Learning in Term 3:

Lots of our work in term 3 focused on our Vikings topic. The children’s talks from Viking gods and goddesses were fantastic and displayed brilliant research skills. We hope you enjoyed our sharing the learning assembly and having a look at all of the brilliant work from P4. Everyone worked really hard!

In writing, we looked at personal recount writing. We wrote diary entries from the perspective of a Viking child. We developed our creative writing skills with imaginative stories based around Viking sagas. We participated in the BBC’s 500 Words competition with our own short stories. Another focus was use of ambitious vocabulary in our writing.

In maths, our main focus was fractions. We benefitted from working with a principal maths teacher. We looked at solving fractions problems, placing fractions on a number line, understanding the role of numerator and denominator, compared equivalent fractions.

We worked with a visiting musical specialist, looking at elements of notation, theory, rhythm, beat and pulse. We’ve been really enjoying working on Spanish with Mrs McCreadie.

Electricity

We will be:

• Learning about the history of electricity
• Learning about safety around electricity
• Developing our understanding of electricity as a means of transferring energy
• Exploring simple electrical circuits
• Combining simple components to create electrical circuits

Core Literacy:

Our class novel this term will be The Wild Robot by Peter Brown.

This term we will be:

• Giving opinions and compare a range of texts.
• Interpreting main ideas by retelling the story in own words.
• Retelling the events of a story in chronological order.
• Answering literal, inferential and evaluative questions about a text.
• Working on asking, answering and constructing relevant questions to extend knowledge.
• Answering questions about the characters events and settling in a story to predict what will happen next.

Children will continue to be given books and weekly reading homework. Please ensure your child completes this at home and remember to sign their reading diary. Encourage your child to read widely for enjoyment at home and use the three sharings approach to discuss what they have read. Your child will also be given weekly spelling homework this term which they should complete using the grid inside their spelling homework jotters.

Core Numeracy:

This term we will be:

• Money: I can investigate and use effective mental strategies to carry out calculations involving money; I can select appropriate strategies to solve simple money problems
• Time: I can calculate 5 minute time intervals; I can tell the time in minutes to and past using both analogue and digital
• Measure: I can accurately measure and estimate the length, width and height of objects; I know the perimeter is the distance around the outside; I can measure the area of regular shapes using cm²; I can estimate, compare and order the weight of objects using grams and kilograms; I can read scales accurately.
• Data analysis: I can use simple databases to extract information; I can extract information from a table or chart; I can ask and answer questions about data presented.
• Ideas of chance and uncertainty: I can use appropriate vocabulary to predict the outcome of a scenario.

Your child will continue to receive maths homework this week. We encourage your child to continue using Sumdog at home to practice their maths skills. Children should all have a copy of their usernames and passwords.

Parenthood, Sexual Health and Relationships:

• Families and friendships
• Emotional wellbeing
• Classifying living and non- living things
• Growth and development from baby to present day/ life cycles
• Needs of a baby/ how to look after a baby
• Similarities and differences between males and females
• Correct vocabulary for male and female body parts including reproductive organs
• Maintaining a healthy body/ personal hygiene

Other curricular areas:

We will be:

• Receiving specialist music input focusing on Scots songs
• Continuing to take part in the P4 choir
• Learning Spanish with Mrs McCreadie
• Preparing for sports day with PE teachers

What a busy week we have had! We studied Michael Rosen’s poem Chocolate Cake and worked in groups to recite the poem, adding drama to bring it to life. We made Viking longships out of recycling and painted them. We continued our work on time in mathematics, learning how to tell the time on different kinds of clocks. In Art and Craft we made Mother’s Day cards after learning about Mothering Sunday. On Tuesday we took part in a Blue Planet live lesson where we learned about environmental issues.

In preparation for our Viking Assembly P4L made some Viking bread following a recipe we found in a book Luca brought in.

P4L improved their IT skills by typing up their 500 word stories editing and up levelling them as they typed. We learned how to save and re-open a document as well as how to check our spelling.

Our Viking topic continues and this week we learned about how the Vikings traded both home and abroad and produced some posters to illustrate what we had learned. 

We also completed our bronze and silver brooches which would fetch a handsome price at any Viking market!

We continued investigating fractions. This week we looked at equivalent fractions using play doh, glass beads and shapes to show fractions that were equal.

Our fractions work continues, this week we were solving problems such as: What is a 1/4 of 20? We also extended this to solving problems like this: if 1/3 is 10, what is the whole? Children chose how they wanted to solve these using paper strips, objects and/or their times tables knowledge.

In writing we began our 500 word stories which we hope to complete and send to the Radio 2 competition. We started typing these up using Clicker 7 and learned how to save a document to a specific file.

In our Viking topic we looked at similarities and differences between our language and words in the Viking Norse language. We also learned how to write our name in the Viking Runic alphabet and wrote messages to each other! We completed some Viking artwork, aren’t our lomgships wonderful!

Zobia and Lewis presented their research on Viking Gods and Goddesses. Well done on completing some fantastic work!

P4L made fabulous posters for their homework projects on a Viking Gods and Goddesses. Everyone presented their work, improving on their presentation skills from their Forth Road Bridges homework.

What a busy term it’s been! We have started our new maths topic on fractions and have enjoyed using practical resources like play doh and macaroni to explore this area of maths.

P4L took their learning outside and investigated habitats in our playground. We discovered a small burrow and wondered if a rabbit or another small animal lived there. We could see lots of reeds around the pond.

We recorded the plants and animals we found or have seen in our playground and wrote down their habitat.

In art we looked at pointillism and used cotton buds and white paint to create snowflakes. It was a lot trickier than anticipated but we made some wonderful creations.

What a busy week we have had! We did a fabulous job in performing in our Christmas show Peace Child, it was a great success. In our Habitat topic we studied classification and how we use classification keys.

In art we made wonderful Grinch pictures using oil pastels.