Buckstone Primary School, P1 Koalas

P1 Koalas Reflective Friday 27.10.23

Staff..469

Hello everyone, it has been great to welcome the children back after mid term and to hear about their holidays.

This is what we have been learning this week:

LITERACY

We introduced the new sounds o and g.

 In small groups we were thinking about words beginning with these sounds, playing games, and identifying the letters which make these sounds. Some of us were learning how to ‘build’ and ‘blend’ three letter words with the sounds we know.

We also introduced two ‘tricky words’ I and the. Tricky words can not be sounded out but have to be learned. We will be introducing new tricky words on a weekly basis.

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 I and the 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

In numeracy we have been developing our knowledge of forward and backward number word sequences starting at different numbers. We have been sequencing numerals and practising counting strategies.

We will be looking at measure in the next few weeks and began this week by going outside to collect sticks and put them in length order.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

Quite a few children are finding counting backwards  challenging, here are some fun songs to sing along with which help to practise counting backwards from  20.

PE

We were playing running games to improve our fitness and have fun.

HWB

As part of our Health and Wellbeing programme we were talking about friends and what makes a good friend. The class came up with lots of good ideas:

Someone who is kind to you.

Somebody who likes the same kind of games you do.

Someone who laughs at the same things or makes us laugh.

Someone who looks after you when you are hurt.

We drew pictures of ourselves playing with our friends which you will be able to see at the Drop In.

LOOSE PARTS

Next date for Loose Parts is Tuesday 6.11.23

Some examples of learning taking place this week:

CHANGE OF CLOTHES

As the weather gets wetter, can you please make sure that your child has a full change of clothes which are replaced when used. We have a very limited stock of spare clothing in class.

LOST PROPERTY

We have a number of items of clothing which have been left in the classroom. I will put them out on display next Friday at the Drop In so that you can claim any missing items.

Please can you check that your child has brought home the correct jumper as we have had a few missing jumpers which have names on them.

JUNK

Please can you continue to bring in cardboard boxes, plastic trays and packaging for our modelling area as the children really enjoy creating models and building with these items.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

P2D- Mrs DeBonrostro

P2D Reflective Friday 27.10.23

Staff..114

Dear Parents,

We hope you had a great week.

It has been lovely to see the children back after the holidays.

Important information

  • Loose Parts on Friday 3rd November.
  • Drop in for Parents on Friday 3rd November.
  • 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). Some children took them home after needing them in but haven’t returned them back to school.
  • As usual your children will be taking home their reading books today. This is a showcase of their learning. We have been reading the book at school so your children might find it ‘easy’. Please return the reading books on Monday: this is essential so books can be used by other children across the school. We have a few books missing and this means that a set of books cannot be shared with a group of children.
  • Next Wednesday 1st November I will be at school working on PEF. I will be at school but not in class.

This is a summary of our learning this week:

Literacy

This week we revised last week’s sounds oa/ow. Here is a wee video that you could watch at home if you would like to revise the learning:

We have practiced our reading skills: prediction, inference, summarising, etc.

We have introduced new tricky words from block 4: other, mother, another. It would be very helpful if your children practice to read and write these words and previous blocks.

In writing we wrote a recount of the Owl Babies story.

Ideas for learning at home

  • Please ask your child to read the school reading book at home.
  • Read, write and make the words: boat, goat, road, load, toad, foal, oak, coach, soap, soak, loan, bow, row, show, mow. You can write the words and ask your child to look for the oa/ow letters and circle them. Ask your child how many letters the word can has and how many sounds.
  • You can play this free online game:

https://ictgames.com/phonicsPop/index.html

– Please continue to read stories to your child at home.

– Please continue to encourage your child to read at home. It is important that children practice reading every day.

Maths 

We have been learning about place value: the value of each digit in a number. Most of us have been working on numbers to 99.

At school the children have enjoyed playing this game:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/place-value-basketball

Ideas for learning at home: 

  • Can your child recognise and say the number words for numbers from 0 to 100? You can ask your child how many digits a number has, what each digit tells you.
  • This website will give you more information:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z8sfr82/articles/zw4g2nb

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z8sfr82/articles/zncq4xs

  • This activity is for a challenge:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zsjqtfr/articles/z9w3g82#z2pv9ty3

  • Build a Paper Cup Stack

Grab a stack of reusable paper cups. Number them from 0 to 9 on the visible edge. Then stack the cups in various configurations. Discuss place value as you stack and restack the cups.

  • Use Lego/ Duplo

Simply write number values on your Lego with a dry erase marker. Then when you are done you can simply wipe the numbers away.

Other areas

Art

We have learned how to draw owls following instructions and choose wax crayons to colour them.

PE

We have worked on pre- hockey skills; we have continued to work on how to hols a hockey stick and push pass.

We hope you have a lovely weekend!

Mrs de Bonrostro

P2MD Mrs McFarlane and Miss Davidson

P2MD Blog 13.10.23

Staff..226

Dear Parents/Carers,

Important Information

We hope you had a lovely week. Looking ahead to the week after the holiday, please remember that Monday 23rd October is an in-service for the staff, so we look forward to welcoming the pupils back on Tuesday 24th October.

We have a session of Loose Parts on Wednesday 25th October. Please come dressed for the weather!

We have worked on our reading books in class this week but will not be sending them home over the holiday. We are still waiting for some to be returned so if you have a book at home, please return it as soon as possible to enable other groups to use the set of books.

Here is a summary of our learning.

Literacy

Writing – We wrote a final set of instructions. This week it was themed around a magic spell! There were lots of creative ideas as well as the bossy verbs, capital letters and full stops required!

Reading – We have been working hard on our new reading books in class. There have been lots of good discussions on how to work out new words.

Spelling– We all now know which block of tricky words we are working on. This week we made wordsearches and swapped them with a partner. At the parent consultations we handed out a list of the tricky words so please continue to work on these at home too.

Phonics – We have been learning to recognise igh and y. For example, high, sky, fly, right.

Ideas for learning at home

  • Continue to practise reading and spelling the tricky words that your child is working on.  One idea is to play snap. Use 2 sets of cards with the words. Lay out a large piece of paper and a pen in the middle of the table. When the words match, rather than saying the word to win the cards, you have to grab the pen and write the word to win the cards.   
  • Look for igh and y words in books and in the environment. We found lots of these in our reading books this week! Ask your child to write a simple dictated sentence using the sounds for example ‘A bird can fly.’ Or ‘I am right.’ Do they remember capital letters, full stops and finger spaces?

Maths

  • We continued to read and interpret pictograms and bar charts.
  • We have been revisiting how to form the digits 2,3,4 and 5. We did this on whiteboards and then into our handwriting jotters.
  • We have been recognising and ordering 2 (and in some cases 3) digit numbers. We focussed particularly on the difference between teen and ty numbers. For example 14 and 40 sound very similar but are very different!

Ideas for learning at home

We have really enjoyed using this game on the interactive whiteboard.

Caterpillar Ordering – An Ordering and Sequencing Game (topmarks.co.uk)

Practise forming the digits 2,3,4 and 5 in particular. You could use chalk, coloured pens, paint, anything to keep this fun! This is the correct formation:

Other Areas

  • We continued to develop our rugby skills in PE as well as other ball skills.
  • We enjoyed using paint to create autumn trees in art.
  • We enjoyed assembly which was about climate change and also a relaunch of the school house system.

Have a wonderful October break,

Mrs McFarlane

P2D- Mrs DeBonrostro

P2D Reflective Friday 13.10.23

Staff..114

Dear Parents/Carers,

I cannot believe this is the end of our first term in P2. What a busy term we had!

Important Information

We hope you had a lovely week. Looking ahead to the week after the holiday, please remember that Monday 23rd October is an in-service for the staff, so we look forward to welcoming the pupils back on Tuesday 24th October.

We have a session of Loose Parts on Wednesday 25th October. Please come dressed for the weather!

We have worked on our reading books in class this week but will not be sending them home over the holiday. We are still waiting for some to be returned so if you have a book at home, please return it as soon as possible to enable other groups to use the set of books.

Here is a summary of our learning.

Literacy

Writing – We wrote a final set of instructions. This week it was themed around a magic spell! There were lots of creative ideas as well as the bossy verbs, capital letters and full stops required! All children worked extremely hard on their writing, they should be very proud of themselves.

Reading – We have been working hard on our new reading books in class. There have been lots of good discussions on how to work out new words.

Spelling- We all now know which block of tricky words we are working on. This week we made wordsearches and swapped them with a partner. At the parent consultations we handed out a list of the tricky words so please continue to work on these at home too.

Phonics – We have been learning to recognise igh and y. For example, high, sky, fly, right.

Ideas for learning at home:

  • Continue to practise reading and spelling the tricky words that your child is working on.  One idea is to play snap. Use 2 sets of cards with the words. Lay out a large piece of paper and a pen in the middle of the table. When the words match, rather than saying the word to win the cards, you have to grab the pen and write the word to win the cards.   
  • Look for igh and y words in books and in the environment. We found lots of these in our reading books this week! Ask your child to write a simple dictated sentence using the sounds for example ‘A bird can fly.’ Or ‘I am right.’ Do they remember capital letters, full stops and finger spaces?

Maths

  • We continued to read and interpret pictograms and bar charts.
  • We have been revisiting how to form the digits 2,3,4 and 5. We did this on our handwriting jotters.
  • We have been recognising and ordering 2 (and in some cases 3) digit numbers. We focussed particularly on the difference between teen and ty numbers. For example 14 and 40 sound very similar but are very different!

Ideas for learning at home

We have really enjoyed using this game on the interactive whiteboard.

Caterpillar Ordering – An Ordering and Sequencing Game (topmarks.co.uk)

Practise forming the digits 2,3,4 and 5 in particular. You could use chalk, coloured pens, paint, anything to keep this fun! This is the correct formation:

Other Areas

  • We started to work on our pre- hockey skills in PE. We have learned how to hold a hockey stick and how to do a push pass. Emma, Holly and Harry from P7 helped us to learn these skills, they were brilliant!
  • We had a visit from the mobile library and we chose books that we will keep at school.
  • We did a scavenger hunt with P7 to learn about our rights.
  • On Thursday it was Spain National Day so we learned a little bit about Spain.
  • We took part in a ‘Show Racism The Red Card’ assembly.

Here are some photos of the fantastic independent learning in our class. The Kapla creations are amazing!

And…

Have a wonderful October break,

Mrs de Bonrostro

P1 Pandas

P1p reflective Friday 13.10.23

Staff...685

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.

Topics of pupil interest this week included hedgehogs, dinosaurs, hairdressers, carrots and Concorde


Literacy focus

This week we introduced the letters

d and h

Some children are already familiar with these letter sounds ( and more) and have already begun to build and blend words in class. These are skills to practise at home whenever you can.

Here are some words to read and build. If you want a challenge you could try to write the word if an adult reads it to you.

dan mat sad hat arm had ham him ted

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. This week our focus was “In the playground…..”

Maths and numeracy focus


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 :

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 rounded off our block of learning to throw, catch, and control a ball with our feet.

The mobile Library came and we each chose a book to keep in the classroom

We had our flu medicine from the medical staff.

We have enjoyed playing some singing games and rhymes with Mrs Cross, developing our skill in keeping a steady beat and also exploring different ways in which we can use our voices.

Looking ahead to next week

Enjoy your holiday week. Look forward to seeing everyone again on Tuesday 24th.

‘Homework’ ( things to practice at home)

Enjoy being outdoor as much as you can, hopefully the weather will be kind !

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 13.10.23

Staff..469

Hello everyone.

This is what we have been learning this week:

LITERACY

We introduced the new sounds d and h.

 In small groups we were thinking about words beginning with these sounds, playing games, and identifying the letters which make these sounds. Some of us were learning how to ‘build’ and ‘blend’ three letter words with the sounds we know.

This week our writing was inspired by the book ‘My Big Shouting Day’ by Rebecca Patterson. The children really loved this story and appreciated the humour within it. The discussion which followed prompted lots of good ideas for drawings and stories.

NUMERACY

In numeracy we have been developing our knowledge of forward and backward number word sequences starting at different numbers. We have been sequencing numerals and practising counting strategies.

PE

We were practising the skills we have been learning in the last few weeks: dribbling, throwing at a target, catching and bouncing.

OUTDOOR LEARNING

We went out to observe signs of autumn and drew the different coloured leaves we could see in our playground.

MOBILE LIBRARY

We choose a book from the mobile library which will be kept in class to look at.

FRENCH

We practised the six colour words we have been learning and sang them to the tune of Frere Jacques.

Some examples of learning taking place this week:

We hope you have a lovely, relaxing midterm break.

P2MD Mrs McFarlane and Miss Davidson

P2MD Blog 06.10.23

Staff..226

Dear Parents,

We hope you had a great week.

Important information

  • MP Christmas cards: Today we are sending a template for the MP Christmas cards competition. If you wish your child to take part in this competition, please make the card at home and sign the form for consent. Please can all forms be returned to school by Wednesday 25th October.
  • Your children will be taking home their reading books today. This is a showcase of their learning. We have been reading the book at school so your children might find it ‘easy’. Please return the reading books on Monday: this is essential so books can be used by other children across the school. We have a few books missing and this means that a set of books cannot be shared with a group of children.

This is a summary of our learning this week:

Literacy

This week we revised last week’s sounds ee/ea. We felt it was important to revise as not all children were able to do home learning last week.

We have introduced new tricky words from block 3: should, would, could. This is the end of block 3. It would be very helpful if your children work on reading and spelling these words.

At parent consultations we shared with you all the tricky words blocks that we are going to learn in P2. Please continue to revise blocks 1, 2 and 3.  

Thanks to the very kind donation of the book Llamaphones (A Grammar Zoo Book) from one of our parents we have learned about homophones. We had a few examples of this week’s sounds: peek/peak, see/sea. We had a rich discussion based on this book.

In writing we wrote a set of instructions on how to blow a bubble.

Ideas for learning at home

  • Please ask your child to read the school reading book at home.
  • Read and write the words: keep, bee, jeep, deep, eel, leek, feet, see, wheel, sheep, week, queen, meal, tea, read, eat, teach, see, peak, peek. You can write the words and ask your child to look for the ee/ ea letters and circle them. Ask your child how many letters can the word has and how many sounds.
  • You can play this free online game:

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/resources/phase/2/dragons-den

Make sure you choose you choose the sounds we have worked on so far. For ee go to phase three.

– Please continue to read stories to your child at home.

– Please continue to encourage your child to read at home.

Maths 

We have continued to work on gathering and analysing data. Last week we learned about pictograms and building on this knowledge we have learned about bar graphs: what is a bar graph, how to read and create a bar graph.

We have worked on number and number processes too: saying numbers forwards and backwards, addition and subtraction.

Ideas for learning at home: 

  • More information about bar graphs:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zqgrd2p/articles/z9kbp4j

  • For more challenge try this game: 

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

Look in the number bonds section and choose the right level for your child.

Other areas

Science

We have continued to learn about Space. This week we have learned about the Moon and its phases. We can now explain why the moon appears to have different shapes and positions in the sky at different times in a lunar month.

PE

We have worked on pre- rugby skills and team games.

FRENCH

We have learned the days of the week. We like this song: Le jeurs de la semaine.

We hope you have a lovely weekend!

Mrs McFarlane

Buckstone Primary School, P1 Koalas

P1 Koalas Reflective Friday 6.10.23

Staff..469

Hello everyone.

This is what we have been learning this week:

LITERACY

We have been revising the sounds m and r. We introduced the new sound e.

 In small groups we were thinking about words beginning with these sounds, playing games, and identifying the letters which make these sounds. Some of us were learning how to ‘build’ and ‘blend’ three letter words with the sounds we know.

This week our starting sentence for writing was – ‘I am changing my shoes to….’

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.

NUMERACY

In numeracy we have been developing our knowledge of forward and backward number words sequences starting at different numbers. We have been sequencing numerals and practising counting strategies.

THINGS TO DO AT HOME

This game helps with recognition of numerals to 15 and also practises counting skills.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/teddy-numbers

PE

We were learning to control a ball with our feet.

HWB

As part of our Building Resilience programme, we discussed life’s ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ and what we could do to make ourselves feel better if we were feeling a little sad. Suggestions included: stroking a pet, going for a walk, being with our family and cuddling a special toy.

FRENCH

We introduced the words for some colours :

Rouge- red

Noir- black

Blanc – white

Vert- green

Jaune- yellow

Bleu- blue

MEMORY BOXES

Thank you for sending in  the memory boxes with the items and objects that are meaningful to your child. The children have loved talking about them and the class have been a really good audience. We have two boxes left to open.

Some examples of learning taking place this week:

Have a lovely weekend.