Welcome back!  We hope you and your families had a relaxed, enjoyable holiday.  2022 already!

Primary 5 are making excellent progress and establishing themselves as sensible, reliable upper school pupils.

During term 3 our focus will be:

Literacy

We will continue to use Bug Club as our differentiated reading resource and will be developing our fluency and comprehension skills through the use of this resource both in class and as homework. In addition, pupils will also use ‘Giglets’ as a central resource to aid our reading and writing skills.  This term we will be focussing on the genre ‘explanation’ as a writing focus, using our reading skills and topic work to inform our pieces. In reading, fluency, expression and comprehension will continue to be our priority; some groups will continue to look at inference and creation of questions. We will also explore and extend our knowledge of plurals, metaphors, alliteration and onomatopoeia as well as refine and develop our use of punctuation. Spelling will take the form of active activities related to the ‘Active Spelling’ resource, the children will continue to experience phonemes and blends pertinent to the ability and stage.

Numeracy

Pupils will continue in their working groups focussing on 1^st and 2^nd level concepts. The circles and rectangles groups will complete subtraction before tackling multiplication and division with remainders. The squares and rectangles will also focus on these areas at their level focussing on quick recall of facts. All pupils will also look at money, with links to addition and subtraction and will later focus on 2D and 3D shape recognition and properties as part of their Beyond Number topic.

It is essential that times tables should continue to be practised at home regularly to ensure quick recall, as this will aid our learning in multiplication this term. Please also allow your children to experience ‘real’ money and chat with them about finance and budgeting appropriate to their age/stage.

Health and Well-being

The PATHS visiting specialist has been very impressed with our class and their knowledge of our strategies relating to emotional regulation. Pupils are aware of their place within the upper school and the responsibility that goes with it. We will also look at substances that can damage our physical and emotional health, appropriate to our age.

R.E

This term we will look at Judaism, daily life in Jesus’ time and First century Palestine. We will also be preparing for Lent as we approach Easter time. Pupils will also continue to learn prayers and focus on reflection this term in class.

IDL

Our topic this term is ‘Continents’; pupils will use their previous skills and knowledge from our ‘Living things/ Climate change’ topic to take a closer look at individual continents. We will examine population, weather, countries within continents, surrounding oceans and culture and traditions. Writing, ICT and expressive arts lessons will relate to this.

As always we are enjoying our time working with your children. Happy New Year!

Thanks for your on-going support.

Mrs Crawford & Mrs McIntyre.