Our  Viking activities continued today, with Primary 4 getting busy designing and making their very own Viking brooches.  The children took some time to think about what they wanted their brooch to look like, drawing their design and thinking about colour and pattern.

Later, we made our brooches using card and foil and applying their  design to the brooch.  I think Primary 4 made a fantastic job of their brooches, with lots of wonderful ideas coming to life on their hand made brooch.  Well done, you are stars!!!

Some children have yet to finish their brooch and I will update with more photos once our display is complete.

We had a fabulous Rainbow Reward day with lots of bright clothing and fun activities in class and outside.  Enjoy your weekend and see you all on Monday.

Mrs Travers

Primary 4 have been enjoying our new topic of the Vikings and learning lots about where Vikings came from,  where they travelled to, why they raided British towns and what life was like in a Viking village.

Our focus recently has been looking at the living conditions inside a Viking long house and the children worked in groups to design, plan and build their own long house models.

I think the results are pretty fantastic as you can see from the photographs below.  The team work displayed in class was fantastic too.

I am really looking forward to seeing the results of our homework challenge, to build a Viking Long Boat at home with the family!  Have fun kids and I am sure some of your parents are more excited about this challenge than some of you!!

Take Care ( and remember your rainbow colours tomorrow!)

Mrs Travers

As part of our “People who Help Us” topic, we have interviewed some of the grown ups from our school community. Today it was our campus police offer, PC Dempster who came to see us. Not only did she answer all our questions, she brought along some Police hats and jackets for us to try on! We loved finding out about PC Dempster’s job and we think there may be some budding PC’s among us!

J 

Afterwards we took part in some topic activities, including role play and craft!

J 

Primary 6 have been busy these last couple of weeks….

Primary 6 enjoyed the Halloween theme day and looked super all dressed up in their costumes. They took part in some fun Halloween activities including making skeletons using cotton buds.

Primary 6 have been working hard since they returned from the October holiday. In Literacy, they have been writing their own short story over three weeks looking at suspense openers, characterisation, and effective conclusions. This week the pupils will be redrafting and publishing their stories and designing a front and back cover too. Their stories will then be shared with other pupils in the school to enjoy and give feedback on.

The pupils are enjoying the new Rainbow Reward time on a Friday afternoon. This week they chose to go outside and use the ghillie kettle to make hot chocolates. Miss Mudge was a confident individual using the ghillie kettle for the first time herself! There were some ‘bumps’ along the way (not using the ghillie kettle properly and the fire not starting) but everyone eventually enjoyed a lovely hot chocolate.

During our PATHS lessons, Primary 6 has been discussing problems and solutions relevant to their age and stage. This week they took on the role of ‘problem solvers’ and wrote ‘fictional’ problem-solving letters. I was impressed with the strategies they suggested in their letters and the mature responses to the problems presented to them.

The pupils are working on their first Pope Francis Faith Award presentation on their hobby or interest. The pupils are enjoying using PowerPoint and the Internet to make their presentations interesting for their audience. We also watched Father Martin’s ‘Christ the King’ assembly that he kindly recorded for the pupils at Mount Carmel.

We still have lots of work to do before we move into festive activities in the lead up to Christmas. I am very proud of all pupils so far and I am looking forward to celebrating their achievements throughout Primary 6.

Miss Mudge

Hello and welcome to our blog post for term 2.  Primary 4 have had a busy first term, looking at our mini topics on animal classifications and deforestation.  Children have been working hard in literacy and numeracy within their group and are ready to move on to our new topics within each curricular area.

Literacy

Our reading and spelling activities from term 1 will continue as children focus on their Bug Club reading texts, recognising spelling sounds and phonics within these texts and using their awareness and strategies to tackle unfamiliar words.  Reading with expression and fluency will also be a focus whilst using our skills to make appropriate predictions about the text whilst giving reasons for reaching this understanding.

Whilst children have a good grasp of the difference between fiction and non-fiction texts, children will take these skills forward, being able to use key words to locate relevant information from a range of books useful for our topic.  They will be able to find, sort and organise information related to specific tasks within fiction and non-fiction texts and make notes in own words that will be used as the basis for their writing.  In writing our focus will be on extending sentences and paragraph length, whilst using interesting openers and connectives to join sentences and a wide range of descriptive words.

Maths

Our focus in maths is number and number processes, focussing on place value and partitioning numbers to understand the column value.  Those working within the circle and rectangle maths groups will be focussing on numbers up to 9,999 and addition and subtraction strategies when dealing with 4 digit numbers. Those in the square group will continue to develop an understanding of 3 digit numbers, whilst making the link between multiplication and division.  Division will be the focus for this group and developing strategies to help with division problems.

Children will regularly use their ‘Thinking It Through’ jotters to develop problem solving skills, applying knowledge of number to new contexts and developing strategies for any number problems.  We will also encourage these skills through our daily number challenges and number target board!

Health & Wellbeing

All children have had the opportunity to be pupil of the day and enjoy wearing the special sticker and privileges that come with this.  We will continue with this so as each child have the opportunity again in term 2. We have been exploring emotions, comfortable and uncomfortable and how we recognise these emotions within ourselves and in others.  We now have a bank of strategies to support us when we feel uncomfortable, and these emotions will continue to be explored as we reach a deeper understanding of how these feelings can impact on us and how to seek help or support.

In P.E, our sessions will continue to take place outside where possible, on a Monday and Wednesday afternoon, however we can now access the hall once per week and indoor sessions will commence soon.  Our focus will be on developing racquet skills further through badminton/tennis and on fitness, building stamina and strength through a variety of exercises.

R.E

Our focus during R.E sessions will be the sacraments as children prepare for their Confirmation and First Holy Communion.  We will look at the Sacrament of Baptism and how this is the starting point in our journey with God. The booklets which support First Holy Communion will be issued, later in term 2, to those pupils who are taking part, and there will be activities for parents to complete at home with their child.  This will also be our in-class focus, so children fully understand each of the Sacraments and their importance in their relationship with God.

Topic

Our topics for term 2 will be ‘The Vikings in Scotland’ and ‘Food Chains and Webs’ in science.  The focus in our Viking topic will be to look at Viking life, society, and class systems.  We will explore Viking Gods as well as look at the impact of the Vikings in Scotland. In science, understanding food chains and food webs of animals from different environments and ecosystems across the globe, will be the focus.  We will also examine the impacts human beings are having on food chains too.

We hope this is the start of another successful term as we navigate the continued impact of the pandemic on our lives.  Please be assured we will continue to keep things as normal as possible for our children, despite the different restrictions in place.

Take care,

Mrs Travers