Primary 1 Yester Primary School 2014/2015 

I am sure the children have told you that we have an elf in Primary1 – The Elf on the Shelf!

He sits on our Advent calendar and sometimes leaves us letters.

He asked us to make some advent calendars, which we did. We colour a picture in every day to help us count down to Christmas.
Advent Calendars on PhotoPeach

We have also made some Santa counting games and have enjoyed Christmassy activities in Learning Areas….

But the biggest excitement was the mess in the classroom this morning! Today’s letter said that Santa had come to take the elf back to the North Pole because there had been a CATASTROPHE! We had lots of discussions around what the catastrophe might be!

When we looked at the sand tray, there was white powder everywhere. There were also big footprints (Santa’s we thought.)

Mrs Jamieson had to clear it all up. When we came into the classroom after lunch, the Elf had turned the powder into magic snow – it doesn’t feel cold and it never melts! Amazing and VERY exciting!

Do you know what a tod is? Or a puddock, a brock or a hoolet?

Primary 1 do – they are Scottish words for a fox, frog, badger and owl!

We have been learning about Scotland and St Andrew this week, and we made “Wee Books O’ Scottish Creatures.”

We watched “The Gruffalo” which has been translated into Scots to help us.

This week, we have been learning about St Andrew and how St Andrew’s Day is celebrated in Scotland.

We watched this clip from CBeebies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/lets-celebrate-standrews2

We used this website to weave some tartan. Please have a go at home – it’s great fun! (The children will need a grown-up to help set it up though.)
http://houseoftartan.co.uk/interactive/weaver/index.html

We designed our own tartan kilts….with sporrans!
Tartan Kilts on PhotoPeach

And a big “Thank You” to all the ladies in the dinner hall who made us some delicious haggis, neeps and tatties for lunch!

Today, we have been thinking about birthdays and how people change.
We glued pictures onto a chart to show what we eat, what we can do and what we like to play with changes at different ages in our lives.

For homework, can you ask 3 grown ups some questions about what they like to eat, what they do and their hobbies?

Complete the sheet that is in schoolbags and return to school!

“Remember, remember the 5th of November….”

Primary 1 certainly did that today!

We ordered numbers in firework dot-to-dot puzzles…….we wrote some fireworks poems……and we made these AMAZING fireworks pictures!

 Fireworks Pictures on PhotoPeach

We dipped chalk into a mixture of warm water and sugar. That made the chalk shiny and sparkly.
Next, Lesley helped us to drip glue and put gold glitter on our pictures.
Mrs Jamieson put them on the wall and hung our homework fireworks in front of our pictures.
They look fantastic!

The children were given a “Celebrations” puzzle to solve today – Why do people “Remember, remember the 5th of November?”
They listened to the story about Guy Fawkes and found out why we have bonfires and fireworks on the 5th November every year.

Mrs Saddler was the teacher today because Mrs Jamieson had some development work to do with Mrs Munro!
The children listened to a story about a little girl called Danielle, who got hurt by a sparkler (see whole class reading jotter.) They dicussed safety rules and made posters to tell people how to keep safe around sparklers.
Sparkler Safety on PhotoPeach
This is a very important lesson for the children. It would be great if you could find time to discuss these safety rules with your child and follow them over bonfire night.

Apologies for the lateness of the following few posts…….
Parent Council very kindly gave each class some money to spend on Golden Time Activities. To say “Well done!” for completing all the Autumn Challenges, Mrs Jamieson bought some woodland owl kits. We had great fun following the instructions and putting them together.
Thank you Parent Council!
Golden Time Owls on PhotoPeach

Our final Autumn Challenge was to go and gather signs of Autumn and make a picture with the things we had gathered.

We took some bags down to the woods and gathered leaves, berries, cones and nuts. Back in the classroom, we sorted our bags and made pictures using the things we gathered.

 Autumn Art on PhotoPeach

We opened our second Autumn Challenge envelope today. Dinosaur Dan has asked us to make a non-fiction book about a hibernating animal. He also left us a short film to watch to help us.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/the-changing-seasons-hedgehogs/10448.html

 We are very busy writing our non-fiction books – hopefully Mums and Dads will get to see the on Parents’ Night. We are going to read them to our P7 Buddies on Friday too.

 This afternoon, we made model hedgehogs using playdough, pasta shapes, googly eyes tissue and paper plates. We are going to use the photos of them for the front cover of our books.

Hedgehogs on PhotoPeach