Reading

We have now started reading in P1. Please see letters that were sent home yesterday (Monday) regarding this.

Phonics

We are having a consolidation this week so no new sounds will be added to books. We will beginning group 3 of sounds next week.

Numeracy

A new homework guidance sheet and tick/comment sheet have been sent home. This is similar to last term.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.

So here we are…the first week into our second term of Primary one.

It was lovely to welcome the children back on Monday and hear some of the things they had got up to during the holidays. 😊

We got straight back into the swing of things and have had a really busy first week! I am delighted with how quickly the children got back into our school routine and the engagement and enthusiasm for their learning.

We have been introduced to another two new sounds which takes us to the end of group 2. This week’s new sounds were m and d.

Here we are doing some sensory activities and practising the formation of the sounds. We especially like writing on the smartboard!

We did some ‘m’ art on Tuesday and made some moon pictures. We used tin foil and silver paint to create textured moons and then added some cut out stars to our moon night skies. We also discussed what the moon looks like and came up with some excellent describing words.

As that completes group 2 of the sounds we will have a consolidation week next week so no new sounds will be introduced.

Our increased knowledge of sounds is helping us with blending to read some words.

We played a familiar game ‘with a twist’ to help us with blending to read cvc words. 😀 This was lots of fun!

On Wednesday P1/2 joined us for gym. We warmed up with a game of dishes and domes. There was 50 children all playing one game so we had to really focus so we didn’t run into anyone!

We then a played to game to help develop our ball control, coordination and communication skills.

On Thursday morning during soft start we had a selection of activities with a spooky twist! Sticky and slimy sensory play, finger gym (with extra long fingers), a numicon web and skeleton chalk drawings!

In the afternoon the P7s had arranged a spooktacular selection of STEM activities for us. Exploding pumpkins and growing monster heads using chemical reactions and bone bridge designing. We also enjoyed some bobbing for apples, colouring our own pumpkins and getting our faces painted!

Thank you to the wonderful P7s and Miss Burnside for a great afternoon!

We started today with a Numeracy soft start. The children engaged in a range of activities including subitizing games, making number stories with materials and writing and sequencing numbers.

We then had an opportunity share our phonics homework with our friends and test each other on all the sounds we’ve learnt so far.

We also had a go at making up our own stories using creative story writing boxes. Each box has a number of different objects in it and we had to use these with a partner to create our own stories. We will revisit this and have a go at writing stories independently.

At Assembly today Mr Callander and Mr Mackenzie were talking about values. They explained a number of values to us by acting them out. Afterwards we discussed these in class and chose which ones we feel are the most important. Our results will be put together with those that were chosen by all the other classes to help pick our final Drakies School values.

This afternoon we were learning how to ask “how are you?” and give answers in French. We are learning a song to help us with this! The children are already answering the register and saying “goodbye” to me daily in French! A great start. 👍😊🇫🇷

Phew…..what a busy week! Keep up the great work everyone. 😀

A new term, and a new 🌟Star🌟!

Well done Isla for your fantastic phonics learning. Keep up the excellent effort! 😊👍

Well done Ethan! This week’s 🌟STAR🌟 for excellent effort and great progress with phonics. Keep up the fantastic work Ethan 👍😀

Wow, here we are at the end of term 1 of P1 already!! How time flies when you’re having fun! 😊

The children have all settled into Drakies school life incredibly well and are becoming more and more independent each day, growing in confidence and showing excellent progress with their learning.

This last week has been tiring for us all but the children kept going right to the end, bringing smiles and laughter with them each day. 😀

Phonics

Our new sounds this week were h and r. We enjoyed doing lots of hopping around the classroom.

We found lots of h words in our story picture and then practised the formation.

We especially like writing the sound of each other’s backs!

The sound r got us talking about rainbows and on Friday we talked about the different colours of the rainbow and made some of our own. I can’t wait to put these up on display, they will certainly brighten up our classroom.

Then, after all our talk about rainbows we spotted one on our way to Assembly!

We then read the book ‘The Rainbow Fish’ and after lunch we were amazed to receive a surprise letter from the Rainbow fish asking for our help. 😊🌈🐠

We enjoyed colouring in some rainbow fish and each one got a special shiny scale. The children took these home and some might like to finish them off over the holidays.

Numeracy

We have been doing lots of practising to recognise, order and sequence numbers this week. We had a little help from the ‘more than monkey’ to identify numbers after/one more than. We enjoyed using number fans to practise this.

Chromebooks

In our Chromebook buddy session this week we were looking at our new online reading scheme, Bug Club. The children logged in to their personal accounts and looked at a book before exploring the site with their buddies.

We will start to look at these books next term. The children will be assigned reading books and after reading them in class they will be able to access them online to read at home. More information will be given out about this at the start of term. 📚

Soft Start

Some of the soft start activities this week included construction and loose parts. The children were delighted with their creations.

Show and Tell

This week we heard all about some favourite toys and teddies. We are trying really hard to think of different questions to ask.

We also enjoyed hearing about more adventures with the Everywhere Bear from Calvin.

A big WELL DONE to everyone for a fantastic first term. 👍😀👏

I hope you all have a fun, happy and healthy holiday and look forward to seeing you all in two weeks. 😊

One of the new sounds we have been learning this week is C. So what better time to harvest the rainbow carrot garden in our school grounds. On Monday we all helped to pick the carrots, they were all different colours, shapes and sizes.

Our next job was to wash the carrots as they were very dirty. We talked about how this was different to how we usually see them in the supermarket. The boys and girls helped Mrs Douglas to wash and peel the carrots.

We discussed what we should do with all the carrots and had a think about all the different things we could make with them. Juice, smoothies, cake, stew, soup and ice cream were all mentioned!! We then decided we wanted to make mini carrot cakes (two C words!). 😋

On Friday morning we got busy baking. We talked about the importance of washing our hands before starting to keep germs away, the different ingredients we needed to bake the carrot cakes, the things we would need an adult to help us with and that we need to follow the recipe instructions and not just guess how much of each ingredient to use! The children came up with excellent suggestions. It was time to get started….

First of all we weighed the ingredients and mixed them all together. The adults helped us grate the carrots (we needed lots and lots!)

The mixture was ready. Some children thought it smelt like Christmas, some thought it looked yummy and some disagreed! It was now time to put the mixture into cases and they would be ready for the oven.

We put the cakes in the oven and set a timer so we knew when they would be ready.

Whilst the cakes were cooking we made the icing and cleaned up all the mess!

After lunch the cakes were ready! Some of the children chose to put icing on their cakes and some wanted theirs without.

And finally….time to taste them!

We were very proud of our cakes! Not everyone liked them but the children gave them a try even if they didn’t think they’d like them. Some children loved them and some took one to share with someone at home!

What little Superstar bakers! 🥕🍰😋🌟 Well done everyone! 👏👏👍

We had some carrots left over and enjoyed eating these raw, they were sweet and crunchy! Yum!

In P1 this week our 🌟 is Oliver! Well done Oliver for excellent teamwork during our outdoor learning session and baking activity this week. What super team skills 😀

We started having a think about animal habitats at the start of the week after reading The Gruffalo’s Child and yesterday we were lucky to have a visit from the ladies from Aigas Field Centre to do some outdoor learning about animal hibernation and camouflage.

We started with a game where we had to act out animals that hibernate in the winter. We were interested to find out this included animals such as snakes, hedgehogs and butterflies.

We then talked about the places some animals like to live and worked in teams to make hedgehog homes. These had to be sheltered and warm for our Drakies hedgehogs to keep cosy in, so we needed to think carefully about where we would build the homes and what we would use. The children worked very well in their groups and made some super cosy looking homes out of leaves, sticks, grass and stones.

After this we talked about animal camouflage. We then played a game where we were shown a picture of an animal and had to think about camouflage to choose its habitat.

To finish off we went on a ‘pebble animal’ search – some of these were bright colours and easy to find whereas some were camouflaged and not so easy to spot!

Thank you to the ladies from Aigas for a fun and active afternoon!

Another fun packed week in P1 with lots of exciting learning going on including two school outings!

Numeracy

We have been working hard at number ID this week, practising to read, write and order numbers. We played a team game outdoors, where we had to find the number card as quickly as possible, to improve number recognition.

We then had to find the number using Numicon.

Phonics

This week we have been doing lots of consolidation activities for our first group of sounds; s, a, t, i, p, n. Some of us were also having a go at blending sounds together to build words.

Chromebook buddies

On Thursday we had a great time making animations on Chromebooks with our buddies.

Some of us made our own animations of The Gruffalo – they were fantastic!

Topic

We demonstrated excellent teamwork working with P1/2 to make giant characters for our Gruffalo and Gruffalo’s Child display. We really had to think about character description and used a selection of paint, paper and fabrics to create the characters in groups. There was lots of creativity going on during this task and I can’t wait to see the finished display!

Soft Start

This week we have been experimenting with mark making using paint, exploring patterns and building with different materials.

Sponsored Walk

Everyone took part in the school sponsored walk on Thursday afternoon. The children all put in lots of effort and the sun even came out for us! We also enjoyed some and a cake at the finish!

Harvest Assembly

Another outing on Friday, this time to Inshes Church for our Harvest Assembly. The children walked sensibly round to the church and were excellent listeners during the service. We enjoyed singing the Harvest Samba and a little bit of chocolate and juice at the end too!

Show and Tell

Another fantastic show and tell from the children this week. We heard all about a super running achievement, the smallest camera I’ve ever seen, amazing Lego models and a favourite game. Well done to those speaking this week and to a fantastic audience.

On Friday afternoon we loved reading Julia Donaldson’s new book and enjoyed some yummy birthday cake brought in by the birthday girl!

And to finish off we did a little bit of yoga to improve coordination, flexibility, balance, concentration and promote healthy bodies and minds. 😀