P1 Pandas

P1p reflective Friday 19.1.24

Staff...685

A winter plea! I know it is not always the easiest thing to do, but it would help us so much if winter accessories ( hats. gloves. scarves etc) are named or at least initialled so that we can reunite them with their owners even when those owners deny ever having had a pair of gloves with them !!

Also, 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


Our new sounds this week were ee and oo. We have also enjoyed using our phonics skills to read independently – a great sense of achievement. We continue to practise correct letter formation .

Tricky words – no new tricky words this week, but please revise recognition and spelling of all block one tricky words so far.

Writing prompt this week was ‘I can see a bee’

Maths and numeracy focus


Our focus this week was on addition skills – aiming to use a counting on strategy where possible, Some pupils have been investigating how numbers are made of bundles of tens and units.

Below are links to two games we have used in school which you may also wish to use at home to support this learning.

Tens and Units – Shark numbers

Robot Addition

Other areas of the curriculum



In PE we created sequences of the movement patterns we have been learning and then we made sets and learned to dance The Flying Scotsman

We have been learning about the world around us, fact finding about different species of bees and also taking advantage of the cold weather to explore the properties of ice. We left some pots of water in the playground overnight before bringing the frozen contents into school for some scientific exploration and discussion.

Looking ahead to next week

Loose parts play on Thursday

‘Homework’ ( things to practice at home)

Play the maths games listed above, or practice mental addition calculations with an adult.

Tell an adult what you know about bees.

Try out this icy experiment

( one for the adults!) If at all possible – start a collection of loose change – we will soon begin some formal learning about money and recognising real coins is an important outcome. In these cashless days children may not see coins very often.


P2D- Mrs DeBonrostro

P2D Reflective Friday 19.01.24

Staff..114

Dear Parents / Carers,

We hope you had a great week.

Important information:

  • Your child took will bring home today their learning story. Please have a look at the termly overview and your child’s targets for this term. Please return them to school by Friday 26th January at the latest.
  • Loose parts on Monday 22nd.
  • 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 learned the initial blends: sc, sk, sn, sp, st, sw, tw.

We have practiced our reading skills: our focus at the moment is fluency.

We have started to learn common words from block 5: school, because and before.

In writing we are learning to write descriptions. We have started by writing a description on ourselves.

At cursive handwriting. This week we have practice r and s. 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

  • Please ask your child to read the school reading book at home.

Look at these ideas to work on fluency at home:

  1. Show them your own fluent reading. The more often your child hears fluent reading, the more likely they are to pick it up.
  2. Teach your child how to track words.
  3. Focus on sight words.
  4. Recruit a friendly audience and ask your child to read the story for them.
  5. Ask your child to write and read these words: scoop, scar, scan, scab, skip, skin, skid, skim, snail, snap, snug, snip, smug, smash, spin, spat, spot, spit, speck, stop, step, star, stuck, stick, stock, swim, swam, swag, swig, twin, twig, twit. You can write the words and ask your child to look for the initial blends and circle them.  
  6. Please continue to read stories to your child at home.
  7. 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 properties of 2D shapes and reviewed our knowledge of 2D shapes.

We have been working on doubles and doubles plus one.

Ideas for learning at home: 

  • When talking to your child ensure you use vocabulary using 2D shape: we have learned circle, triangle, square, rectangle, trapezium, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon and decagon. The children were confident on the first three but found challenging the others.
  • Shape hunt around the house and outdoors.
  • Make a shape book: every page could have a shape and your child can write how many sides, how many corners (we have introduced the word vertex ( how many vertices?) and draw objects with that shape.
  • In this online game you could click on the doubles area.

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

Other areas

EXA and PE

We have started to learn Scottish Dance. We are learning to combine actions to create movement sequences independently and with others in response to music.

ART

We are learning about Monet. We have learned about his life and started to look at his technique.

FRENCH

We are learning to count to 20.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We are learning about Greyfriars Bobby. We are learning to use evidence to recreate the story of an individual of local historical interest. 

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Mrs de Bonrostro

P2MD Mrs McFarlane and Miss Davidson

P2MD Blog 19.01.24

Staff..226

Dear Parents,

We hope you had a great week.

Important information:

  • Your child will bring home their learning story today. Please have a look at the termly overview and your child’s targets for this term. Please return them to school by Friday 26th January at the latest.
  • Loose parts on Monday 22nd January.
  • Please ensure that all your child’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 learned the initial blends: sc, sk, sn, sp, st, sw, tw.

We have practiced our reading skills: our focus at the moment is fluency.

We have started to learn common words from block 5: school, because and before.

In writing we are learning to write descriptions. We have started by writing a description of ourselves.

In cursive handwriting we have practised r and s. See the link below of the formation we use at school.

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

Ideas for learning at home

  • Please ask your child to read the school reading book at home.

Look at these ideas to work on fluency at home:

  1. Show them your own fluent reading. The more often your child hears fluent reading, the more likely they are to pick it up.
  2. Teach your child how to track words.
  3. Focus on sight words.
  4. Recruit a friendly audience and ask your child to read the story for them.
  5. Ask your child to write and read these words: scoop, scar, scan, scab, skip, skin, skid, skim, snail, snap, snug, snip, smug, smash, spin, spat, spot, spit, speck, stop, step, star, stuck, stick, stock, swim, swam, swag, swig, twin, twig, twit. You can write the words and ask your child to look for the initial blends and circle them.  
  6. Please continue to read stories to your child at home.
  7. 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 properties of 2D shapes and reviewed our knowledge of 2D shapes.

We have been working on doubles and doubles plus one.

Ideas for learning at home: 

  • When talking to your child ensure you use vocabulary using 2D shape: we have learned circle, triangle, square, rectangle, trapezium, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon and decagon. They were confident on the first three but found the others challenging.
  • Shape hunt around the house and outdoors.
  • Make a shape book: every page could have a shape and your child can write how many sides, how many corners (we have introduced the word vertex ( how many vertices?) and draw objects with that shape.
  • In this online game you could click on the doubles area.

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

Other areas

EXA and PE

We have started to learn Scottish Dance. We are learning to combine actions to create movement sequences independently and with others in response to music.

ART

We are learning about Monet. We have learned about his life and started to look at his technique.

FRENCH

We are learning to count to 20.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We have been learning about Edinburgh Castle. 

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs McFarlane

Buckstone Primary School, P1 Koalas

P1 Koalas Reflective Friday 19.1.24

Staff..469

Hello everyone,

This is what we have been learning this week:

LITERACY

We introduced two vowel digraphs this week: oo and ee. Digraphs are two letters which go together to make one sound. We were building /writing these words : look, took, keep, beep and blending sounds together to read: moon, soon, been, seen.

Our new tricky words this week are go and my.

In writing, we had a choice of two story starts – I went to the moon……..

I see the moon………..

We are encouraging the children to use the tricky words they know and the sounds they have learned to ‘have a go’ at writing independently. If the word the child wishes to use is too difficult to sound out, they can still write the starting letter. We are trying to remember to use finger spaces after every word so that our writing is not squashed together.

We introduced 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.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

Hold up the digraphs and ask your child to tell you the sound they make. Ask them if they can think of a word containing that sound.

Use letters written on a piece of paper or card to ‘build’ a word. The adult says a word and the child choses the correct sounds to make that word.

An adult makes a word using the digraphs oo and ee  and the child says the pure sounds of each letter to blend together to read the word.

Write down any of the Term One tricky words  and the new tricky words go and my 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.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

Please refer to your SEAL home learning wall and pick an activity to practise.

PE

We have been working on using repeated patterns of movement to create simple sequences and plan to add music and rhythm in the next few weeks.

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

As the children have shown an interest in penguins, we have started to learn about Antarctica. We have talked about where Antarctica is and looked at the weather and seasons there. We will be learning about some of the other animals which live on this continent.

LOOSE PARTS

Next date for loose parts is Thursday 25 January.

Some examples of learning taking place this week:

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

P1 Pandas

P1p reflective Friday 12.1.24

Staff...685

Welcome back – it has been lovely to see the children and hear all about their holidays.

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 discussed the role of Authors and illustrators and investigated the difference between fiction and non fiction texts. We have an authors table where we can begin to create our own books.

We also revised recognition of all our block one Tricky words

Tricky words

These are words which cannot be sounded out using phonics and should be learned by memory as sight vocabulary. please practise both reading and writing these words

Use the sounds you know to read and build words. If you want a challenge you could try to write the word if an adult reads it to you.

Building a word. Using plastic letters or letters written on small pieces of card or paper an adult says a three letter CVC word ( consonant, vowel, consonant) and the child chooses the correct sounds to make the word.

Blending a word . Adult writes or uses letters to make a CVC word and the child should say the pure sounds of each letter then blend them together to read the word.

Our writing programme starts with telling stories through detailed drawing. We are now beginning to write some of the words and sounds we know as part of our sentence. This week our focus was ’In the holiday’

Maths and numeracy focus


This week we revised how to correctly form the numerals 0 – 9

We also continue to practise our number bonds of ten. These are the pairs of numbers which, when added together, total ten. The children should learn these as instant recall facts. We also talk about ‘switchers’ e.g. if we know that 8 + 2 =10, we can tall that 2 +8 = 10.

Please support your child at home to learn these facts. If they already know them, the challenge is to apply that understanding to tens numbers to 100 ( e.g. 8+ ? = 10, 18 + ? = 20 , 8 +? = 40 etc)

We continue to work on SEAL ( Stages of Early Arithmetical Learning) Pupils are working and challenged at a level appropriate to their individual development. These are examples of some of the skills we have been practising :

Making arrays and counting in groups to find the total. Key vocabulary included the words rows, columns and groups

Adding 1

Adding 2

Counting random printed arrays accurately ( when you can’t move the item being counted)

Counting in tens

Counting in tens off the decade

Recognising and ordering numerals to 20

Counting forward and back within 30 ( to 100 for some)

Establishing a collection.

Counting a collection with accurate 1-1 correspondence

Identifying number families ( teens, twenties, 30s etc)

Subitising ( recognising an amount without counting )

Other areas of the curriculum



In PE we started to learn some elements of Scottish Country dancing.

We have been learning more about article 1 of the UNCRC and we learned how to do watercolour colour washes as we prepared a display for the area.

Looking ahead to next week

‘Homework’ ( things to practice at home)

Please continue to practise correct letter ( and numeral) formation

Write your name. Try to use correct letter formation for all the letters. Remember, only the first letter should be a capital. As a challenge, try writing your surname too.


Buckstone Primary School, P1 Koalas

P1 Koalas Reflective Friday 12.1.24

Staff..469

Hello everyone,

It has been lovely to welcome the children back to class and to hear all about their holidays. We would like to wish all our families a very healthy and happy 2024.

This is what we have been learning this week:

LITERACY

We were revising some of the tricky words we learned last term. The words were hanging from the trees outside and we wrote them out in chalk.

We were writing about our holidays, trying to use the tricky words we know, as well as thinking about the letter at the start of words and using the correct letter formation.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

Hold up the letters and ask your child to tell you the sound they make. Ask them if they can think of a word beginning with that sound. Play ‘I spy’ using the sounds your child has learnt.

Use letters written on a piece of paper or card to ‘build’ a word. The adult says a three letter word and the child choses the correct sounds to make that word.

An adult makes a three letter word, and the child says the pure sounds of each letter to blend together to read the word.

Write down any of the Term One 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 been working on core numeracy skills: saying forward number word sequences, sequencing numerals, counting items, saying the number before and after and adding numbers together in our heads.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

Please refer to your SEAL home learning wall and pick an activity to practise.

PE

We are beginning to learn some Scottish country dancing. We have been clapping and skipping in time to the music and practising counting to four while we walk forwards and backwards with a partner.

FLUFFY!

We have adopted a penguin with WWF and will receive regular updates  about its progress throughout the year. As part of the adoption, we have been sent a small cuddly penguin which the class have named Fluffy. We would like all the children to have a turn of taking Fluffy home. There is a journal which will also come home with Fluffy. If you would like to write a few sentences about what you have been doing with Fluffy please do so. You could also include a drawing or a photograph if you wish. However, there is absolutely no expectation to do so, and your child will be given the opportunity to share anything they might want to say about their time with Fluffy with the rest of the class.

LOOSE PARTS

Next date for loose parts is Thursday 25 January.

Some examples of learning taking place this week:

P2D- Mrs DeBonrostro

P2D Reflective Friday 12.01.24

Staff..114

Blog 12.01.24

Dear Parents/Carers,

Happy New Year! It was lovely to welcome back the pupils this week. Everyone seems refreshed and ready for the busy term ahead.

Important Information

· Change of PE days: Our PE days will be now on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Here is a summary of our learning

Literacy

Our phonics focus has been on the initial blends bl,cl,fl,gl,pl,sl. Examples of words with these blends are: block, clap, flag, glitter, plant, slip.

We have enjoyed our reading books this week, focusing on reading aloud with fluency.

At writing we wrote about one thing that we liked about the holidays and why.

Ideas for learning at home:

Here is a fun game to play which will revise the phonics focus for this week. Examples of words are: black, blow, clip, cloud, flag, flock, glass, glen, plum, play, slug, sleep.

Silly Sentence

Write the words out on bits of paper. Spread the word cards out face down. Pick 3 cards and turn them face up. Say the words as they are turned up. Now try and make up a silly sentence that includes all 3 words on the cards.

Please also ask your child to share their reading book with you. Once they are finished you could ask them to explain what happened at the beginning, middle and end. Reflecting on the structure of books will help them as they write their own stories.

Numeracy

We have been practicing a variety of number skills this week. One of the main focuses has been on number recognition. We revised ‘teen’ and ‘ty’ numbers briefly and are becoming so much more confident with this now!

We have also been looking at the 100 square and looking for patterns which will help us to identify numbers and their value.

Ideas for learning at home

Click on this link to open up an interactive 100 square. Paint the Squares – Interactive Number Charts (topmarks.co.uk)

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/paint-the-squares

On the left hand side you will see options to ‘pick a puzzle’. These offer various levels of challenge and the class have enjoyed exploring this.

You could also make up your own 100 square challenges like in the photo below. Can your child fill in the spaces?

Try to look out for numbers in the environment for example house doors, bus numbers, items in packets at the shops. Real life examples of reading numbers can be much more interesting than a worksheet!

Other Areas

· We have been learning about the UNCRC article 3. We have been learning that adults make the best decisions for us. We thought about who are our five trusted adults.

· We have been learning about New Year resolutions and made some of our own in a creative way. See photos below!

· In PE we did games.

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

Mrs de Bonrostro

P2MD Mrs McFarlane and Miss Davidson

P2MD Blog 12.01.24

Staff..226

Dear Parents/Carers,

Happy New Year! It was lovely to welcome back the pupils this week. Everyone seems refreshed and ready for the busy term ahead.

Here is a summary of our learning

Literacy

Our phonics focus has been on the initial blends bl,cl,fl,gl,pl,sl. Examples of words with these blends are: block, clap, flag, glitter, plant, slip.

We have enjoyed our reading books this week, focusing on reading aloud with fluency.

Ideas for learning at home:

Here is a fun game to play which will revise the phonics focus for this week. Examples of words are: black, blow, clip, cloud, flag, flock, glass, glen, plum, play, slug, sleep.

Silly Sentence

Write the words out on bits of paper. Spread the word cards out face down. Pick 3 cards and turn them face up. Say the words as they are turned up. Now try and make up a silly sentence that includes all 3 words on the cards.

Please also ask your child to share their reading book with you. Once they are finished you could ask them to explain what happened at the beginning, middle and end. Reflecting on the structure of books will help them as they write their own stories.

Numeracy

We have been practising a variety of number skills this week. One focus has been on number recognition. We revised ‘teen’ and ‘ty’ numbers briefly and are becoming so much more confident with this now!

We have also been looking at the 100 square and looking for patterns which will help us to identify numbers and their value.

Ideas for learning at home

Click on this link to open up an interactive 100 square.

Paint the Squares – Interactive Number Charts (topmarks.co.uk)

On the left hand side you will see options to ‘pick a puzzle’. These offer various levels of challenge and the class have enjoyed exploring their number skills through this.

You could also make up your own 100 square challenges like in the photo below. Can your child fill in the spaces?

Try to look out for numbers in the environment for example house doors, bus numbers, items in packets at the shops. Real life examples of reading numbers can be much more interesting than a worksheet!

Other Areas

  • We have been learning about the UNCRC article 6. We have been learning that every child has the right to life. Governments must do all they can to ensure that children survive and develop to their full potential.
  • We enjoyed working in groups in PE.
  • We have been learning about New Year resolutions and made some of our own in a creative way. See photos below!

Have a great weekend,

Mrs McFarlane