Welcome back to term 2. What a great start we have had in Primary 4, the children have settled in well and there has been lots of amazing learning taking place. Here is an update of our learning for this term.

Literacy

For our reading focus this term, we will be continue to develop comprehension strategies such as visualisation and metalinguistics through a range of reading materials, including shared texts in class and our individual reading books. We will be looking at the differences between fact and fiction texts and the features of these. The children will continue to develop their skills of skimming and scanning and text and looking at note taking.

During writing in Term 2, we will continue to focus on building on our skills in creating a report using factual information and an interesting layout. We were introduced to this before the holidays and this will complement our reading for information focus.

Spelling will take the form of active spelling activities and the children will experience phonemes and blends at their working level.

Numeracy & Maths

This term we will look at strategies for solving addition and subtraction problems, this will link to the mental maths strategies that we are looking at during our daily number talks. We will use a range of these strategies to solve number and word problems.

In Beyond Number we will be focussing on 3D shape and its properties for identification. Pupils will have the opportunity to make their own 3D shapes and identify lines of symmetry and right angles.

Health and Wellbeing

We will continue with our PATHs programme, looking at the importance of making good choices, listening to others and why fair play rules are important. We will continue with our Pupil of the Day, so keep a look out for your children coming home with their compliment sheet!

PE

PE is on a Wednesday and Friday. This term we will be covering;

• Hockey (Oct/Nov)
• Rugby (Oct/Nov)
• Social Dancing (Nov/Dec)

PE kit must be brought in and left at the start of each term. Before each holiday, the kit will be sent home for washing to be freshened up and returned on the first day back.  Pupils will be asked to remove any watches or jewellery  and if unable to will not be able to take part unfortunately. If your child cannot take part for any reason, please contact the school.

French

In French,  we will build on our number skills for use in active games and look at learning everyday language in topics such as food, our home and school. We will be able to say what we like and dislike. Later in the term we will focus on Christmas in France and learn some French Christmas songs/hymns.

IDL

P4 will be continuing to learn about the Vikings. We will be looking at the Vikings in Scotland and life at the time. Writing, ICT and expressive arts lessons will link to our Vikings topic.

Science

P4 will investigate the forces exerted by magnets on other magnets and magnetic materials, we will look at how magnets are used in everyday life and demonstrate how magnets work through various practical activities.

Religious Education

This term we will be reflecting the life of the saints and how they listened to God’s word and responded to it and, how we can look to their example. As we move into the season of Advent we will reflect on our own Advent journey and will focus on the place of the Magi in the Christmas narrative.

Homework will be distributed on a Monday to be completed, signed and returned by Friday. Keep an eye on the class blog for regular updates to what is happening in class, recent learning and relevant upcoming events.

Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to a fabulous term with P4!

Mrs McIntyre and Mrs MacKinnon

Curricular update – Primary 5 – Term 2

Primary 5 have worked so hard in term 1. With term 2 about to begin I would like to give you an update. I will be back in the classroom for the most of the week with Mrs MacKinnon taking on other teaching duties throughout the school. I am excited for the term ahead on the run up to Santa coming!

Literacy

The children will continue to develop their word attack strategies through different questioning techniques and comprehension strategies. These strategies will include using their prior knowledge, visualisation and metalinguistics. The children already have experience of using these strategies however will now explore them through different genres of text. We will look at the main purpose of a text as well as what the difference is between fact and opinion. We will also explore persuasive language and how this can be linked to writing persuasive texts. In terms of talking and listening, the children will be asked to prepare a short talk which will have a link to their Victorians topic which they will present to their class.

Numeracy

The class have already made excellent progress in terms of their numeracy. They already have excellent knowledge of the number talks strategies taught. We will continue to look at our multiples of 10 and 100 whilst looking at doubling and halving. (an example of this would be 2×740 = 740+740). We will also focus on the associated language of these calculations such as ‘find the product of’. Our number focus this term will be on multiplication and division with a major focus on times tables. One area of numeracy that children find difficult is the use of word problems. The class will continue to keep this as a focus whilst identifying the appropriate calculations based on the mathematical language of the 4 operations. Whilst learning about multiplication and division, the children will be introduced to decimals and whole numbers as well as negative numbers and why we need these. In terms of beyond number topics, last term saw the children expand their knowledge of time and begin their 3D shape topic. This will continue this term as well as money and how the coronation of our new monarch will change our money.

Health and Wellbeing

The children have a good understanding of what a healthy relationship is. We will continue to expand on this throughout term 2 with a focus on how a healthy relationship has respect and why it should be reciprocated. This term will also have a focus on substance misuse and what the children should do if they found themselves in an emergency.

Within our P.E. curriculum, the main focus will be on gymnastics with social dancing being introduced as we near Christmas. Although many of the children bring their P.E. kits into school, there is still around half of the class that consistently forget their kits of P.E. days. Although I have been fairly lenient with this so far, gymnastics is such a practical sport in terms of the movements involved, that it is essential for the children to be wearing their full P.E. kit to ensure their safety. Please ensure that your child has their kit in school on P.E. days. They are invited to leave these kits in school at all times.

Religious Education

This term is a very important period in our liturgical calendar with celebrations like All Saints Day and advent. As well as learning about these celebrations, we will be exploring our relationships with God.

Expressive Arts

Art – We will look at the colours that we can use to create mood, atmosphere and emotion. We will learn about artists such as Van Gogh and Piet Mondrian which will help us to enhance our observational skills.

Dance – Linked with P.E. for social dancing at Christmas.

Drama – During our drama sessions, we will look at characterisation as well as looking at how costumes can help us get into character. (We will link our drama to our topic)

IDL/Topic

Our topic this term will focus on the Victorians. This topic will have literacy, ICT, Art, R.E and numeracy tasks throughout it as we explore the world during Victorian times. We will compare our lives today to the lives of children during this time as well as having a particular focus on Queen Victoria as the monarch.

Technology

The children have a good understanding of how sway works and this has helped them develop their research skills. This term will focus on the functionality of GLOW. The children are already able to send emails to each other, but now they will learn how to attach files and create hyperlinks to access websites.

We have a very busy term ahead and lots of fun and learning too. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as Acting Depute Head Teacher but feel I am more than ready to get back into class with my children. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support.

Mrs McCreadie x

Primary 2 Curricular Update – Term 2

Hello and welcome back to the Primary 2 blog! I hope you all had a relaxing October break and are ready for the upcoming Halloween and festive celebrations in what will be another hardworking and exciting term for primary 2.

Term 2 curricular update:

Literacy

Phonics- We will continue to learn our joined phonemes and grow our confidence in reading and writing these. Spelling will continue to be a focus as we learn new common words which will help develop our independent writing skills.

Writing – This term our writing will continue to develop our writing skills focusing on description, this will be supported with individual description bubbles. We will also continue to focus on our writing targets of capital letters, finger spaces and full stops.

Reading – We will be developing our understanding of texts by using literal questions and we will focus on our word attack strategies as we develop our reading and writing. In class we are working our way through bug club texts which are appropriate to our stage of learning, these are also assigned for homework which you can access online. We will continue to work on our comprehension and decoding skills within our reading groups

Numeracy and Mathematics

This term we will be continuing with our counting on and back from any number, this will help with mental addition and subtraction. We will be looking at addition and subtraction calculations and how these are linked which create ‘fact families’. Within addition we will think about the mental strategies we can use to answer calculations such as doubles, near doubles and counting on. During this term we will explore pattern including shapes and numbers to 100, this will link in with our frozen IDL topic perfectly! Towards the end of the term, we will begin to develop some aspects of time, each morning we complete our daily calendar looking at dates and seasons, we will also start to tell the time using digital and analogue clocks as the topic progresses.

Health and Wellbeing

In term 2 we will continue our whole school PATHS programme to build on our social and emotional skills. We will learn ‘how to do turtle’ to manage emotions and Twiggle the turtle will help us with this. Our ‘pupil of the day’ will still run during this term which allows children to gift and receive compliments from others. We continue to complete our emotion check in each day and we still have a focus on friendships.

P.E.

During this term we will develop our small ball skills which consist of bouncing, throwing, rolling and catching. We will then work on our jumping, rolling and travelling skills during our first block of gymnastics. Towards the end of the term children will be learning social dancing.

.P.E. days will be Tuesday and Thursday.  (please remember to remove any earrings on gym days)

Religious Education

We will be learning about the importance of the Bible during our RE time and reading the story of creation. Throughout the month of November, we will look at our theme on remembrance. For the month of December, we will celebrate advent and the birth of Jesus by learning the nativity and exploring various other activities during this exciting time.

Inter-disciplinary Learning (Topic)

Our topic for term 2 is frozen. The main area we will be learning about is the processes of the planet by investigating how water can change from one form to another and relating this to everyday experiences. We will be describing changes of water, looking at freezing, melting points and temperatures. We will be experimenting with the use of materials and their properties to develop our understanding of which materials would be practical for certain situations. We will consider ways in which materials would increase/decrease the melting process and temperatures.

Our topic will make several cross curricular links which will include science, expressive arts, technologies, literacy and numeracy.

Expressive Arts

Our art, music and drama learning and work this term will be centred around the Christmas Nativity.

Thank you for visiting our Primary 2 blog on what we have been learning this term!

Miss Maitland