Good afternoon everyone.
I cannot believe that we are more than half way through our first term. It has been lovely welcoming the Primary 1s in to school and seeing all the Primary 2s again, after such a long time. Everyone has settled in and all our classroom routines are now established to help keep everyone safe and well.
Please practise handwashing at home, encouraging your child to wet their hands thoroughly, add soap and then wash their palms, fingers, thumbs, nails, in between fingers and backs of hands. They should do this for 20 seconds. It is also important that they dry their hands thoroughly.
My Primary 1s have been learning their Jolly Phonics sounds. We are covering 4 sounds a week and they will be sent home on a Friday for you to work on with your child. Please do not return anything to school just now. Go over the little story that comes with each sound, have fun doing the actions, find the sound in each of the words on the sheet and practise writing the letters in your child’s red jotter. Can your child hear the sound in a word? Eg s sausage, n nasty noise. Please practise these sounds for a short time every day, as we want the children to have automatic recognition of each of these letters and sounds. When they are able to recognise each letter by sight the next step will be to blend the sounds together to make words. Eg s – a – t sat.
In number we have been working on the formation of the numbers 1-10. We have been counting groups of objects and learning about I more and I less. We have been thinking about how numbers can be represented in different ways using pictures, tally marks, fingers, dots on a dice, Numicon etc.
Primary 2s have now all been issued with reading books. They will bring home a book on a Friday, which has been prepared in school. It is really important that these are read over the weekend and returned to school on a Monday, as they have to be quarantined before using with other groups. Please keep working on your child’s word walls, which have the sight vocabulary that your child should know on them. These are important and will help your child become a fluent reader. Encourage your child to read at home every day, using their own books and try to spot the words that they have on their word walls as you read. The Primary 2s are continuing to work through Phases 3,4 and 5 of Letters and Sounds.
In Numeracy the Primary 2s have been working on the numbers to 100. We have been practising writing two-digit numbers and understanding how many tens and ones these numbers have. We have also been looking at different ways to represent these bigger numbers using concrete materials, pictures, number words, tens and ones etc. We are also going to be learning about the pattern of numbers, using a 100 square to help us.
We have been revising all the number bonds to 10. Again, these are very important and will help as we work with bigger numbers, to solve addition and subtraction sums/problems. Keep practising these at home too, using your child’s 10 fingers to help you.
Health and Wellbeing
We have been learning about different emotions and how we can tell how someone is feeling by looking at their facial expressions.
The children have been getting to know all the names of the different staff members who are here to help them at Markinch Primary School, as well as learning about Stranger Danger.
We have also created our class charter and established rules and routines for Primary1/2, that will help keep us all safe, happy and learning in our classroom.
I look forward to working with all of your children this year. Please do not hesitate to contact the school if you have any worries or concerns.
Thank you for your continued support.
Mrs Dowie