Numeracy

Over the past term, we have been using our knowledge of the times-tables to help solve division problems. We can also use a variety of mental and written methods for multiplication and division.  An example of which is the grid method below which has helped some groups to multiply 3 digit numbers by a single digit.

If you would like to support your child’s learning at home, please encourage them to spend some time each week practising their times-tables – we continue to do this daily in class as well.  Here are some links to games which your child has enjoyed playing in class to develop their knowledge of the times-tables:

1. https://www.mathplayground.com/math_racer_multiplication.html
2. https://www.mathplayground.com/math_monster_multiplication.html
3. https://www.mathplayground.com/multiplication_snake.html
4. https://www.mathplayground.com/math_monster_division.html

Literacy

Over the past few weeks, we have been continuing to develop our ‘reading for information’ skills.  We have been taking part in ‘Blankety Blanks,’ of which you can see an example of below.  These tasks help to stretch our vocabulary and encourage us to search for synonyms.  Blankety Blanks also encourage teamwork and the discussion of context within short stories or extracts as they are completed in pairs or trios.

   

Health and Wellbeing

This term, we have continued to use the SHANARRI indicators to shape our Health and Wellbeing and Drama lessons.  In November we focused on being ‘Active’ and December, we moved onto ‘Nurtured.’  Our most recent lessons have allowed us to discuss the important ingredients that build positive relationships and recognise and talk about how positive relationships can make us feel.

In PE, we have been having fun experiencing dances from different cultures – we are now focusing on Scottish Country Dance for the weeks leading up to Christmas.

 

 

Literacy

For writing this term, we are writing and creating our own Christmas Story books.  We have been discussing how to structure a story that contains two different dilemmas that will engage our readers.  We have been looking at Pie Corbett’s Story Mountain to help us plan.  We have also been thinking about how to grip our readers from the very first sentence.  Once we have created our books, we will be taking them home to share.

 

Numeracy

Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at negative numbers.  We have created numberlines that contain negative numbers and been calculating the difference between two numbers on the numberline.  Next week we will explore where negative numbers are used in real life.

 

 

Climate Change 

Linking into COP-26, we have been discussing climate change by mainly looking at our Carbon Footprints.  We looked at the 5 different areas that make up our Carbon Footprint.  After looking at the different areas we thought about our school and ourselves, and we created 3 goals that we would like to work on to help reduce our footprint.  We have displayed these in the corridor.

 

Literacy

In writing, we are looking at how to write and structure newspaper reports.  Linking in with our Polar Lands topic, we are going to be creating newspaper reports based on Robert Falcon Scott, an Antarctic Explorer.  This week we have been researching the information and next week we will be writing the article.

 

Numeracy

Over the past few weeks, we have been focusing on addition and remembering how to layout our workings.  This week, we have been looking at number challenges using addition.  We particularly enjoyed the Hexagon Puzzles and the Magic Squares.

 

Interdisciplinary Learning

When planning our project this term, the children really wanted to focus on Polar Region animals.  Therefore, we are going to be creating TV documentaries on a chosen animal.  We will be recording the documentaries using iPads and possibly a green screen.

Health and Wellbeing

During our Health and Wellbeing lessons, P5-7 have been focusing on the Shanarri indicator ‘Safe.’  We spent some time dealing with risks and how best to handle a variety of situations – this crossed into our Drama lessons which allowed the children to act out a variety of scenarios and think about the steps they would take if they were to be in a similar predicament.  We have now moved on to on-line safety and have been learning about the benefits and disadvantages of the Internet.  We discussed and learned about when, how and if things should be shared on-line.  The children are now developing their learning by creating information Power-points designed to teach children in P1-5 how to stay safe on-line.  If you would like to discuss staying safe on-line with your child, they can show you the website we have used to inform some of our lessons:

https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/8_10/watch/

In our PE sessions with Mrs Hutton, we have been enjoying progressing our Basketball skills.  In the coming weeks, we hope to challenge each other and take part in a mini class basketball tournament.

Numeracy

In Numeracy, the children have been refreshing their knowledge of the place value of numbers from 10,000 up to and beyond 1,000,000.  We have been reminding ourselves of the importance of reading questions carefully and pulling out important information to help solve number problems. A Marvellous Me post will be sent home in the coming weeks which will detail what your child has specifically been focusing on during Place Value.

Literacy

During some of our literacy sessions, we have been focussing on reading for information and how this skill is important for life.  If you would like to encourage your child to develop this skill, you could spend some time asking them about books and non-fiction pieces they are reading at home to see if they understand what they are reading.

Welcome back to the new school year. It certainly is lovely to be back.

Health & Wellbeing

As we settle back into the new school term, we have been discussing what we would like our classroom to look like and feel like, to make sure that everyone gets the most out of their learning.  Together we created a Class Charter that looks at our rights and how we would like to approach our learning.

 

Class Project

This term we are going to be looking at The Polar Lands.  Together we created a project plan of what we would like to learn and some activities we would like to do.  As there is so much to explore in the topic, we also selected Personal Projects that we are going to work on throughout the term.  We started to create our mini booklets this week.

Literacy

To tie in with our new project on Polar Lands, we are going to be looking at non-fiction writing.  We are going to be using the Talk 4 Writing resources to help us think about the language, the structure and layout of non-fiction texts.  Then we will create some of our own non-fiction texts.

Just like that, we are now two weeks away from the end of the school year.  It certainly has been another unique year, but it has flown by so quickly!  Mrs Hutton, Mrs Bird and I would like to thank each and every one of you for your patience, support, hard work and good spirits throughout this year.  We are really proud of you all!

We are exceptionally proud of how you have adapted between in school learning, home learning and then back to in school learning again.  You have been amazing and having you back in school this term has been so much fun.  We’ve certainly had a few giggles along the way.  Normally to do with my reading of our class novel.

We will be starting to send home the children’s work from this year.  It would be greatly appreciated if you could put some carrier bags inside your child’s school bag for them to take home their work and belongings.  You can then leave the items in the carrier bags for 72 hours before looking at it.

 

Topic

To finish off our project, we are going to be looking at the flags of the Caribbean countries.  We will be exploring their designs to establish where they came from and what they represent.  We will also be concluding our own personal research questions.

 

French

Over the next two weeks, we will be using the sports and hobbies vocabulary that we have been learning to create short conversations.  These will focus on saying which sports we like, we really enjoy and those we don’t like as much.

 

Maths

Our final maths topic is 3D shape.  We will be looking at 3D nets, naming shapes and thinking about how they are constructed.  There will be a design challenge coming where we need to use the shape nets that we have been learning about.

Art

Throughout this session, Mrs Gatherum has been working with the class every Tuesday, focusing on Art.  Below is a selection of what they have been doing this term.  The artwork has centred around our Oceans and Caribbean project.

Caribbean Islands

The children used sharpies, pastels and gold foil paper to create a scene of a Caribbean island.

 

View Finder Activity

The children used a view finder to select part of a given picture.  They then created a black and white frame to go around their picture.

 

In the Ocean

The children had to pick something that lives in the ocean and create it using black and white patterns.  For the background, they created patterns in white pastels before putting a wash paint on top to create a moving Ocean.

We still have two weeks to go, which, I’m sure, will fly in.   We hope that you have a fantastic holiday, when it comes.  To our P7’s, we are going to miss you next year!  We wish you all the best at Mearns Academy and we can’t wait to hear all about your 3 day visit, next week.

Take care and stay safe,

Mrs Hutton, Mrs Bird and Mrs Fish

 

 

Maths – Area

We have been exploring area in maths.  Last week, we were exploring how to calculate the area of rectangles and squares using the formula A = l x b.  This week, we have exploring how to find the area of triangles.  Firstly, we looked at right angled triangles and realised that the formula was A = ½ (l x b).  Then we carried out a practical experiment to see if the same formula could be used for all types of triangles and we discovered that it can.

 

French

To tie in with the Olympic Games, we are looking at sports and hobbies in French.  This week we have been looking at how to pronounce some sports in French.  We played a game of Connect 4 using some of the sporting events.

Over the next few weeks, we will be looking at some of our other hobbies and we will use these to start building oral sentences in French.  Feel free to ask us which sports we know.

Over the past three weeks, P5-6-7 have taken part in their class elections.  After forming their own Political Parties, they researched parties standing in the General Election and became knowledgeable about issues affecting us locally, nationally and internationally.  They used this knowledge as a basis for writing their own manifestos.  Once they had agreed upon their party promises, they created a party manifesto leaflet and wrote persuasive speeches.  Yesterday, they delivered their speeches to the class, paying particular attention to the structure of their speech and the emphasis with which they delivered it.  They were very enthusiastic to take part in our secret vote and congratulations goes to the RPTP party who won the election by one vote!

 

As part of our topic, “The Ocean and the Caribbean,” we took part in a Tech Fest event on ‘Marine Plastics.’  We heard some shocking information about the state of our oceans and used these facts to help us write a persuasive piece to try and educate people on why we should ban the sale of single-use plastics.  Ask us at home about our learning!

 

The start of the term has been exciting as we plan our new project and get our new reading books and novels.  As a class, we are excited about our new class novel, The Nowhere Emporium.  So excited, that we are up to chapter 10 already!

As part of our literacy work, we have been looking at the descriptive language in the book. We have been picking out the words to help us build images of the settings and characters.  We then used Microsoft Excel to build images of the characters.  You can see some examples at the bottom.  We will continue to finish these next week.

Our new project is based upon The Caribbean and Oceans.  This week we have been learning how many islands make up the Caribbean.  We have been using Online Atlases to learn some of the names as there over 700 islands.  We also looked at part of David Attenborough’s Blue Planet video clip, which we found really interesting.

In maths, we have started a topic on measurement and length.  This week we have been looking at different units of measure and how to convert between them.  We will be moving onto Perimeter next week.

I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend!

The last three weeks have been amazing to be back in school.  Both the pupils and staff have really enjoyed getting back to some kind of routine.  For me, it has been great to join the Luthermuir team and I have really enjoyed getting to know everyone.  I am looking forward to term 4.

Final Weeks of Term 3

Over the last three weeks, we have been finishing off our Victorians topic.  The children have been reflecting on the facts they learned throughout the term.  We have also been looking at Balmoral Castle and how it links to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  The children created mini fan books on Balmoral Castle, which have been shared on Marvellous Me.

In maths, we have been reflecting on our number activities.  We have also been looking at Chance and Uncertainty.  We have been categorising events using the phrases: certain, highly likely, likely, even chance, unlikely, highly unlikely and impossible.

In spelling, we have been exploring words associated with Easter and carrying out some literacy challenges with these words.

Next Term

Next term will be the final term for our Primary 7 pupils, which I am sure is very exciting but may also be a bit sad or nerve raking.  We hope to help them finish their Luthermuir journey in style.  With this in mind, the children have been sharing their ideas to help plan our next class project, which we will share with everyone after the holidays.

During next term, we will be undertaking a literacy unit based upon a surprise class novel.  I am keeping the novel a secret, but it is a great one!  The children will also undertake their normal reading groups activities, as well as, looking at some non-fiction texts connected to the class project.

We also have four main maths units that we will be focusing on.  Mrs Hutton will be focusing on two units.  The first being Data and Analysis.  The second will focus on Angles, Symmetry and Transformation.  I will be focusing on Measurement first before moving on to 2D and 3D shape properties.

The class will continue to have PE on a Monday afternoon and a Friday morning.  They will also continue to have Art with Ms Gatherum on a Tuesday.

Final Thoughts

As we end, and reflect upon, another ‘unique’ term, Mrs Hutton and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone, again, for their hard work, dedication and efforts.  We hope you all have a lovely holiday and recharge your batteries, ready for term 4.

Take care and stay safe,

Mrs Lynn Fish

P5-7 Class Teacher