Category: Primary 1 Blog

Greater Alligator

This week in maths we looked at

• ABCYA – https://www.abcya.com/games/comparing_number_values_jr
• Collection of games – https://www.mathbrix.com/skills/comparison
• BBC Bitesize – https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z8sfr82/articles/zvnxjsg

To see Miss Copeland’s Videos from last year’s lockdown on this subject, including how to make some non-standard unit scales at home, click the links below

• Weight Lesson 1 – How to make a balance scale
• Weight Lesson 2
• Greater Alligator 1
• Greater Alligator 2

Scottish Week

“It is the Scotland flag. It has an x on it” Emily
“It is the Saltire Cross” Corey
Christians believe that “Saint Andrew died on a x shaped cross” Clara
“Jesus died on the cross that looks like the English flag” Jack

Art

“We were were painting tartan” Corey
“We were painting straight lines” Mason
“We had lots of paintbrushes. The thick ones make the lines bigger” Mohtada
“We were making straight line patterns and the white is a square” Ethan

Scots Language

Last week we were challenged by Primary 4 to learn a poem where some of the words were in Scots. To help us, we had a visitor from Primary 7 teach us some Scots language. On Friday we invited our challengers back to our classroom so we could perform the poem to them. They rewarded us with a Scottish badge each!

Hear the recording of our poem performance below!

Food Technology

We worked together to prepare the tatties for our Burns Supper by washing, peeling, chopping and mashing the potatoes. We made sure to wash our hands at every stage as we know that germs can transfer from our hands, to our food, to our mouths.

Burns Party

After decorating our classroom with bunting and laying our placemats and plates, we served up the ‘tatties’ which P1 made, along with the vegetarian haggis and neeps. We enjoyed the song Auld Lang Syne then tried the traditional food. Finally we put our dancing shoes on for a ceilidh and of course some freestyle too!

Building Resilience – Keep Connected

Here is Mason’s fantastic wanted poster that he made for Ms Finlayson’s home learning task. Mason said that he would want a friend who is strong, patient, kind and happy. Excellent work! ⭐⭐⭐

This week is Languages Week Scotland.

We will be learning about the words unique, similar and different, as well as diversity.

We will be celebrating the diversity of our class, as well as the Lunar New Year.
We will have classroom visits from the following adults:

• Ms Speedie – Our school’s Language Lead
• Mrs Ho (Teacher) and Ms Yang (parent)
• Mrs Henry – Head Teacher

If you would like to share any poems, songs, instruments or dances from your home culture, we would love to hear from you!

Welcome to Scottish Week!

Thank you to Primary 4 for our challenge to learn and perform our poem in Scots. We are so excited to video this.

PANTS

Through the Scottish RSHP programme we learn the medical names for the body parts including penis and vulva. This is important so we all have same vocabulary at school for when things are hurting or if they need to share something with us. We also learn the NSPCC’s PANTS rule. Through discussing this, we aim to teach our pupils the following important:

1. Safety skills without giving explicit information or telling scary stories.
2. How to stay safe from sexual abuse.

PANTS stands for:
• Privates are private.
• Always remember your body belongs to you.
• No means no.
• Talk about secrets that upset you.
• Speak up, someone can help.
The lessons will introduce a range of ideas, all delivered in a way that’s fully age appropriate. These include:

“Pantasaurus says, Pants make you strong”
“Pants cover up your private parts”
“You should say No if someone asks to see it”
“Pants cover up your vulva”
“Pants cover up your penis”
“If someone says to keep it a secret, say no and go and tell someone you trust”
“You can go in a private place so nobody sees your private parts if you need a wee”
“We close the door when we go to the toilet”
“Someone might need to ask to see it if it is hurting but they have to ask”

• Naming parts of the body
• Who your child can turn to if they ever feel upset or worried
• “appropriate” and “inappropriate” touching
• Your child’s right to say no to things that make them feel upset or uncomfortable

If you would like to know more about the NSPCC’s campaign, more information can be found at nspcc.org.uk/pants. If you have any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Keep Connected

We are learning that by Keeping Connected we can develop our resilience.

Below is the whole school homework sheet. If you would like a printed copy, please email admin, subject – ‘For Miss Copeland’ then ‘Please can I have a printed copy of the resilience homework’.
3 house points will be given to those who complete this and their work will be included in Ms Finlayson’s sharing assembly.

First we shared ideas on how to make a friend

“If you want to make a friend say hello” Mason
“If you want to have a friend you look at them and ask ‘do you want to be my friend'” Jack
“If they don’t speak your language, play with them” Mason
“Or say Ola!” Morgan
“If they want to be your friend, maybe you could make them a cake” Safia
“Or give them a thumbs up” Corey
“Smiling at someone will make them happy” Mohtada

Then we made cards for our P6 buddies to thank them for being in our ‘Back Up Team’

“We wrote messages for our P6 buddies” Corey
“Our P6 buddies are in our back up team” Mason
“I took the cards to the P6s” Alfie

… and they made cards for us too!!

Numeracy

“We were counting the bears and we were writing the plus and equals sign” Corey
“We had to count how many we had then write how many we had altogether” Jack

This week we looked at adding/ counting on with Mrs Brunner. Below are some fun games you can play at home!

• Counting to 10

• Robot more or less
• Robot addition
• Addition to 10
• Counting on

Measurement

This week we looked at sorting from shortest to tallest, measuring with non-standard units, using and measuring with a ruler and introduced weight language such as heavier, lighter, equal, the same.

• Measuring in cm game
• Heavy or Light game

“When one side is heavy the other side goes up. If one side is too big it goes down” David
“You can put the same amount in both sides and it will be the same or you can call it equals” Morgan
“One side is heavier and the other side is lighter” Ethan

Gymnastics

This week we added balancing to our list of gymnastics skills. We used our creativity to balance on 1,2,3,4 and 5 body parts. We then used these balances and tried to do them on the benches along with our travelling and jumping.

“We were balancing” Mohtada
“We were making sure we never fell” Corey

Delivery!

Primary 4 came and delivered us this lovely letter. They have set us a challenge for Scottish Week to learn and perform this fun poem! We can’t wait to get started!

Enter your email below to subscribe to the P1 blog

RSHP

Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood is a national programme in Scotland. In Primary 1 we cover the Early Level learning experiences. Some things are taught during ‘teachable moments’ and others are taught in specific lessons. Please come and talk to staff or email the school if there is anything in the programme which you would like to discuss further.

Information for parents and carers about learning at home:
– Learning at home (English)
– Learning at home (Arabic)
– Learning at home (Mandarin)
– Learning at home (Polish)
– Learning at home (Romanian)
– Learning at home (Urdu)
– Learning at home (Gaelic)

Gymnastics

There are 4 skills in gymnastics; Balancing, Travelling, Jumping and rolling.
This week we learnt one of the most important parts of these lessons – how to be safe. A ‘spotter‘ is someone who checks the equipment is safe and supervises the person on the equipment.

Below you can see the spotters doing brilliantly, watching their partner ready with their ‘catching hands’!

We do gymnastics on Monday afternoons and P.E games with Mr Madine on Thursday mornings. As we are not yet getting changed at school, we would advise wearing school clothes that you would be happy hanging upside down in!

Phonics

Last week we learnt the letter sounds y and q/qu.
To watch the qu song, click here
To watch the y song, click here

Try writing some of these words – quit, quilt, quack, yak, yum, yes, yet, yo-yo
Remember to sound out and then blend the word.

Hearing the middle sounds is very tricky

Try playing this game at home – Balloon Phonics – CVC spelling game

Numeracy

This week we have been ordering and sequencing numbers. P1 did brilliantly using a variety of different equipment and now are focussing our attention to written number work, making sure that our numbers are formed correctly.

It is not unusual for children to reverse numbers. Numbers in the ‘teens’ – 19, 18, 17 are very commonly reversed as when they are said, the units number is said first and then ten comes after e.g. ‘nineteen’ becomes 91, ‘eighteen’ becomes 81. This should pass with practise

Homework

Education City

New tasks are posted every Monday. There is no final ‘deadline’ for each task, however we would expect at least 1 activity to be completed weekly.

Reading Folders

Reading folders go home on Thursdays.
You will see that there is now a worksheet in the reading bag that matches the book.
Please complete this and return it along with the book each Monday.
If you have any difficulties with this, please write a note in the pink reading record but still return the folder on Monday. Delaying the return of the book makes it difficult for the staff to rotate the books between groups. We appreciate your support this.

Talking homework

Ask a grown up…
When you were little, what did you want to achieve when you grew up?
Did you want to have a particular job?
Did you want to create something?
Did you want to travel somewhere?
Did you do it?

Share what you would like to achieve!

Here’s a story written by Tim Minchin

or try listening to it as a song, which he wrote for the musical of the book, Matilda.

Blog Feedback

Thank you to those who have replied to the previous post asking for feedback on this blog. It is so helpful to hear what you, our family and friends, would like to see in order to strengthen our community!

This week’s learning

Feedback

This blog is a way for your child and staff to share achievements and messages with you. You are also able to comment on each post. We would really appreciate if you could take some time to fill in the form below so we can make the blog the best it can be.

Subscribe to our class blog