Assembly - Setting Goals

Today the whole school gathered together for our Friday morning assembly.  The theme of our assembly today was 'Goals'.  The children were invited to think of what they might want to achieve and the responses were wide and varied from 'receiving the Head Teacher Award at least once this year' to 'improving the world for all people'!

The children are beginning to set targets for themselves in class. This year we are trialling the use of scrapbooks for the children's personal learning profiles instead of the folders.  We are hoping that this will make the profiles more individual to each child giving them more ownership and pride in their work. We hope to send these scrapbooks home regularly so that parents can share their children's learning and have the opportunity to add to the profiles with comments, encouragement and praise. Children should also add achievements they have had outside school so that they can share their wider successes.

Parents' Information Evening

Tomorrow evening in school we are having a Parents' Information Evening (PIE). The aim of the evening is to share information about our new Heinemann Active Maths resource and to allow parents the opportunity to see and try out some activities in the classrooms and to also take part in a co-operative Maths lesson together in the hall.

We had very positive feedback from our last information evening and we hope that parents will find the evening informative and worthwhile.

Maths in Primary 2

Maths

In Primary 2 today we practised our number bonds to 10 and to 20 by playing a co-operative game in partners.  We formed an inside and outside circle.  Each person had a card with a number up to 20 on it.  The inside circle turned round to meet their partner and showed them their number.  The outside partner had to read the number.  The inside person then had to ask, 'How many more do I need to make 10 or 20?'  After the outside person had answered they swapped round and the outside person showed their number and asked, 'How many more...'  Whilst doing this activity the children supported and praised each other.  When both partners had completed their questioning the outside children moved one place to the right to meet their new partner and repeat the process again.  The children really enjoyed this activity and all children were engaged and active in the task.  I as the teacher could monitor  the children's responses and give support where needed.                              

Feast of St Cuthbert

Today was the Feast of St Cuthbert, the patron saint of our school and the parish.  The whole school celebrated Mass along the road at the church.  It was a beautiful Mass with the children and members of our church community.

Primary 6 pupils performed a lovely drama about the life of St Cuthbert and all the children joined in beautifully singing the hymns, beginning with our own hymn to St Cuthbert.

Here is a very rough recording of our hymn.  Hopefully I will get a recording of the children singing it posted soon.

https://soundcloud.com/lorri-2

Book Creator App

I was very excited at the weekend by a new App that had been recommended to me for using with children when teaching creative writing.  It is called Book Creator.  I spent a fun few hours trying it out myself and my own boys quickly became interested and wrote their own books!!

Once you have created your book it then saves in your iBook library and looks like any other published book.  You can also send it to your friends to read.

It was very simple to use and included all the usual text features that you would have on any word document.  You simply add pictures, text, sound and even video clips and see your creative ideas turned into a book in minutes.  Wonderful.

I can't wait to try this out with a class.

Read more about this app by clicking the link below.

Book Creator