I'm very proud of you all Primary 1's! Thank you for working so hard on your Nativity, I hope your families had fun watching you. 

Nativity

We had a real audience today to practice our Nativity - thank you very much! We are now ready for our performance tomorrow at the Stromness Primary School Christmas Service.  It will start at 2pm in the Church and we should be finished around 3.15 in time to get the children back to school to be collected.

I would like to thank families for all there hard work in helping children learn their lines, it has really helped us.

Tonight a consent letter was put home so that I can take the class to the Town Hall for a 'cinema experience' on Thursday morning (This was their present from Santa) - some children have a lot of pictures etc in their bags so I wanted to highlight to you that it was in there.

Here is a little pic with some of P1 in their costumes waiting to perform.

Tomorrow's Nativity practise

We will be having a practise of the Nativity in the school hall tomorrow after break - not in the church as originally thought.  I had no time for making a letter today but didn't want families to miss out on catching a sneaky peek if they wanted - so if you would like to come and be our audience we will be ready in the hall at 11.30.  It runs for about 20 minutes so we won't keep you long.

On Wednesday the school will be performing in the church at 2pm.  Primary children will be collected from the school gate as normal on this day.

Our secret trip:  Santa gave primary 1 their present today, we will be turning the town hall into a little cinema on Thursday morning so we can watch a Christmas movie.  We will have snacks and drinks too and are very much looking forward to it.

Busy day!

Today was a packed day culminating in our Christmas party.  The kids were brilliant and used lovely manners to show how much they appreciated the hard work gone in to running it.
Here are some pictures of us having fun at the party.  We played games, danced, had some food and had a special visitor!

Next week - dates for diaries.

Next week will be very busy for primary 1.  On Monday afternoon we will have our Christmas party!  We will play games, dance, chat to our friends and have some yummy snacks.
On Tuesday we will go to the church in the afternoon (we hope) to do a dress rehearsal of our Nativity - When this is confirmed I will send a letter home for consent and to invite you for a sneaky peak.  However a lot of the time will be spent getting into the correct places because we haven't worked in the church before.
Wednesday we will be performing our Nativity to everyone from 2-3.15 in the church.
Thursday I have a little trip planned as a special surprise for primary 1 - again, this will be in a letter on Monday, it's still top secret!
I hope you all have a lovely weekend and can get the batteries charged up for next week.
Mrs Kirkpatrick

The new school.

Today we had a lovely visit to the new school.  We walked the safe route to school, used the zebra crossing, learned which gate to go through, saw some cool things in our playground, found out the way we come in to school, saw our new classroom, had a tour of the school and even saw some seals in the beach!  We are all very excited to get in now.
Here are some pictures of our trip today.

Visit to the new school!

Tomorrow I'm taking the class to see their new school! (Depending on the weather).  They will get to see the playground, the way they go in, their cloakroom, classroom and have a general tour of the building.  Could you please make sure that your child wears their yellow hi-vis vest tomorrow.

There will be a note tomorrow about the Christmas disco on Thursday night.  P1-3's disco is at 6-7pm and the P4-7's party is 7-8.30.  Talk to your child if it is their first disco and explain that it will be loud with flashing lights just so they are prepared.  I will be at the disco to help so they know they can come to me for any help.

Our classroom visitor

Yesterday our class had a mysterious visitor.  We came back to class after break to find a trail of glitter and jewels leading up to an open window.  Beside the window we found a silver and pink wand.  Who was in our classroom?
We became detectives and looked for clues.  Then we shared our ideas and drew pictures of what we thought had happened.
Today after break time we found the window open again with a little note tied with a shiny pink ribbon - It was from the Christmas fairy!
Mystery solved.  I wonder if she will come back for a visit.
Here are some pictures of us looking for the visitor and finding our clues.

Today's maths

Today we were learning about solid shapes.  We learned the words cube, cuboid, sphere and cone.  Then we had a challenge to match these shapes.  Here are some children sorting the solid shapes.

The Nativity - costume help

Today we did a run through of our Nativity, with all the songs.  The class have worked so hard, well done Primary 1!  I now have scripts for anyone with a speaking part.  Unfortunately it is still sitting on my desk - must remember to hand them out on Monday.
I have costumes for most children but wondered if you could help with ideas for a few.  I need to kit out 2 camels and 2 Roman guards  Does anyone have any costumes at home or good ideas?

2D shapes

We have been learning about 2D (flat) shapes this week.  Today we were using them to make models and pictures.  Some were very imaginative - have a look.

P1 Pudseys!

Well done to everyone who helped raise money for Children In Need!  P4/3 did a fantastic job of organising the day - the school raised £360! Here are the primary 1 Pudseys.

Special Visitor!

Today we were very lucky at Stromness Primary School, we had a special visitor.....PUDSEY!

Starting Jolly Phonics

Next Monday (19th November)  I will hold a parent's information meeting about Jolly Phonics.  I will be telling you what your children will be learning, what will be coming home and ideas for how you can help.  I will be making up a Jolly phonics pack for everyone so even if you can't make the evening, you will still get the information home, but if you're like me you might prefer to see what I'm talking about rather than reading about it.
If you have older children in the school you may already be familiar with how Jolly phonics helps children learn their letters and how to read and write words. 
We will meet in my p1 classroom at 6pm - I'm hoping to keep this to half an hour. 

Reading

Hi,
This is a little reminder about tonight.  On your newsletter I mentioned that we would have a rep from Oxford Reading Tree with us tonight.  She will be doing a short presentation (about half an hour) to parents about this new reading scheme, how it will be used and how you can support your child.
This will be in the P1 classroom at 6pm.  We aim to be finished by 6.30 because some people need to be at parent council for 6.30pm.

Happy Halloween!

During our work time today some children were interested in doing some science experiments.  We linked this to Halloween by calling it 'making potions'. 

Wear it pink!

A big thank you to all the efforts the primary 1 families have gone to.  We managed to raise £64! It was great to see everyone joining in with the spirit of the day.  We talked a lot about how we are helping others and linked this to how super heroes help people to, so obviously that sealed our 'super' status. 
We visited the other classes to give a fashion show of our outfits and super hero masks.  In class we made pink truffles and ate them together - here are some photos of us preparing them. 

I'd also like to say well done primary one! You have all worked really hard this term and I'm looking forward to seeing you again in a couple of weeks.  Enjoy your holidays - you have all earned a nice rest :)

Wednesday's language work.

The adventures of Sammy the slaetro!

During outside break today, Libby found a slaetro.  There was lots of interest in him and she showed some of the other children. 

Friday: Wear it pink!

You should have had a letter home tonight to remind you about this Friday's fun.  Nursery and Primary 1 are helping to raise money for Breast Cancer Campaign "Get your cash to the cure".  We are asking the children to wear something pink and bring £2 or any donation.  One of the slogans is 'anyone can be a superhero' so you could use this within your pink theme if you like.  In class we will be making and decorating our own super hero masks - so if your child does not have anything pink, we can provide them with a mask in class. 

Tuesday language work

Here are some of our language activities.  We have been talking and listening, writing, reading and making letters. 

Monday in class.

Here are some activities from today.  I have seen good team work, sharing, writing and we had fun in the hall too. 

Tuesday's learning

Here are some pictures of todays letter time; we were looking at the letter K. Earlier in the day we were sorting items by colour.  Some children wanted a BIG challenge - you can see how many things they had on the table. 

Monday's fun.

Here are some activities that have kept primary 1 busy today. 

successful learners

We have been working on how to be successful learners.  One aspect of this is "I am creative".  Children showed they could do this by making junk models, stories, pictures, Lego structures and one group made up a show for the class.  I have a clip of the class singing but I can't manage to upload it yet - I'll keep trying next week. 
Here are photos of some of our successful learners.

Rainbow fish assembly

Thank you primary 1 families and friends,
Our class were very excited to see so many people in the audience.  Here are few photos of our assembly. 

Assembly and Pick up.

Tomorrow is our assembly.  It is at 3pm, feel free to come and watch what we have been doing. 
Children's bags will be packed before assembly so afterward, feel free to take your child to get their coat and bag and take them home.  (Please let me know when you're taking your child).

Art and Technology in early years

Here is some fun we have been having today.
Children have been making their play more interesting by using junk materials.  Some boys were playing with cars and after a chat decided it would be better if they worked together to make garages.  This then turned into joining up to make a robot - I can't wait to see what they come up with tomorrow!

A team began to build a bridge to make their play with cars more interesting.  They had lots of problems to solve but did a good job. 

Here is what they have been covering in the curriculum:

• Through discovery, natural curiosity and imagination, I explore ways to construct models or solve problems.
• Throughout my learning, I explore and discover different ways of representing my ideas in imaginative ways.

Assembly.

Some children wanted talking parts in our assembly. We have been working on them in class but I meant to send them home tonight too but it slipped my mind! I'll make sure children have them on Monday so they can do extra practise at home. The assembly is this Thursday at 3pm. Families and friends are welcome to attend, hope to see you there.

Meet the primary 1 vice house captians.

Learning letters: reading and writing them.

Here is primary 1 doing our 'letters time'.

Primary 1 have been going crazy over numbers! Here is some of our hard work.

We are in the paper today so look out for our cheesy grins : D

We will soon be performing our assembly to the school and primary 1 families.  We will be singing the song from Toy Story 'You gotta friend in me'. 
To help children learn this song, I thought I would share it with you so they could listen to it at home too.
Here is a link to the song (I hope!).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHFy3YWpRx8

The assembly is Thursday 27th September at 3pm.  Friends and family are welcome to attend. 

Language work in primary 1

Look how busy primary 1 have been. This is us learning how to write letters. 

Monday 3rd September

Today is the first time our class will be at school for the whole day! We look forward to meeting you all again at 3.30 at the gate. 

The photographer for the Orcadian will be here at half 11, so keep an eye out for us in the paper. 

I would like to say a big thank you to all p1 families for filling in the dinner choices, labelling your children's clothes and keeping me up to date with the home/school book - it has been a big help.