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Families Connect by Carstairs Primary

A recap of Week 1-5

+A message to our families

To our wonderful P1 families,

As you will be aware our school was running a programme called “Families Connect” for some of our P1 families. Due to current circumstances, our weekly sessions were cut short, with just 3 weeks left to go. We haven’t felt right about just leaving these sessions ‘on pause’ and wanted to find a way to include Families Connect into our distance learning. The added bonus of doing it this way is that families who were unable to make our weekly Tuesday afternoons will still be able to access the main messages through these powerpoints. This powerpoint is going to be a recap of the first 5 weeks which were carried out in school. Next week, we will upload a powerpoint for Week 6 and the following week a powerpoint for Week 7.

Best wishes,

Mrs Hunter, Mrs Campbell and Mrs McLeod

+Week 1 – Focus on Feelings

The key messages

1. Feelings are important because how we feel influences

how we behave and how well we learn.

2. Any learning task involves recognising and managing a

range of uncomfortable feelings such as uncertainty,

anxiety, and frustration.

3. You can help your child to recognise and name their

feelings, which will help them manage them.

Remember – All feelings are ok, but not all behaviour is.

+Week 1 –Focus on

Feelings (Continued)

We recommend…

Give your child made up scenarios and ask how they would

feel. Then, discuss what that feeling feels like in their body

e.g. when I feel worried I get butterflies in my tummy and my

face looks like this…

Can your child think of a time when they have felt

happy/scared/sad/angry/surprised/disgusted? Can they

talk to you about it and maybe draw the scenario or what

they looked like?

+Week 2 – The Importance

of Praise

The key messages

1. Children learn better if they value themselves.

2. Children learn to value themselves more if they know they are valued by others.

3. Praise can help children feel valued and to grow up to be confident in themselves and their ability to learn and to achieve whatever they set their minds to.

4. Praising good behaviour and effort will mean that children are happier to try something even if it’s hard, and try new things if they get it wrong.

+Week 2 – The importance

of Praise (Continued)

Helpful praise is –

1. Specific – So children know what to do next time.

2. Genuine – Our faces and bodies give the same message as our words.

3. Focused on effort – Rather than the outcome, so children know practice and effort are important.

4. Without a sting in the tail – When children hear praise mixed with criticism, they can only remember the criticism.

We recommend – have some fun with an art activity at home (perhaps making an award for a family member in the house). Focus on giving helpful praise to your child and see if you can notice how this effects them positively. When giving the award be specific about what the award is for e.g. Daddy is getting the award today because he has been clearing the table after dinner each night this week which is really kind of him.

+Week 3 – The Importance

of Listening

The key messages

1. Listening to our children helps us to understand how they

see the world and helps us to support their learning.

2. If we listen to what children are finding hard, or why they

don’t want to do something, we can help them find ways to

make things better.

3. If children trust us to listen to the little things, they will

share the big stuff as well.

+Week 3 –The importance

of listening (Continued)

We recommend…

Think about all the distractions that can effect how well you

listen to your child e.g. mobile phones, other children, tv,

work, reversing the car, cooking the dinner…the list goes on.

Either put the distraction to one side or (if this is not

possible) tell your child that what they have got to tell you is

very important to you but you cannot hear them properly at

this very minute and you will listen to them soon.

Remember to ALWAYS follow up on your promise to listen to

them.

+Week 4 – Book Talk

The main messages

1. Learning to read is important but books don’t need to feel like

hard work.

2. Exploring the text and pictures in books, and talking together

about what you see, will help your child with reading.

3. It builds their imagination, vocabulary and their reading

confidence and comprehension – and should be a lot of fun.

4. There are loads of good, fun children’s books available. Giving

your child a choice will help their enjoyment of reading.

+Week 4 – Book Talk

(Continued)

We recommend…

Make noises to match the pictures

Ask open questions that encourage imagination like “Can you guess what might happen next?” or “If that happened to you, how would that make you feel?”

Try not to turn these questions into a test with closed questions e.g. “Where did the boy go?” Answer “to the park.”

Draw a picture of what might happen next once the book has finished.

Support choice based on interests

Make up some actions with your child.

Be enthusiastic. Even if you have already read that book 57 times before. If you aren’t that excited your child will pick up on that.

+Week 5 – Beyond The Page

The key messages

1. Finding times to fit in reading for fun isn’t always easy, but reading little and often is better for children’s skills than not at all.

2. There are easy ways that you can support reading outside school like telling stories on the move or using technology together. This will build children’s imagination and vocabulary and help them to be better readers.

We recommend…

Although nothing can beat cuddling up with a good book, if you want to try to add technology into reading time, we recommend https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk or the cbeebies reading app.

Make up your own stories with your child. Create comic book strips, act it out, make finger puppet shows, find an appropriate picture in the newspaper or a magazine and tell a story from that picture. Story telling doesn’t have to end when a book closes.

+Next week…

Next week we will put up a new powerpoint onto the school

website with the main messages we planned to get across

had our Week 6 session gone ahead. Keep an eye out for

more information from Miss Sneddon via Twitter and the

School app.