Rannoch pupils spent another few sessions in the garden this week, managing to get more opportunities to improve skills, picking litter on the way to the garden, and clearly getting better and better at these skills – talk about ‘Sharpening the Saw! They continued to work as a team transporting new soil to the garden, tip up the soil from the barrow and spread the soil around in the designated areas. Taking a real interest in the development of the new garden fence, this week the boys took more of an interest in learning how to measure between posts using a measuring tape, identifying where to start, and where to finish. Some of the boys were able to work out ‘half way’ between posts and give an answer! They have learned that it is really important to use a measuring tape when working out how to do things with wood in a garden so as not to waste wood and also to make sure there is enough to finish the job! They also measured 120 metres around the playground using a trundle wheel (1m) so as they could do some ‘laps’ for P.E which will go toward the tally for the school wide ‘Mini Marathon’ total. They did some more ‘laps’ during their P.E time with Mrs McMaster, who is keeping a total of the whole school’s tally towards the mini marathon. on the field at the back of the school. It is lovely to see the development of skills within the class, very proud of the enthusiasm from all!
More fantastic weather through the past week brought out the bikes for some and scooters for others! Some great fun was had!
Mathematics learning this week involved many activities which included the interactive Smartboard, number lines, and learning how to count forward from zero, jumping forward in ones, showing this understanding on the board , and to work out the sums from that on a number line. The main aim of this activity was to improve accuracy for some of the pupils in the addition of single digit numbers counting in ‘ones’ forward up to 10, 20 and that ‘counting on’ always starts at the next number, not the number they are on, but also to re-enforce the need to use the numerous materials that are available to us when we need them. How excited they were to work on the board, and exercise patience for their turn. Well done boys! They also played Maths/ numeracy games re-enforcing the learning they have done this week, matching digits to words, to pictures, while others played a game adding 2 digit numbers mentally up to 100.
For others, Maths work this week, learning about HTU, with carrying was super good! They found the addition of HTU without carrying ‘easy’ and had been working on that prior to this week, so they moved onto ‘carrying’ not only the ‘ten’ but also the ‘hundreds’ – what fantastic work and ‘without’ materials in the end! Love to see the fingers being used for mental maths calculations! We are so proud of these little guys as well! Next week they move onto subtraction, but we will be returning to see if they can remember how to ‘carry’ very soon again, so don’t forget if you can boys!Notice the use of ‘fingers’ to help them with mental Maths!
The class were learning more about germs and how to keep themselves clean. Some of the class went on to do some ‘cloze’ reading skills and what a super good job they did!
This little laddie took it upon himself to ‘count in 5s’ drawing out this in his ‘doodle pad!’ We have been learning in morning group how to count in 5s! We are super proud of you – WOW! Well done! The other little laddie, in his ‘choose time’ no less, decided to do some addition sums using ‘carrying’ on the small mobile white board, which he made up himself – what a job… our class are encouraged to use their mental Maths strategies always, and also encouraged to use their fingers to help them count on! We love to see our boys use their fingers to count on and can be clearly seen on one of the whiteboard pictures below!
They also started a science experiment in relation to their project on germs, which involved the transfer of germs off our dirty hands, and transfer of germs off ‘clean hands’ after washing them thoroughly, which we will report our findings on next week.
Learning phonic skills on the Smartboard has been fun. The class love this way of learning. This week some of the boys have been revising the sound ‘p’ and handwriting the letter ‘p’ using the correct letter formation. Some of this phonic work was followed up on Education City on the computer.
There are times when an opportunity to visit the outdoor classroom is great for the sensory experience of playing with the sand. Two or three of our class love playing with sand.
