P1 Miss Cunningham

Welcome to Primary 1!

Check out our page each week to see the wonderful things happening in our class!

Class Teacher: Miss Cunningham

Teaching Assistant: Sharon Grant

Our School Trip to Fort Evergreen

We started the day with an exciting bus journey. When we arrived at Fort Evergreen we got some delicious juice and a yummy biscuit. After that we got to visit the animals. There were chicks, guinea pig, calves, chipmunks, alpacas, goats, hens and we even met a peacock. Then we spotted something really exciting. A UNICORN! She was very pretty! After that, we got to go on a spin on the Busy Bee Train. We took turns to go on this and while we waited we got to play on the toy tractors. Then we visited the birds and after we went to play in the castle. We climbed up the walls, went on swings and slid down the slides. Then we went to the indoor play area and we had a ball! Our favourite slide was the dragon slide! We then got some lunch. Finally, we got to feed the baby lambs their dinner. We had a fantastic time and were very tired after all the exciting activities. Some of us even took a wee nap on the way home! They were so cute and super soft! Check out the school website for lots of pictures of us having fun on our school Trip.

Have a look at all the fun things we have been getting up to in play this week! We have had some wonderful creations!

Cuddly Chicks

Thank you to Lisa, who kindly brought in chicks for us to see. We were very excited and even got to pet them.

Tick Tock

This week we have been learning to tell the time. We have been focusing on o'clock times!

Fitness Freddy

On Wednesday, we had a very exciting day. Fitness Freddy came into school to carry out some health and well-being focused activities. Primary 1 had fantastic fun. Fitness Freddy had all the P1s dancing, laughing, boogieing and giggling. They each got a lovely certificate to congratulate them for their fantastic effort and participation. Miss Cunningham was extremely proud of our excellent listening skills.

Sports day

Today we got to go outside in the lovely sun to take part in sports day. We had a fantastic first sports day and everyone showed great sportsmanship. Well done Primary 1.

Bug Dance

We read a story called ‘Bug Dance’. In this story, the teacher was teaching the bugs a new dance. They needed to know left and right to help them move the correct way. Unfortunately, the centipede had so many legs that he kept falling over.

Primary one then got to try the dance themselves. The dance was 2 steps left, 2 steps right, 1 hop forward, 1 hop backwards, turn right. We completed this 4 times and we ended up back at the START! We were fascinated.

Silly Sightwords

In Literacy this week we learnt about the words ‘saw’ and ‘into’. We took part in a carousel lesson where we got to play 6 different games in rotation to help us develop recognition of these words and others we have learnt previously. In one game, we had to feed the teddy bear the correct word, in another we had to use a fly swat to hit the correct word, we also got to spell the words using magnetic letters and make the words out of playdough. We even got to play a game where we had to guess which number the teddy bear was hiding under.

Sharing is Caring

This week we pretended to go on a picnic and we shared our ‘food’ between two. We even got to share some real sweets and then eat them! We also shared different numbers of spiders between 3 webs.

Play in May

Religion-Visit to the church

In Religion, we have been learning that May is a special month during which we spend some extra time thinking about Mary. We learnt about the importance of prayer and discussed when and where we pray. We went on a visit to the church, lit a candle and said a prayer. We even seen a statue of Mary and said the Hail Mary.

Coin Fun

This week we have been working on recognising the 1p, 2p, 5p and 10p coins. We first started by sorting coins and matching them to the correct Numicon shape to help us understand the value of each coin. We even stuck some coins onto both sides of the Numicon to help us understand their value. After that, we played a game where we had to spin a spinner. We had to read the value that the spinner landed on and our partner had to find the correct coin. If they got it correct, they got to keep the coin, if they got it wrong they had to put the coin back.

Finger Cubes

Today we worked on developing our ability to quickly recall addition sums within 5 and record these. Everyone was give 10 cubes; 5 yellow and 5 blue. We then put the cubes on our fingers in different combinations to discover and explore different ways to make 5. We then wrote down the addition sentence on our worksheet. If we finished all the addition sums with the yellow and blue cubes, we got to pick our own colours and write our own sums.

Daily Mile

Thursday the 28th April was the Daily Mile's 10th Birthday. We all got to design our own special signs and then we headed outside to walk a mile. It was lots of fun, we even sang as we walked! We were exhausted when we came back into class! Good job it was nearly break time!

People Who Help Us

The Police

Today we were very lucky to have a visit two police officers, Conor and Neil.

They taught us all about how to keep ourselves safe. They showed us their uniform and told us what they use all their equipment for. Sharon even got to try on the handcuffs.

Fun on the Chromebook

We combined our ICT and Literacy skills. We used the Chromebooks to type a sentence about a picture of ourselves. Some people wrote their names and some people told us about something they like. A big 'thank you' to the digital leaders from P6/7 who helped us with this task today.

Today two lambs came to school. We got a chance to pet the lambs. They were so soft. We got to feed the lambs too.

Bowling Fun

This week we have been working on finding all the possible ways to make 5,6 and 8 using number skittles. We then had to try and record our answers using number sentences.

Have a look at what we have been up to in play this week.

Our Favourite Fruit

We have been learning about pictograms. We started by getting to sample apples, oranges, pears, bananas and strawberries. We then discussed how each fruit tasted and picked our favourite. We recorded the results using a pictogram on the IWB. This was a great way to collect the information so that we can easily see and understand it. We then printed it off. We really enjoyed tasting all the fruit too. Strawberries are the most popular fruit in P1.

Subtracting 1

Today we learnt how to take away 1 from numbers within 10. We discovered that when you take away 1 the number gets smaller. You go backwards on the number line by 1.

We played a game called 'Ten Green Bottles' on the IWB while singing the song to help us learn about this. We also played a subtraction game. In this game, there were pictures of our favourite characters. They had some subtraction sums that we had to answer for them and find the right answer. We loved getting to see our favourite characters.

If You Go Down To The Woods...

In World Around Us this week we have started a new topic called ‘If you go down to the woods...’. We started by learning about mini beasts. We went on a minibeast hunt around the school and used bug pots, magnifying glasses and bug scoops to help us investigate and observe all the different things we found.

Some pictures of what we have been up to in play recently.

We got to eat our lunch outside in the lovely sunshine this week. 😊

Shopping Spreee!

We have opened a toy shop in our classroom and we have been practising using 1p coins to buy and sell toys at our shop. We also played a money game on the tablets too. It was hard but we had good fun!

Odd and Even Numbers

We have started to learn about odd and even numbers. We read a story called Missing Mittens to help us understand the terms odd and even. In this story a silly goat ate one of each mitten, so all the pairs were odd. We then sorted Numicon shapes into even and odd shapes using the table to help us.

Green Day

We had a fantastic day today wearing green to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We even got to use some green pasta to make a St. Patrick's Day necklace too.

Blue and Yellow Day

Today everyone wore the colours blue and yellow to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine. We raised nearly £200. Well done to all the boys and girls in Primary 1!

Firefighters

As part of our topic ‘People Who Help Us’ we had a visit from the Firefighters today. They told us all about how they help people. They showed us their special outfits that they wear to keep themselves protected from the hot fire. They showed us the helmet they wear to keep their heads safe when they are putting out fires. We also got to see the special fire car.

Before, After and Between

Today we learnt about numbers before, after and between. We got number aprons and we had to arrange ourselves into the correct order.

Miss Cunningham then give us some clues about a number. For example, she would say ‘This number is the number that comes after 6.’ or ‘This is the number that comes before 4.’

We had to listen carefully to see if we were wearing the number she was talking about. If we had the number, we had to sit down. Everyone got a big cheer when they got it correct.

World Book Day

Children’s Mental Health Week

This week was Children’s Mental Health Week. We listened to a story about different feelings we can have. We talked about times we have felt happy, sad, excited, worried, angry and scared. We discussed what sort of things we could do to make us feel better if we weren’t feeling great. We sang ‘If you’re happy and you know it’. When we sang excited we jumped up and down. When we sang scared we covered our faces and when we sand angry we stamped our feet. Each of us were given a differenet emotion and we had to represent it using facial expressions. Miss Cunningham took a picture of our faces and printed them out. We then had to cut our faces out and sort out them into happy, sad, angry and giggly.

We also read the Hungry Little Caterpillar and discussed how we all change as we grow up. We discussed how we are all different at that’s what makes us special and unique. We then decorated a beautiful butterfly with all the things we have learnt since starting school.

Safer Internet Week

This week was safer internet week. Smarty the Penguin taught us how to stay safe on iPads and Tablets. He taught about the importance of asking for help from an adult someone tries to talk to you, if something pops-up on your screen or if you are worried about anything. He even taught us a chant to help us remember how important it is to ask an adult for help.

Have a listen to us below.

We got a chance to design our very own games for the iPad. These games had to be games that were safe for children and we had to try and design a special button that children could press if they felt worried about something on the tablet. This button would then let an adult know that the child wanted help. We loved this and came up with some really exciting games. We had everything from fairy games to dinosaur games.

Number 10

A special visit from the Dentist

This week in World Around Us we have continued to learn about People Who Help Us. We had a very special visitor this week. Alanna’s daddy is a dentist and he kindly came into visit us. He taught us about how to keep our teeth healthy. He brought in some foods and we had to decide if they would be good or bad for our teeth. He showed us how much sugar was in coke and then Alanna demonstrated how to brush your teeth correctly. He even brought us in the baby tooth of a whale. We each got to feel it and we had to guess what animal it came from. It was really hard and really big. Alanna’s daddy give everyone a new toothbrush and toothpaste. Primary 1 would like to say a big thank you to Mr. Morgan for coming to see us. We had a really exciting day.

St. Brigid’s Day

Today was St. Brigid’s Day. We enjoyed learning about St.Bridget and using words to describe her personality. We also loved singing a song about her. We made St. Brigid’s crosses using pipe cleaners. After that, we made St. Brigid’s cloak by each sticking tissue paper on a square. We put all the squares together to make a large cloak.

Nina Nine

This week we met Nina Nine. Nina Nine is a builder who is in charge of all construction in Ten Town. Nina Nine has nine wheelbarrows, nine diggers and nine tools which she keeps in her toolbox. When we write Nina Nine, she facing away from King One because she is showing him the plans for a new recycling
and repurposing centre. Nina Nine’s hard hat and body shape form the number nine.

We use this rhyme to help us write her. 'round her head and back to the start, down her back, she's so smart'. We played some games to become familiar with number 9.

Grandparent's Day

This week was Catholic’s Schools Week and we completed lots of different tasks related to this during the week. In one task we learnt about ‘Living Life in Wonder and Awe’. We discussed how God made the earth and everything in it. We watched a video about nature and we were amazed by all the special things God created. We talked about how we can take care of our earth. On Wednesday we focused on celebrating our Grandparents as part of Catholic’s Schools week. We use our handprints to make a lovely gift for our grandparents.

HFW Games

Aladdin's flying carpet

We have been learning about area. We measured the area of the mat in the classroom and then we measured the area of Aladdin’s carpet for him.

Sir Seven

In Ten Town we met Sir Seven. We played with some foam tens frames and a lady bird to help us partition 7 in different ways. We painted 7 and we wrote it on the whiteboards. We also made braclets with 7 beads on them.

Seal Six

In Ten Town we met Seal Six and learnt some facts about seal lions. Did you know that sea lions can swim up to 30mph? That is as fast as a car!

Holy Cross Primary School Fruit and Veg Shop!

We have been using 1p coins to buy some sweet, delicious fruit and crunchy veg at our shop! Some boys and girls have been selling smoothies at our shop too! What a fantastic idea!

Musical Madness

Today we became musicians and explored different musical instruments. We got into groups of 4 and became a band, playing our instruments together.

ADDITION

In Numeracy, we have been playing lots of addition games. We used counters, cubes, grapes, buttons and Numicon to help us add. We even had a visit from ‘Adding Annie’ who helped us add cubes, ‘Counting Cowboy’ who helped us to count animals and ‘Patricia Pirate’ who helped us add using pegs and playdough. We loved seeing Miss Cunningham dressed up.

Woolly the sheep

We have had great fun rehearsing our Christmas Play 'Woolly the Sheep'. Have a look and see just how much fun.

Santa Letters

Today we posted our letters to Santa. We designed the envelope and then posted them in the post box for Santa. We are so excited. We can't wait until Santa comes!

FEAR THE SPHERE

This week we have been playing a game called 'Fear the Sphere'.

In this game we passed a ball around in a circle while some music played. When we got the ball we had to shout SPHERE!

The game was called Fear the Sphere because if you were holding the ball when the music stopped then you were out.

We absolutely loved this game. It was great fun and helped us to learn the shape name sphere.

Christmas Play Songs

Christmas Play Songs

Santa Daily Mile

Tap a Tune

Today we got a chance to play on an app called ‘Tap a Tune’. We explored with the app and used it to express our musical ideas. We had great fun and made lots of different tunes.

Colours of the Rainbow

This week we experimented mixing colours.

Instructions

We have been learning about instructions. Instructions tell you how to do something. We followed instructions to make our very own Clever Cats.

Capital Letters

We have been learning to identify capital letters. We know capital letters are use to start a sentence and for important words like peoples names. We played lots of games to help us quickly recognise the capital letters.

We ordered our class from smallest to tallest!

IMG_0626 (1).mov

Instructions

Today we started some work on instructions. We discovered that instructions tell you how to do something. We read a story called ‘Friday at the café’. It had lots of instructions in it. We discovered that recipes are made up of different parts: ingredients, equipment and method. We followed one recipe to make jelly. We even got to taste the jelly. It was so yummy.

We have been exploring 3D shapes through making robots using cuboids and cylinders.

Maths Week

This week was Maths week and P1 were extremely lucky as the P5 boys and girls made us some fantastic games to help us recognise numbers and add numbers together. We had tractor games, teddy bear games and a game that had chocolate as a prize for the winner. We had amazing fun playing these games. Thank you very much to all the boys and girls in P5.

Blending Fun

This week we have been learning all about how to blend sounds to read words. We got a chance to play a game on the tablets to help us practise this skill. It was super fun!

2D vs 3D

We have been learning about the difference between 2D and 3D shapes. We discovered 2D shapes are flat and 3D shapes are fat. We sorted the shapes into the correct place to help us develop our understanding of this concept.

Play November 2nd

Woolly Hat Day

Today we all wore woolly hats to raise money for Mourne Stimulus

Show and Tell

This week we had Lila-Rose for Show and Tell. She brought in her beautiful teddy called Rainbow. She told us all about how she made her teddy at the Teddy Factory. She used lots of words to describe the colours and what it felt like. She even brought in some pictures of her making her teddy.

We really enjoyed listening to Lila-Rose this week. Super work Lila-Rose. Well done.

This week we also had Cassy do 'Show and Tell'.Cassy brought in her lovely Unicorn to show the class. Cassy told us all about how she made her teddy. She got it over the Halloween break when she was in Belfast. Cassy's unicorn even sang a song. It was super cool. Thank you for sharing Cassy.

Fiona Five

In Numeracy this week we met Fiona Five. Fiona Five is very sporty. She like to eat lots of fruit to keep her healthy and fit. We got a chance to taste 5 of Fiona Five’s favourite fruits. We used lots of new words to talk about how it felt in our mouths and how it tasted too.

We have also been working hard to develop our understanding of how to count to 5, sequence numbers to 5, find the missing number within 5 and identify numbers before within 5.

We played lots of practical games to help us.

We have also been playing some games on the IWB to help us write the number 5 and identify what numbers can be added together to make 5.

We have also been counting to 5 on the tambourine and playing bowling with skittles numbered 1-5.

Spookley Square Pumpkin

We read a story called Spookley the Square Pumpkin. Click on this link to listen to the story at home.

https://youtu.be/K-acOrQ3aSo

We then made lots of different 2D shaped pumpkins.

Halloween Hand Muscle Games

Pumpkins

We got a chance to feel and describe pumpkins this week. We used words such as bumpy, scratchy, rough, smooth, cold, hard and point to describe what we could feel on the pumpkin.

Baby pictures

Our topic this term is ‘All about me’. We have been learning how we change as we grow from a baby to an adult. The children brought in some beautiful photographs of them when they were babies. They each got an opportunity to stand up and show their lovely picture to the rest of the class and tell them all about it. Everyone really enjoyed this, and it was good fun trying to guess who owned each baby picture.

Pass the Parcel

This week we learnt the sound p. We learnt about Peter Puppy to help us remember this sound. It was Peter Puppy’s birthday on Monday so we played Pass the Parcel to help us learn about the p sound. It was super fun!

Play October

Sorting

In P1 we have been working on sorting objects.

We started by going outside and sorting ourselves. We sorted ourselves lots of different ways, for example girls/not girls, boys/not boys, brown hair/not brown hair, blond hair/not blond hair, blue eyes/not blue eyes, brown eyes/not brown eyes.

We even sorted ourselves for 2 criteria. Girls with blond hair, boys with brown hair, girls with socks, boys with grey shirts etc.

We had great fun and there was lots of giggling while we tried to sort ourselves.

After that we went inside. We sorted 2D shapes in many different ways too.

2D Shapes

1,2,3

This week we have been practising numbers to 3. We went outside to help us. We played a game where we had to jump on the numbers. When we jumped on 1 we had to do 1 jump.

When we jumped on 2 we had to do 2 claps, when we jumped on 3 we had to do 3 star jumps.

We then practised writing the numbers with chalk on the ground. After that we played a game where we had to listen carefully to hear the number being called out. When we heard it we had to race to the number and use a spray bottle to splash water on the correct number.

Syl -la- bles

We have also been learning about syllables. Some words only have 1 syllable. These are short words. We also learnt that some longer words can have 2,3 or even 4 syllables. Wanda the Witch showed us how to break words into syllables. We then got a chance to put on her Witch hat and pull out a word from her magic bucket. We then had to clap out the word to find out how many syllables are in the word. We then sorted the words into the correct circles. .

Copying a Pattern

This week we have continued our work on patterns. We were given a large range of different materials and made lots of different patterns.

Patterns

This week we have been learning about patterns.

First, we made a boy girl pattern first.

We then made some patterns with our bodies by clapping and stamping.

After that we made some patterns with different counters.

We even did some patterns on the IWB.

Rhyming Rainbows

We have been working hard to find rhyming words. We played some games this week where we had to find the rhyming words and put them together to make the rainbow.

Rhyming Rhino

This week we have been learning how to find rhyming words. We got a chance to put on Rhyming Rhino’s Mask and find the rhyming words. We really enjoyed this and we are getting very good at finding the rhyming words.

Tommy Two

This week we learnt about the number 2. We went to Ten Town and we met Tommy Two. He likes to do things in 2s. He helps King One around the castle. Tommy Two bends down to tie the king’s shoe laces and uses a rhyme to help us remember how to write number 2.

Have a look at our pictures to see us learning how count up to 2 and write the number 2.

Play

Week Beginning 27^th September

Sponsored Walk in Silent Valley

Today the whole school went on a sponsored walk today in aid of the Mourne First Responders. We had a fantastic day whilst taking part in this charity event. Well done to all the boys and girls for working so hard to raise money for this great charity. Thank you to everyone who supported all the boys and girls in raising money for such a worthy cause.

2D Shape Hunt

Today we went on a hunt to find some 2D shapes around the school. We got into pairs and were give shape cards and a tablet. We searched all around the school to find shapes. When we found a shape we had to use our picture cards to find the matching shape. We then had to take a picture on the tablet. We learnt how to open the tablet again if the screen locked and we learnt how to take pictures. We had lots of fun and found so many shapes. We can now name squares, circles, rectangles and triangles.

Musical Tambourine

This week we have been developing out ability to hear the difference between musical sounds. Miss Cunningham played a tune on the tambourine and we had to copy her. We really enjoyed this but it was quite tricky!

Playtime

Have a look at the play we had this week.

Week Beginning Monday 20th.

Number 1

This week we learnt all about number 1.

We started by learning about the Numicon shape 1. We then met the Numberblock 1 and then we met King 1 who taught us how to write number 1.

We played lots of games to help us learn about 1 and how to write it. We painted 1, we made 1 out of playdough, we made the number 1 shape using 1 Numicon shapes, we made Numicon 1 towers, we traced 1 in sand, we even pretended to be detectives and we searched through the sand tray to find the 1 Numicon shapes and 1 Numberblock pictures. We had to be careful when we did this because there were other shapes in the sand tray too trying to trick us.

Sammy Snake

This week in Literacy we went to ‘Letterland’ on our train. We met the letter Sammy Snake and we learnt all about the sound he makes and the name of his letter. We played lots of games to get to know Sammy Snake and his sound and we even got to make our own Sammy Snake hat. We had great fun. Look at our pictures to see what we learnt.

Making Music

Today we were learning that we can make different sounds. We had some chopsticks and we went on a walk around the school to make as many different sounds as we could. We made some loud sounds, some soft sounds and even some 'zig, zag' sounds.

Ordering Numicon Smallest to Biggest

Happy Birthday to You!

This week we have been learning about celebrations that are important to us. We talked about our birthdays and all the different things that we do on our Birthdays. We talked about why we have a birthday. We designed our own birthday cards. We used playdough to design our own cakes. We made our own birthday hats and we even used Lego to design our own presents.

Numicon Numbers

This week we have been learning about Numicon. We learnt that Numicon are special shapes that help us to learn about Numbers. We talked about and learnt the Numicon colour names. We played some games to help us. We also got to use the Numicon to make some pictures. This helped us to become familiar with how each shape looks. This will help us to visualise the numbers as we begin to learn them.

Special Names

This week we have been learning all about our names. We learnt that we each have a name and why our names are important.

We had great fun decorating our names with coloured paper. We listened to some relaxing music when we did this too. This also helped us to develop our fine motor skills.

Listening Walk

This week we have been working on our developing our ability to hear different sounds. We went on a walk around the school and listened carefully to see what we could hear. We heard a plane in the sky, a dog barking, a bird singing, leaves rustling and a builder working.

First Week Fun

We had a fantastic first week in P1. It was filled with fun, laughter and games. We can't wait to stay in school until 2.00pm next week so we can have even more fun. Have a look at our pictures to see what we got up to this week.