Month: May 2021

P1/2 Update – May 2021

For the last two weeks P1/2 have been working on fractions. We have been dividing shapes into halves and quarters. We linked this with doubling and halving numbers. We have also been working on money, P1 working on subtraction within 10p and £10 and P2 using the 50p coin.

P1 have been learning ‘ck’ and ‘ai’ words and writing capital letters. P2 have begun to work on their own imaginative stories. So far we decided on characters and wrote the opening part. We will continue to work on this for the next couple of weeks. We have also been learning about speech marks and thinking of different words to use instead of ‘said’.

We have been working through the list of common words and using movement and paired dictation to help us with quick recollection.

Outside we worked with a partner to create art inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, but sadly, nobody else can see it, as we put everything back where we found it, following our 4th rule!

P4/5 Update

The weather has finally started to improve and we have been able to get outside to practice for our sports day event.  The children have been working very hard and voted as a class to have the theme of ‘historical characters’ for their sports day event.  We have also been making crowns and helmets in class to represent some of these times.

This is our final week of fractions, decimals and percentages in maths.  We have been looking at equivalents between fractions, decimals and percentages and playing equivalent bingo to consolidate the learning!

 

 

 

In literacy, we have been finishing our work on note taking and we will be moving on to poetry writing next week.

Last week we introduced a worry box in the class.  The children are able to put in either an anonymous note and we talk about it as a class or a private note and I will talk to that child individually.  The children like to discuss their worry’s and have been supportive of each other.

P3-4 Update

In Literacy, we have been working hard to write our persuasive letters on plastic pollution. We will type our letters for display. The children have been learning about past and present tense in Grammar, as well as revisiting using Speech Marks appropriately.

Next week in Literacy, we will be learning about different types of poetry.

In Maths, we have completed our topic on Fractions. The children enjoyed learning about halves, quarters, thirds, and tenths. We are now going to revisit our Time topic in maths for consolidation. We will learn about 12/24-hour time. We will be doing lots of practical activities to embed our learning.

We have been focusing on hygiene in Health and Wellbeing over the last 2 weeks. The children created posters showing how to wash our hands correctly. We also talked about dental hygiene, and we had lots of great discussion about how to keep our teeth and mouths healthy. In PE, the children have been working very hard with Miss Davie to create an obstacle course to showcase to you all on the day of our Sports Challenge.

For our topic, we did a science experiment to explore sinking and floating. The children enjoyed finding objects, predicting whether they would float or sink, then testing this out in water! We also created some wonderful iceberg themed artwork – we focussed on using the best materials to make the water as life-like as possible. Next week we will move on to our new topic.

 

 

P6-7 Term 4 Update – May/June

Numeracy – Primary 6-7 are now going back to different areas of maths that we have covered during remote learning to do some revision and ensure we are secure with every area of mathematics before moving on to the next school year.

Literacy – The children have been planning and editing persuasive writing and are now moving on to discursive writing in line with our listening and talking debates.

Primary 6-7 learned how to write diamante poems this week and we are now moving on to the features of a debate and how it links to our Topic of Current Affairs.

Topic – The class have been learning about the difference between the House of Commons and the House of Lords this week. We’ve talked about the rigorous screening that laws must go through parliament.

 

Sports Challenge – P6-7 are planning an obstacle course with Miss Davie to showcase to the parents and guardians for our sports challenge day in June. We look forward to welcoming you!

 

If you need anything at all, you can contact me on jodi.riley@aberdeenshire.gov.uk or you can still contact me via Google Classroom.

P6/7 May 2021

Numeracy – The children have been learning to solve algebraic equations in class. They are practicing using one and two step function machines and using these skills to solve basic equations. Some of the children are multiplying out brackets in equations and simplifying them by collecting like terms.

Other curricular areas –  We have started our current affairs topic and are learning about devolved powers within the Scottish Parliament. We spoke about the recent election and will be learning about the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The children will also have a go at writing their own manifestos and forming political parties.

PE – The children are learning and choreographing a dance routine in partnership with me! I am so impressed with how hard they have worked on this and the effort and enthusiasm they have shown has been absolutely amazing. Hopefully we can showcase it in some format (virtually or otherwise) before the end of term.

Virtual Learning – Primary 6/7 have been fortunate enough to take part in a variety of virtual learning this term so far. Last week was TechFest where we learned about Marine Plastics with a session from Ocean Activist Emily Penn in partnership with Macduff Aquarium. We also joined a presentation from Dynamic Earth who taught us about our carbon footprint. You can calculate yours at https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/#/

If you need anything at all, you can contact me on jodi.riley@aberdeenshire.gov.uk or you can still contact me via Google Classroom.

P4/5 May 2021

Maths – We continue to work on our fractions, moving between simplifying, ordering and matching equivalents.  We have been fortunate to do some fractions games outside in between the rain showers!

Literacy – We have been asked to write a persuasive letter to some approved funding bodies to help with improvements to the school playground.  The children have discussed what they think would make a good playground and what arguments we could use to write our letters.  We will continue with this next week as well.

Techfest – We have been fortunate to join Techfest this week with their on-line meetings.  We have learned about bugs from the Critter Keeper, looked at fossils with a palaeontologist, heard about a sustainable café in Torry Battery and been amazed at the amount of plastic in our oceans during a presentation by Macduff Aquarium.  If you would like to find out more, many of the presentations have been recorded.  The link for Techfest is: https://www.techfestsetpoint.org.uk/

 

 

P3/4 May 2021

Last week we had great excitement in P3/4 as we received the news that all our diary entries for the Young Writer’s Competition were chosen as winners! I am so proud of the children for the effort they put into their writing. Everyone is excited to have their story published in a book.

This week we have been working hard to plan a persuasive piece of writing linked to our Water topic. The children had the great idea of trying to encourage wider recycling in school, so this is the theme of our writing. So far, we have discussed the main arguments we will include and have gathered facts to backup our points. Next week, we will start the first draft of our writing.

We have learned about synonyms to widen our vocabulary. We identified ‘boring’ words we use too often and used a thesaurus and lots of books to help us create a Synonym Flowers wall display. The children thought of fantastic words we can now use to make our writing even better!

In Grammar, we have been learning about singular and plural nouns. The children have learned different rules for making singular nouns plural – although there are lots of rules to remember! We have practised this through games and sorting activities.

Last week in maths, we revisited multiplication. The children are making big improvements in their mental recall of the multiplication facts of the 2,3,4,5 and 10 times table. We practised our times tables through problem solving activities – the children particularly enjoyed trying to work out secret codes using their times table knowledge!

This week we have been working on place value and addition and subtraction. We have discussed lots of different strategies, comparing them to see which is the most effective.

Next week, we will be learning about fractions.

We had some fantastic discussion around Internet Safety in Health and Wellbeing. The children enjoyed watching a ThinkUKnow video on playing games online. We talked about the importance of being safe, and only speaking to people you know online.

This week we focused on Rights and Responsibilities, and we learned the difference between them. The children found it interesting to learn about their rights, and all the children showed a great understanding of what they are responsible for and how they should treat others.

We have continued with our Water topic this week. We tuned in to a brilliant live session on Marine Plastics on Tuesday. The children were fascinated and shocked by all the information about plastic pollution – this sparked the idea for our persuasive writing in Literacy!

We have learned about hot and cold climates around the world. From this we learned about why plants need water, and where the best places are for plants to grow. We made rain gauges and popped them around the playground so we can measure rainfall over the term.

Today we are carrying out an experiment on dissolving solids – I am sure the children will enjoy this!

P1/2 May 2021

In our topic we learned about what plants need to grow and went outside to make some “magic” potions. We worked with a partner. P1 then used this for their sentence building and P2 – for learning how to write a recipe.

P1 have been learning to subtract by using a number line and their fingers. We were writing our own take away stories and working on alternative subtraction language. In money we are looking at 1p/2p and £1/£2 more.

P2 have been looking at how division links with multiplication and some were working on division problems with remainders using their knowledge of times tables. We were also using the 20p coin.

In RME we were discussing our responsibility for looking after the Earth and how this is taught in different religions. It was good to hear from a child who recently joined us that Fettercairn has a very tidy playground! Other children were able to talk about taking their litter home and recycling.

In art we were looking at Renoir’s Les Parapluies and we painted our own versions!

Primary 4/5 – Welcome Back

Welcome back to Term 4!  We have wasted no time getting back into our classroom routines.  In literacy we have just finished a series of weekly debates around topical issues chosen by the children.  The children have split into two teams and argued for an against the subject.  I have been very impressed with the levels of maturity and respect that the children have shown when discussing different points of view.  The children have also followed up this activity with a short essay giving the pros and cons of the argument.

We also continue to read our class novel, ‘The Elsewhere Emporium’

In maths we are revising fractions.  Last week we looked at how to simplify fractions and this week we are looking at equivalent fractions.  We will be moving on to adding fractions before looking and decimals and percentages. The children have played equivalent fraction snap, used worksheets and watched a video on equivalent fractions.  The weather has unfortunately been too changeable this week for outside fractions activities.

The children have made some brilliant posters with Mrs. Smith showing their understanding of adjectives which are now up on our display boards.

Homework is posted at 3:30pm on google classroom for your children to complete.  As ever, if you have any queries or concerns please do get in touch.