School Newsletter

November 2019

Head Teacher - Elaine Page School News Letter

Open Afternoon

We were delighted to welcome parents, grandparents and friends to our Open Afternoon last week. The pupils enjoyed sharing their learning in their classes and took the time to reflect on their Learning Journeys with their parents. We also had a Parent Workshop in the hall, sharing information about our new Health and Well Being programme, Emotion Works. If you were unable to attend, please look on our Website, where you will find lots of useful information about Emotion Works and how we are using this in school. We also asked for feedback during the afternoon and you can read this on page 3. We are always looking at ways to improve our events, so your feedback is very useful. Thank you to everyone who came along, we hope you enjoyed the afternoon.

P1 Bookbug

P2 and P3 Read Write Count

On Wednesday 20th November, as part of Book

Week Scotland, all our P1, P2 and P3 children

received a fantastic bag of books and resources.

We hope you are enjoying reading them at home

as much as we loved reading them in school. Each

class had their clear favourites and during our

gifting ceremony the children had the opportunity

to choose their favourite story or listen to a story

from one of the other bags. The teachers, PSAs and

Mrs Kirkpatrick chose their favourite story and we

had a Bookbug Bookathon!

Open Afternoon Feedback —November 2019

November 2019

Dunnottar Castle 207 Points Fyvie Castle 263Points Kildrummy Castle 232 Points Castle Fraser 204 Points Crathes Castle 247 Points

What did you enjoy about open

afternoon?

Being able to see new things that have

been done since Parents Evening in her

learning journey. Getting to see her

classroom and the things on the wall.

Is there anything we could do

differently?

No, very happy

What have you enjoyed about the Open Afternoon? Seesaw app; seeing what's happening in class & the activities

It's been good to see the learning journeys and also good to see the class situation in action.

Being able to see the children in their class and seeing the learning journeys

Learning about my child's strengths and weaknesses and what sort of things they do in class time.

I have enjoyed expereincing what goes in in class and what my children are learning

Spending time in the classroom and seeing my children's work.

seeing my son’s work and noting the improvements that he has made. we liked using the mandarin room to speak to my son

What learning did your child share with you? Seesaw app & posters about learning a new skill & Learning Journeys

Leaning Journey, chromebook work he was doing when I came to class.

The new challenge, maths emotion card on seesaw

They shared their learning journey folder and contents.

learning journal, mandarin and library time

My children shared their learning journeys with me, they also showed me their lovely

snowglobes.

His maths, literacy and his autobiography

Do you have any feedback about the SeeSaw App? Looks good, will try my codes when I get home!

Photo's are blurry so struggle to read what it says.

Great new way to share information

So far the app has been a success in showing what their strengths are in class.

the seesaw app is a great resource however find it difficult to make comments on work

No, I do not have any feedback because I have not yet used the Seesaw app.

What did you enjoy about open

afternoon?

I enjoyed seeing my child’s work

including the improvements she has

made and what she needs to improve on.

Is there anything we could do

differently?

No, it was excellent.

You said ….. We did …

Great workshop, would like a bit more

time to look around the classes. It was a

bit difficult to do both in the hour.

We understand that time can be limited if you want to visit the classes

and attend the workshop. Next time we will look at the timing of the

workshop and try to run this prior to the actual open event.

I’d like it if Parents had to join in the

class :-)

Parents are always welcome to join in with the learning during our Open

Afternoons. Next time we will try to provide more opportunities for

parents to become pupils!

We’d like a cup of tea and biscuits We will speak to the Parent council and see if this is something they can

help us with.

Primary 5

Writing In writing we have been doing Cinquain poems and Limerick poems. Our classmates enjoyed making up the poems. The Cinquain poems don’t have to rhyme and limerick poems have to rhyme.

Maths In maths we have been doing partitioning and doubling and halving as strategies for addition and subtraction. We have also been learning about decimals in money. In decimals we were doing money problems with Miss McLoughlin our main strategy was Chimney sums.

Art In art we have been doing winter art, autumn art and colour wheels. We can identify primary colours and secondary colours. For our autumn art we used our hand as the stock of the tree and are fingers for the leaves of the tree.

P.E In P.E we have been doing Gymnastics with Mrs Haden. We have been doing Rolls, Jumps and Leaps and Volt. One of the rolls was a teddy bear roll. One of the jumps was a Straddle jump and one of the leaps was a Cat leap half turn.

Safety Week For safety we have been talking about asthma where we learned about what asthma is and what to do if someone is having an attack. We even made our own paper lungs! We have also been learning about online safety where we did some research about how to stay safe on the internet and made posters with our parents at the open afternoon. We have also been learning about defibrillators, what they are and how they are used.

Emotion Works We joined the P2/3 class and watched the new John Lewis advert. We then had to identify the different emotions felt by the character and what triggered his emotions.

By Max and Jack

Primary 7

This term Primary 7 have been creating an app to help the elderly, blind and deaf people. We had a lady called Pamela Cumming come in to our classroom to give us some inspiration. She told us how apps work and how they can be aimed at people. She asked us to tell her age ratings of certain apps and what we like about apps and why we like them. In class we talked about the benefits and dangers of apps, for example an app can steal your personal data but can also help you communicate with friends and family. We have also been creating an advert for internet safety. We watched an advert on a man who people thought was a mind reader. He knew people’s very private information but he actually got all of this information from bank transfers, facebook profiles, receipts and other information. That really showed us how simple it is to have someone get your information online! By Emma & Eryn

P4/5 have learned about the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. We learned that the growth mindset is where you never give up. The fixed mindset is when you give up easily.

In RME lessons we have learned about places of worship like mosque and a church and the key features of them. For example a mosque is a place of worship for islam people others a like.

In ICT lessons we have learned about the parts of a computer and how they work. The most interesting part was glueing the different parts of a computer together, into our context jotters! We have really enjoyed this term so far we hope for more fun at Danestone Primary. By Mason & Jonathan

Primary 4/5

Primary 2 have had a busy November so far with the stories of The Owl Babies and The Gingerbread Man for Our Talk for Writing, continuation of phonic and spelling activities, learning to round in numeracy and Safety Week!!

Primary 2 have been learning about estimating and rounding numbers to the nearest 10. They have been able to guess amounts on number lines and have demonstrated their knowledge ofthe rule of rounding – always remembering their rule of five. The class have been shape spotters taking part in 2D and 3D shape hunting

round the school.

The class have really enjoyed learning to use technology to record their work. They like taking pictures of their learning activities and recording their performances. They love using the new Seasaw app to share the work they are proud of and are developing the skills to use the app independently.

Primary 2 loved getting crafty and making their woodland wonderland boxes for the Owl Babies home. Woodlands of

all types were fashioned out of the old cereal boxes.

Primary 2 have learnt all about the importance impact of kindness and created lovely kindness circles. All of the children were able to give examples of where they had been kind or witnessed something kind and were able to pass kindness on.

Finally primary 2 engaged really well in our school focus safety week. They enjoyed learning about safety in various different places. They can tell you all about road safety, people who keep us safe and how to be safe at home.

Primary 2 are looking forward to getting into the Christmas spirit and have been practising festive songs for our Christmas concert. You are in for a real treat when you see our performance in a few weeks.

Primary 2

Literacy Writing In writing we have been doing instructional writing and persuasive writing. For our instructional writing we were thinking about engaging the reader to read on, imperative verbs and a clear layout. In persuasive writing we have been persuading people to get a pet. Here is an example - Pets are very hard work but they’re very worth it because they are cuddly friendly and loyal friends!!!! They are also very enjoyable! Reading In reading we have been controlling our own reading groups. We have been taking roles that we can do in our group eg leader, clarifier and predictor. Each of the groups have their own books. The Brown group- Matilda, Sapphire have been reading Quest for a Kelpie, Silver -Neighbourhood Witch and Lime have been reading a Mammoth Mistake. We really like to ask each other questions and give feedback to others about their reading targets.

Spelling In spelling we have been doing different activities like stamping letters to make our words and banana grams and scrabble apple letters. We really enjoy using practical resources to build our words. After lunch each day we also practice our words with our partners. Numeracy Turing, Pythagoras, Newton and Einstein Turing have been doing division and turning remainders

into decimal points. Pythagoras have been dividing by decimal points by 10s 100s and 1000s. Newton and Einstein have been doing dividing with remainders and place value. Also as a class we have been doing Number Talks with friendly numbers so we can be using different ways of finding the answer eg 25 + 24 = 49 P.E. In P.E. we have been doing gymnastics. We have done rolls and flips. Here are some examples- split jump, stag jump and rolls. Context for learning In context for learning we have been doing a special task! The Engineering Award. We have been researching about engineering and we have been thinking about questions to ask an engineer. With the feedback from the engineer we will find a problem and we will design a solution to the problem. We will need to write a persuasive letter to ask the manufacturer to make our design. Mandarin In Mandarin we have been doing tones vowels and times. We have also been doing what the difference between northern China and Southern China. Today we were learning about different fruits. We played a great game called SPLAT! By Lucy, Ava and Luke

Primary 6

We have been making up our own apps which will be entered into the Aberdeen University App Competition. We have 6 groups that are working to make their own App. We have created a logo, description, aim and have thought about our target audience.

The app our group(Keira and Ellie M) has designed is called Nature Watch. The purpose of this app is to help you identify any plant, insect or animal, just by using your camera phone! There is a camera on the app. You can take a picture of the thing you want to identify and then it will give you information about what the item is. We have been planning our Apps and we will present them in 2 minute videos.

In literacy we have been learning how to write a setting description. We described a variety of imagined doors using lots of sensory language.

Primary 6/7

Learning about 2D and 3D shapes

We have been learning about 2D and 3D shapes in class. They all had to make a robot from 2D and 3D recycled objects, bring it to class and have a talk about it. We were amazed by the results! All of the children could confidently (and some very enthusiastically) talk about what they used to make their robots and how they built it. Some of them even had names! Well done!

Primary 1 Robot Challenge

Primary 2/3 are in the midst of festive madness and have so many exciting lessons going on. We have started learning our Christmas songs and have been busy elves creating some Christmas goodies this week! We have also managed to squeeze in lots of new learning.

Health and Wellbeing

We have loved learning about emotions through Health and Wellbeing lessons and we are developing a sense of how our actions and the actions of others can affect our emotions. This is

helping us to resolve disagreements with friends and learn to manage our emotions in a healthy way. Recently, we used the new John Lewis advert starring Edgar the dragon to discuss feelings such as embarrassment and excitedness and the

Literacy

Primary 5 have been coming to visit us on a Friday afternoon to read with us and we have been so enthusiastic in sharing our stories with them. They have been so brilliant at helping us to read and we hope that they continue reading with us! We have been working on our comprehension skills with them and doing lots of paired reading tasks.

As part of our short Owl Babies topic, we conducted a manhunt searching for the Owl Babies mother who goes missing in the story! We recorded each other talking about the missing person and our police officers questioned some suspects! We followed this up by writing notes from the Owl Babies mother and did some story sequencing.

Safety Week

Safety week was short but we covered a lot of important things. We completed a series of lessons on internet safety, fire safety, road safety and stranger danger. We learned a stop, look, listen and live song and made up our own actions. We also created our own finger puppets to help us make a story based on crossing the road

The next few weeks will no doubt fly past but we are very excited to get stuck into the Christmas fun! Please follow us on Twitter to keep up to date with our latest news! @c_mcinally

Primary 2/3

Literacy

This term we have introduced the Talk for Writing framework by Pie Corbett. The framework focuses on the teaching of a story through actions with a view to the children being able to eventually retell and then rewrite the story in their own words. It has been a huge success as the framework is based on the principles of how children learn. The children’s confidence in their own ability has grown tremendously since the onset of teaching and it inspiring to see children creating beautiful pieces of writing which they are so proud of. The children have also very much enjoyed engaging in memorable activities associated with the stories they have been learning. We created wonderful collage owls, biodegradable bird feeders, nests as well as boats for the Gingerbread man to cross the river safely. We have also been learning how to create a character which would entertain a reader. The children were given the task to write a detailed description of a monster which lived under their bed. The children also created fantastic models of their characters. This week Mrs Page visited our class and the children very much enjoyed the opportunity to share their wonderful monsters.

We have been very busy this term learning about how to add and subtract mentally using different strategies. Although some of the children have found it challenging to grasp a new strategy each week it has been wonderful to see them gaining resilience and developing a positive attitude when attempting to tackle a tricky maths problem. The children have also enjoyed the opportunity to have a new talking partner each week and are gaining confidence in being able to explain their thinking process when trying to calculate an answer. Mrs Kerr has also continued her teaching of time and it has been wonderful to see so many children making attempts to wear their own watch as well as refer to the classroom clock and make an attempt to tell the time during certain points of the day. It is safe to say we are always on time for key events during our daily learning due to so many children engaging in the learning! The children have also been learning about their daily and weekly routine whilst identifying specific times for certain activities. They created wonderful times tables of their day and week which were very detailed. Well done P3/4!

Health and Wellbeing

Our class topic this term has focused on enterprising and engaging. During our drama lessons we have explored certain traditional tales such as Cinderella and Jack and the Bean Stalk. The children have thrived during opportunities to showcase their small performances and been praised for their ability to realistically and confidentially perform certain scenes and read small scripts. During the whole school Safety Week the children engaged in a series of lessons about personal safety. We especially enjoyed learning about how to keep safe around medicines and the steps to follow during an emergency. It was wonderful to see how sensible and responsible the children were when asked to describe how to react in certain tricky situations. Well done P3/4 you should all be so proud of your achievements and progress term!

PRIMARY 3/4 Primary 1

We have been busy in P1 this term! Here is just a snapshot of what we have been doing. Thank you to everyone that managed to come to our Open Afternoon!

Owl Babies Activities through Literacy

We have been reading the ‘Owl Babies’ story in class. The children learned the story by using a story map and we made our own owls by using paper plates. We then decided to make our very own bird feeders to help the birds around school to find food in the cold weather.

Primary 1

Bookbug Week

The children enjoyed reading and doing different activities with the books they received in their bookbug bags. We voted which one we liked the best and the winner was, ‘The Prince and the witch and the thief and the bears’. We had a ‘readathon’ in the hall with the P2’s and P3's where the children could listen to other stories as well. It was a great success and lots of fun. Well done staff and pupils!

Teddy Bear Clinic

We had a visit from the Medical Student Volunteer Group from Aberdeen University this term. They came to class to present us with a ‘Teddy Bear Clinic’. The idea behind the visit is to help children with anxiety or being scared if they have to go to the GP or for a visit to the hospital. They show the children different kinds of equipment they might see and also tell them what kind of questions the doctor or nurse might ask them.

The nursery classes have both been very busy so far this term. We read stories about skeletons and ghosts to celebrate Halloween and carved pumpkins too. Then we created firework art work for bonfire night. We also made toffee apples and took them home for a tasty treat.

NURSERY

We are now getting ready for our Christmas celebrations. The morning class are working very hard to learn their songs and lines for their show, “The Christmas Star”. The afternoon class have also been practising Christmas carols and have been doing lots of beautiful festive craft. We are all also really looking forward to our visiting puppet show and our Christmas party at the end of term!

School Website

Have you looked at

our website

recently? We upload

articles, photos and

films;

sharing the learning

in our classrooms.

https://danestone.aberdeen.sch.uk/

https://danestone.aberdeen.sch.uk/