about Privacy and the PANTS rule.

P is for privates are private.

A is for always remember your body belongs to you.

N is for no.

T is for talk about secrets that upset you.

S is for speak up, someone can help.

This is a good website with ideas:

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/underwear-rule

This is the song we have listened to: https://youtu.be/_SzbMEVYiyg

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs de Bonrostro

Buckstone Primary School, P1 Koalas

 P1 Koalas Reflective Friday 23.2.24

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: st mp rk nd, for example: just, gust, camp, lump, dark, park, sand, mend.

Our tricky words this week were: they and all.

Our writing topic this week was- At the park…..

We had new reading books this week. The children have been reading in groups at the teaching table.  As well as decoding the words we have been discussing title and author, talking about the characters, and predicting what might happen next in the story. The children will bring their reading books home on Tuesday, please see the separate email for further information.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

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 have continued to work on core numeracy skills: recognising numerals, saying forward number word sequences, sequencing numerals, counting items, saying the number before and after and adding numbers together in our heads.

We continued working on money. We were adding amounts to 10p and beyond. We were working in pairs to make amounts by drawing coins on our boards. We completed a money worksheet to show our understanding.

Some of us were doing money assessments with the teacher.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

Have a look at some coins at home, try to make different amounts by adding the coins together.

https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/payForIt/oldcdn.html

PE

We have begun working on gymnastics and this week the focus was on balancing in different ways. We were trying to hold balances using different parts of the body.

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.

SOCIAL STUDIES/SCIENCE

Linked to our topic on Antarctica and penguins we were trying to find out what makes penguins feathers waterproof. We coloured one penguin with wax crayons and left the other drawing uncoloured. We dropped water onto the penguin with the wax coating and the plain paper one and described what happened.

LOOSE PARTS

Next date for loose parts is Friday 1 March.

RSHP

As part of our RSHP programme we began to look at the section on ‘Asking questions, making choices, saying yes/saying no’.

We discussed the different questions we can ask using the words: who, what, where and how. We talked about the difference between fact based questions and preference based questions. Next week we will talk about making choices.

Some examples of learning taking place this week:

Have a lovely weekend.

P2MD Mrs McFarlane and Miss Davidson

P2MD Blog 23.02.24

Staff..226

Dear Parents,

We hope you had a great week.

Important information:

  • Loose parts on Monday 26th February.
  • Please ensure that all items are labelled (including hats and gloves).
  • 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 continued to learn about magic e. This week was magic e with an u. Eg: cube, tube, mule, rude.

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.

We have continued to learn common words from block 5: eight, learn and money. 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 written descriptions about Granny Island from the Katie Morag series of books.

In cursive handwriting we have worked on p and u. See the link below of the formation we are practicing at school.

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

Ideas for learning at home

  • Use your magic e wand for these words: cub, cut, tub, etc. Ask your child to write them and then add the magic e band at the end of the word and see which words they have now.
  • 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.

Maths 

We have started to learn about tessellation or tilling: what is tessellation and which 2D shapes we can use for creating tessellations.

We are learning to identify examples of tiling in the environment and to apply knowledge of the features of 2D shapes to create tiling patterns incorporating two different shapes.

We have also worked on numeracy skills: addition and subtraction (missing addends). Please continue to practice these skills at home.

Ideas for learning at home: 

  • Look for tessellations around the house and when on a walk.
  • Lego tessellation activity: Make your child use their coloured building blocks as an awesome learning tool. Ask them to make symmetric patterns using their Lego.
  • Practice a couple of calculations every day ( please choose accordingly with your child’s ability)

Other Areas

EXA and PE

We have played games to work on listening to instructions and reaction times.

In gymnastics we are learning landing and balancing skills.

RSHP

We are learning about the topic of privacy and about having confidence in our bodies.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs McFarlane