We have big news this week! Tomorrow (Wednesday) we will have a LIVE PE lesson. To join us all you need to do is to check the ‘PE at Home’ class on Wednesday at 2 pm and there will be a link for the ‘Meet’.
You will need: comfy clothes and a willingness to have fun!
Amanda and Salvi look forward to seeing you!
The PE at home classroom on Google is updated weekly and the team are doing a great job in providing a range of activities to suit pupils of all abilities. These include Dance, Boccia, Orienteering, Scavenger Hunts (this week’s is a lovely sensory, texture hunt) and our regular PE with Salvi and Amanda, ably supported by our own Young Leaders in school.
Please ask your child’s class teacher for a link if you are not in the PE at Home classroom.
Welcome to the Orchard Brae Advent Calendar. Everyone throughout the school has had great fun creating these videos and we hope that you enjoy them and they help to bring you some festive cheer in the countdown to Christmas!
For Day 1, Howes Road AM Nursery perform ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ from their Nativity show.
For Day 2, Room 2 bring you ‘Gingerbread Men Attention’ featuring some very snazzy outfits they made themselves.
Our Head of Primary, Karen, asked Room 2 in September if we’d like to do an enterprise which would involve us learning to care for plants in our classroom. Our class teacher Ann didn’t realise Karen was going to give us quite so many Spider Plants to care for! However, we have risen to the challenge and observed our plants grow, helped to transplant many of them, watered them regularly and generally nurtured them. We have all participated actively in their care.
During the last 2 weeks of term we will take turns going round the classes at Orchard Brae School asking if anyone, for a small donation, would like to have one of the plants. We will give all donations to the PE department’s bicycle fundraiser.
With Scott, room 2 have been learning the skills involved in Orienteering.
We all enjoy learning outside; following the route; looking for the orienteering flags in the playground; being first to find the flag; selecting the flag numbers (and correct colour) and matching them to the appropriate number on the orienteering board.
Room 2’s class team are very proud of all the pupils and how quickly they have learnt the skills involved.
Room 2 pupils all enjoy learning through play. On a Friday they have the freedom to choose what they want to play with. We observe our pupils confidently making their choices, playing alongside each other, observing the variety of play opportunities and selecting another activity to do, initiating communication and, most importantly, having fun.
There are 9 reading related challenges and you can choose those that appeal. Full details of all the challenges are on the Aberdeen Reads website:
There is something for everyone!
Some ideas of how you might use the challenge are:
Places
Read some of your favourite stories that are set in other countries (real or imaginary). Two of my personal favourites are:
Where The Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak), a lovely picture book for younger readers, and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (C S Lewis) for older readers.
Get Creative
Across the school we’ve seen lovely photos of our children and young people engaging in Life Skills and Arts & Crafts during our period of remote learning. Why not challenge yourself to bake or cook something new? You might find a no-cook recipe that will encourage even greater independence. Try a new craft project and make something useful, or use some of your old junk to create something inspired by a book. Lots of exciting crafty projects can be done using recycled materials and this helps our environment.
Ec0-Friendly
Use recycled materials to create a favourite character or a scene from one of your books. One young man from Room 14 did this previously, creating his favourite scene from Harry Potter.
Cover Versions
Some of our Secondary pupils enjoy the Harry Potter books. These are magical stories to escape into and are very enjoyable to read aloud. Why not compare the film and the book to find out which you like best? Horrid Henry is always a favourite and episodes can be watched on TV. Do you like the TV episode or the story best? Popular with many of our younger pupils is Disney Cars or any other Disney movie. Again, see what you like best – the film or the book. There are also lots of E-comics on the library website, including Disney.
Favourite Place
Try reading in different places and find out what your favourite place to read is. I like to read in the garden, particularly on a fine day.
Let us know how you get on and feel free to share with your teachers the stories that you have enjoyed.
We’ve now been learning remotely for more weeks than we care to remember! This week is particularly exciting with the launch of our Google Classrooms (GSuite) and it’s great to see so many families getting involved with this.
As always, our aim is to support our children and young people as best we can, and we have a Leadership Group working together to focus on how do this as we move towards ‘blending learning’ from August. In order to support their work we’d really appreciate your thoughts on what we have offered so far, any issues or difficulties you’ve experienced, and what you would like to see as we move forward.
All feedback is welcome so please take a few minutes to share your views if you have not already done so. Thank you.
Thank you to everyone that has completed our Google Classroom survey for their child to date. If you have not already done so, we would be grateful if you would complete the form on Survey Monkey. This is to ensure that you have access to the necessary IT to enable your child to access it. Please click on the link below:
Due to the ongoing situation with COVID-19 our planned Fun Run is postponed until further notice. We will maintain contact with the City Events Team at Aberdeen City Council and hope that we can have our event at some time in the future. For now, our priority is to keep our school and wider community safe and well.
