Primary 5 Curricular update – Term 4

Welcome back and I hope you all had an excellent Easter. The children have settled well back into school and are ready for the term ahead. Please find a brief overview of the learning that will take place in the term ahead as we approach summer.

IDL

The children are thoroughly enjoying their continents topic. This will continue for a short time after the holidays before we complete our final topic of P5 – A night at the movies. This is an enterprise topic in which the children must budget and plan an event in order to make a profit. My current thoughts on this are to hold a movie night for P1-4 in late May/early June. The P5 children will plan a night with popcorn, juice and show a movie at a small cost to the P1-4s. I have not discussed these plans with the children yet; therefore they might change as the term progresses.

Literacy

Throughout our grammar this term, we will be learning about pronouns, proper nouns, adverbs and metaphors. We will also be looking at onomatopoeia. These skills will be transferred across our learning in writing as well as reading.

We will continue to learn about our comprehension skills such as prior knowledge, metalinguistics, visualisation etc. We have already began to take notes when watching or listening to a piece of media. We will explore this skill so that the children can decide what style of note taking they prefer.

Primary 5 will continue to proof read and edit all writing tasks. The children find this task difficult and can often skip over their mistakes. This skill takes a lot of concentration and patience. We will be practising this for the rest of the school year.

Our writing focus for the term ahead will be on report writing and recounts. The children will continue to work on their spelling rules through active spelling activities such as diacritical marking and definition spelling.

Our listening and talking skills to be worked on this term are our ability to present to the class. The children will create a SWAY (an online power point) and then present this to the class. They will work towards achieving specific success criteria throughout this process such as good eye contact, pace of speech etc.

Numeracy

After an extremely busy term between January and March, the children are ready to begin division after Easter. Division links well with the teaching of fractions and decimals which is the reason behind them being taught together. Our beyond number topics will include data handling and measurement. The children worked very well on learning their 24 hour time. Although there is good understanding of this, we will continue to practise this skill as the majority of the class did find this topic difficult.

Our learning through number talks will continue as the children develop their ability to solve calculation mentally.

Health and Wellbeing

Our P.E. days will be on a Monday and a Wednesday. Our topics that will be covered this term are dancing (this will be completed through our summer show), tennis, athletics (in preparation for sports day) and outdoor games as we approach summer.

Primary 5 have also been lucky enough to have Bob from the North West bowling club into school to teach us how to play lawn bowls. When the new season of bowls starts up in April, Primary 5 will also be visiting the North West bowling club to play bowls on the actual green. We are very excited.

We will also continue our Do be mindful programme of work which encourages us all to be more mindful of our surroundings and provides us all with strategies to stay calm. As we progress through the term, we will be learning about substance misuse and the consequences on our health and well-being that substance misuse can cause.

We will also be looking at what it takes to be a parent/carer. The children will discuss what it means to care for someone the way their adults care for them.

Religious Education

This term will focus on how God reveals himself to us through Jesus and how we can nurture our relationship with God. We will also learn how our relationship with God can be deepened through prayer and placing our trust in him. The class will also look at the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit can help guide us through life’s difficulties.

During the month of May, we celebrate the mother of God Mary. We will look at Mary’s importance in our everyday lives and how important she was in Jesus’ life.

The class will also learn about the rosary. We will look at the joyful, sorrowful, glorious and luminous mysteries of the rosary.

Technology

The children’s I.T. skills are growing every day. They can now confidently send emails with attachments in them. We have been working on creating sways of our choice. Next term, we will be using our research skills to create a SWAY about our continents topic. The children will then present this to the class.

Expressive Arts

This term’s expressive arts will be completely covered during our summer show. We will complete art, music, drama and dance through this. Staff are already busy getting ready and re looking forward to inviting you all in for the final show. Keep your eyes peeled for all the important information on the blog.

I, as always, thank you for your ongoing support. If there is anything you are concerned about please do not hesitate to get in contact.

Many thanks,

Mrs McCreadie

A busy meeting after school today (in the sunshine)…

All cast members and roles to be announced tomorrow….

Keep your eyes peeled for updates ☺️

To all parents and carers of p4&5 children,

Myself and Mrs MacKinnon have been keeping an eye on the forecast for our trip to the Dean Park tomorrow and in true Scottish fashion, it has to be rainy and windy. We have made the decision to postpone this trip until the last term. We have made this decision based on a few reasons. First and foremost, this trip was a treat for the children and we don’t want them being cold, wet and miserable. Secondly, if it is raining heavily, we will be unable to access the park (the slide in particular) as it will not be safe for the children to access. And lastly, we had already heard from the rangers at the Dean Park to say that they were unable to accommodate our inputs of mammals and den building tomorrow due to unforseen circumstances (although they are more than willing to change the date for these). We were happy to go ahead with our trip regardless of this, however we feel that with the added restrictions due to bad weather, we would be better to go at a later date. We are very sorry to have had to make this decision, but as always, the children’s safety is paramount. I hope everyone understands and we will definitely get looking at another date for the trip in the next term.

As always, we thank you for your support,

Mrs McCreadie

What a day we had to raise money for SCIAF on Tuesday. Thank you to all of our parents and carers. We raised an amazing amount of money for SCIAF and the children (and staff) had a day full of fun activities too. 

On Tuesday 19th March, Primary 5 are organising a SCIAF fun day for the entire school. We are asking all our children to bring in a donation to take part in this day full of activities. The money raised will go straight into the charity boxes in each class. On this day, we have our active schools co-ordinator Mark Devlin providing a golf input for every class, we have gardening with Mr Leslie, litter picking, egg decorating and much more. We are also going to have some outdoor play and with this ask that your child brings in an outdoor toy such as a bike or a scooter for this time. They must bring a helmet due to health and safety reasons.

We are also asking that children wear old clothes on their bottom half due to the nature of these activities as we may get mucky during them. School jumpers should be worn on top.

Please give a small donation to this wonderful charity.

We can’t wait!

Thank you, Primary 5

Curricular update term 2 – Primary 5

The children have been working very hard in term 1 and are ready to begin term 2.

IDL

Our interdisciplinary topic for the term ahead is Knights and Castles. We have already began learning about castles and their purpose throughout time (with a particular interest in Scottish castles). We will look at the different parts of a castle and what purpose they serve. In terms of a Knight, we will learn all about their lifestyle, their job and how they ended up in such a position.

Literacy

They thoroughly enjoyed our class novel “The Butterfly Lion” and the tasks that complimented this text. Moving forward into term 2, our reading tasks will come from our bug club books. We will be looking at lots of comprehension strategies including visualisation and metalinguistics as well as different styles of questioning which will allow the children to explore their understanding of literal, evaluative and inferential questions and how each of these should be answered correctly. Our writing genres that we are learning about this term are narrative writing and response writing. The learning that took place last term (descriptive writing) will compliment these genres and allow the children to up-level their writing using the knowledge already gained. The tools for writing will also extend to speech marks, commas as well as the children’s opinions on what they are writing about.

Numeracy

The children will be learning about addition and subtraction up to 4 digit numbers whilst exploring carrying and exchanging. We will look at decimal numbers and their place within number and link this to our money topic (this will then be represented by pence). Throughout the year, we will be learning how to tackle word problems. This means using our existing knowledge, taking apart the question and only using the information that we need to solve the calculation. During their learning, the children will also be developing their ability and understanding of using the correct mathematical language when discussing their number work and learning. The class will be working with Mrs McIntyre for part of the week and will be looking at time and angles in particular this term.

Health and Well-being

This term will focus on food health and what makes us healthy. We will be learning about portions of food whilst examining what a good portion size is for each of the food groups. We will be looking at current healthy eating messages from the Scottish government (i.e. lowering salt and sugar or how to avoid obesity)

Our P.E. days remain a Monday and a Wednesday for now; however this ay change as the term progresses. Our topics for P.E. this term are gymnastics, football and social dancing in preparation for our Christmas party.

R.E.

Our R.E. focus for this term will consist of Saints during November and Advent during December. During P5 there is a constant theme throughout all religious lessons linked to the Gospel of Mark and the class know that it is this gospel that provides us with our learning this year.

Expressive Arts

Art – We will be painting from observation using a range of materials and techniques. We will also be building a castle as a homework task which will link to our class topic of Knights and castles. There will have to be a design brief prior to building this.

Music – All music for the term ahead will have a focus on the Christmas show and party.

Drama – Our learning through drama will revolve around our topic (knights and castles) as well as PATHS when the children act out specific situations.

Dance – Social dancing in preparation for our Christmas party.

Science

We will be learning about water during science this term. Within this topic, we will be exploring how water is collected, cleaned and transferred to our houses for us to use. We will also link this to the different ways a family uses water as well as how we can conserve it.

Technology

The children are now much more confident in accessing their own school accounts as well as their online accounts (such as GLOW, bug club and sumdog). We will continue to work on this as the year progresses as well as practising our word processing skills. We will be practising how to save and retrieve documents as well as editing their work before printing.

I am thoroughly enjoying teaching Primary 5 and look forward to the term ahead. As always, I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your continuing support. I hope to see you all in November at our pupil progress meetings.

Take care,

Mrs McCreadie

Primary 5 are working hard alongside our active schools co-ordinator, Mark Devlin. We are learning how we can support the children in our school with play.

Primary 5 – Term 1

Hi everyone. This is the first term’s update on Primary 5’s learning. The class are already working very hard and are eager to learn. This is a quick snapshot of what will be covered in the term ahead. There is lots to do and I am sure that there will be lots of fun along the way.

IDL

Our interdisciplinary topic this term is knights and castles. We have already started this and the children are enjoying learning about what castles are nearby and what knights did. I am hopeful to take the class to visit the Dean Castle.

Literacy

The class have already started reading our class novel, ‘The Butterfly Lion’ by Michael Morpurgo. They have been completing tasks relating to the text and I am already impressed with their comprehension skills. Within reading this term, we will be looking at the main purpose of a text as well as the different genres of books. We have an extensive class library that the children can access for personal choice and enjoyment, as well as our school library which we will also be visiting. The children will continue with bug club and this will have a learning focus of metalinguistics and visualisation. The children will develop their understanding of what they are reading and I am hopeful of your support at homework time to complete their reading online. All children will be encouraged to read their texts with expression and fluency.

Our writing genres for the term ahead are descriptive writing and narrative writing. The class will be working on writing their piece, editing it and re drafting it, focussing on layout in order to engage their reader. This is when the children will access ICT in order to type their re draft piece of writing.

In terms of our listening and talking element of literacy, the children will be focussing on listening to and for instructions. This is something that the class find difficult at times. They will work on their ability to show respect to everyone in the class by giving good looking eyes and listening ears when it is appropriate to do so.

The class will complete handwriting every week within class and we would ask that this is promoted at home in terms of homework also.

Numeracy

The entire class will continue to work on their times tables throughout the year.  We have already began working on our understanding of place value and what value each digit holds within the columns. Depending on what group the children are in for their numeracy, they will be working on place value using units, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands and hundred thousands.

We will also be looking at rounding to the nearest ten, hundred and thousand. This will enable the children to develop their skill of estimating so they can then find approximate answers to calculations and problems.

The children will develop their knowledge of shape. Some of the things that the class will be investigating through shapes are describing triangles by their sides and defining what kind of triangle it is, for example, equilateral, isosceles and scalene. The class will investigate the symmetrical values of each shape, looking for a line of symmetry, and will learn how to make patterns and designs using these symmetrical properties. This topic will be covered by Mrs McIntyre on a Wednesday.

Our whole school will concentrate on number talks throughout the year. These lessons encourage children to solve calculations using different strategies. This allows children to have ownership of their own learning by using the strategies that suit their learning style best.

Health and Wellbeing

Our P.E. days are a Monday and a Wednesday. We are currently learning about hockey and developing our ability to dribble, pass and shoot to target. After this topic, we will hopefully be moving onto to rugby and the skills involved with this.

Primary 5 already participate in mindfulness every day, this is something that the entire class benefit from and have been doing this since the beginning of Primary 4.  It is my intention to train all children in the massage in schools programme which will enable the children to develop another skill in managing their mental health on a day to day basis. I will, of course, be seeking parent’s permission before this would be introduced and further information is available on request.

Our PATHS programme will help the children to develop positive relationships within the class and school.  Delving into the emotions that the children feel will help them to understand why they are feeling this way as well as giving them the tools to cope with these emotions.

Our core health and wellbeing teaching will focus on good diet, how much sleep a child of their age needs to stay healthy and how they can rest. We will also look at the skills that are required to manage changing relationships focussing on tolerance and mutual trust.

R.E.

In order to link our R.E. with our health and wellbeing, we will be learning about friendship through bible stories. The class will earn some of the miracle stories that allowed Jesus to show that he was the son of God. We will continue to pray to God and ask for forgiveness when we need it and say thank you for things we are grateful for.  In preparation for mass throughout the year, the children will be learning new hymns and prayers.

Expressive arts

This term, the class will be focussing on art through drawing. We will look at the use of lines and texture within a drawing and what materials we can use effectively. Our music this term will be focussing on singing. This will be completed through our hymn practises and drama will be explored later in the year.

ICT

Now that the children have access to their usernames and passwords for the network, we will spend this term practising logging in and accessing the computer network, bug club, Sumdog and glow. The children will also be looking at re-drafting some of their writing which will develop their word processing and formatting skills. They will then to encourage to save this work to their own desktop.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support so far this term and look forward to everything that is to come.

Take care,

Mrs McCreadie

Primary 5 have taken full advantage of the beautiful weather today and have taken their numeracy outside.

Primary 5 enjoyed an outdoor learning session with a focus of rounding to the nearest 10 in numeracy. They worked hard in pairs to complete their rounding flowers 😁

Well we definitely know how to have fun at MC. Here are a few pictures from our fantastic day on Wednesday (even if the good old Scottish weather meant we couldn’t go outside). We would like to give a great big shout out and thank you to our wonderful Friends of Mount Carmel who organised our fun day. We had a blast. We would also like to say a great big thank you to Deborah Boyd who has been an amazing friend of Mount Carmel for many years. She has been a parent at our school for the last 13 years and has helped organised many fun days! We will miss you and thank you Deborah  💙

#teammc

Primary 5 Curriculum update Term 4

Hello everyone!

Primary 5 had an excellent term last term with lots of hard work and fun taking place. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the children for all of their hard work during this time. They really have been working their socks off and should be very proud of themselves. They even led a whole school Mass on the last week of term. This was an excellent achievement.

I would also like to thank the children’s adults for their continued support. Without you, I wouldn’t get to teach such wonderful children. It was also lovely to see some of you at our sharing the learning afternoon. We hope you enjoyed yourselves.

This term will again be really busy with everything from assessments to whole school summer trips as we complete our P5 journey. Please see below some aspects of the curriculum that we will be covering between April and June.

Literacy

We will be exploring discursive writing as our writing genre this term. Within this genre, the children will be expected to explain their thoughts and feelings regarding a particular topic whilst attempting to influence/persuade the reader. This will focus on the writer’s word choice, the use of rhetorical questions and emotive language. The children are also working on their ability to read over what they have written and then re-draft their work using Microsoft word.

The children have been working extremely hard on their grammar skills and this term will focus on alliteration, onomatopoeia and compound words.

The class will continue to develop their reading and comprehension skills through working on their ability to answer different styles of comprehension questions. This is something we have already been looking at; however up until now, this has been very structured and taken at a slow pace This term, I will be looking for a more independent approach to these questions.

Numeracy

The children worked extremely hard last term on division and fractions, as well as linking these to percentages and decimals. This term we will focus on addition and subtraction up to 4 digits. Within addition, we will look at addition with whole numbers as well as decimal numbers and within subtraction the focus will be more around exchanging through place value columns.

Our beyond number topic will be measurement with the first focus being area and perimeter before we move onto volume and mass.

Another aspect of numeracy that will be covered this term is data handling. Throughout this, we will cover bar charts and tally marks. We will also use our knowledge of fractions from last term to help us understand pie charts.

Health and Well being

Health and Well Being this term will have a focus on food health whilst looking at the key nutrient groups and food diversity we require to stay healthy.

God’s loving plan will also be covered this term which will have a focus on growth, social networking, safe use of phones and the UN charter on right of the child.

P.E this term will be tennis, hockey, athletics and outdoor games and all the skills required.

R.E

We will be exploring our relationships with God and look at how this relationship can be deepened through prayer and trust. May is the month of Mary. We will have a focus on our mother Mary and the important role she plays in the bible stories and the life of Jesus.

IDL

This term’s topic will be local politics. We will take a closer look at what are reliable sources of information. The children will learn vocabulary such as democracy and election. This will be linked into the new SNP government and cabinet. We will celebrate Scotland’s inclusivity of a variety of cultures, values and customs.

Thank you again, Mrs McCreadie

Many of our children access the Exchange counselling service. The service helps support our young people with difficulties they may be facing. They are an excellent resource that have received positive feedback from the children who access the support.

If your child attends sessions with a member of the Exchange team, could you please take time to complete this short survey. This gives you, our parents and carers, the opportunity to have your voices heard and allows you to share your feedback for the service. Please click on the link below to complete.

Thank you!

https://forms.office.com/e/AJ212UYGGw

Primary 5 chose to have an afternoon of fun and games in the pe hall this afternoon as their rainbow reward. As you can see, they had a ball!! Next week they have chosen to being their bikes and scooters into school for an afternoon outside. Please ensure that they bring their helmets in with their outdoor toys as they will be unable to take part without one. Thank you, Mrs McCreadie

Primary 5 had a lovely time with Mrs Elstone on Friday when she came to visit. She taught us all about factors and how these numbers can help us in our learning.

Hi everyone. The lovely Primary 5 have asked for their rainbow reward next Friday to be junk modelling. Could you please send in any boxes, milk cartons or kitchen roll tubes for this activity. Thank you!!!

Curricular update – Primary 5 – Term 3

I hope you all had a lovely family Christmas!! The children are now back in class and the hard work for term 3 has already began. Here you will find an update on what will be coming up regarding the children’s learning over the next few months.

Literacy

In terms of reading, the children will continue to develop their skills in their tool for reading such as using their prior knowledge to help them with a text or visualisation which allows them to use their imagination when descriptions are provided. There is a need for continued learning when it comes to answering questions regarding their texts. We will continue to work on the skill of notetaking. The children will develop an understanding that notes help to organise thinking and sort information into manageable chunks. They will also learn how to take their own notes. Within their reading, we will look at the language within texts, with a particular focus on persuasive language which will then link in with our writing this term.

Term 2 focussed on report writing whilst utilising a lot of different skills taught. The children wrote excellent newspaper reports on Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder plot. This term, we will be learning all about response writing as well as discursive writing.

Due to the nature of discursive writing, our listening and talking focus will be on looking at the difference between fact and opinion. We will continue to complete listening tasks whilst working on our ability to listen for instructions.

Numeracy

I am so very proud of the entire class with regards to their learning in numeracy last term. The majority of the class used their knowledge of times tables to complete complex multiplication calculations using different number talk strategies. They worked extremely hard with Mrs MacKinnon to complete 3D shape, co-ordinates, and symmetry. They also learned about grid references. The children will continue to practise their times tables daily in order to retain these facts. This will help them when it comes to completing division tasks and fractions this term. The beyond number topics that will be taught are money and different aspects of measurement. These will be taught by Mrs MacKinnon.

Health and Well being

This term, we will have a focus on the children’s self-perception. We will look at the positive things they feel about their appearance as well as looking at what self-esteem and self-worth is. This is really important as they are the generation that are exposed to so much body image negativity in social media, it is extremely important that they understand how precious and perfect they are. As part of this, we will look at the achievements of each of the children and what areas of development they all have. There will also be a small focus on what potential careers each of the children could have and what will be required of them to achieve these goals.

Before we look at sexual health and relationships in term 4, we will first explore the meaning of the word ‘private’ and explore how important this is as we grow.

Within our P.E. lessons, we will learn about tennis, basketball and football and all of the skills and rules for each of these.

R.E.

This term, we will learn about how Jesus helps people who may have been considered as outcasts during this time. We will look at how Christians across the world are called to look after everyone, regardless of religion, race, culture and treat everyone with respect.  Jesus called his disciples to follow him. We will revisit previous learning and examine the Jewish Sabbath and rituals associated with it. Towards the end of the term, the class will begin preparation for the celebration of Lent.

Expressive Arts

Art – Last term saw us explore colour and tone with paints. This term, we will be creating collages using different kinds of materials to create contrasts within a picture. We will use these skills to create art through our topic of Floods, tsunamis and landslides.

Drama – During our drama inputs, we will be learning about using different voices and how to use tone of voice to enhance characters. We will also be looking at giving constructive feedback to our peers.

IDL (Topic)

Our topic this term will be Floods, Tsunamis and Landslides. This topic will look at these natural disasters throughout our world and how climate control and climate change is impacting on these incidents.

Science

Our science topic this term is going to be diseases within our bodies. We will also have a look at pioneers in the world of medicine, such as Joseph Lister and Alexander Fleming.

ICT

The children’s understanding of ICT and how the hardware and software can be best used. They have a good understanding of how programs such as glow and word can be used to aid their learning. This term, we will learn how to attach documents to our emails, use hyperlinks and save our work on an online platform. The class are making god progress in their ICT learning.

French

Mrs MacKinnon is very pleased with the progress in French so far this year. The class will be learning the French vocabulary for hobbies this term and how they can use this vocabulary properly within French spoken language.

This will be a busy term. Our P.E. days continue to be a Tuesday and a Thursday. Please ensure that your child has a suitable P.E kit in school on these days. (Indoor shoes – NOT their school shoes, a pair of shorts/joggers and a t shirt)

As always, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your ongoing support. If there is anything you need to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact me via the school office.

Many thanks, Mrs McCreadie

Please see below the most up to date Parent information regarding our school counselling service.

East Ayrshire – The Exchange Primary PARENTS (2) (1)

Hi everyone.

Our Christmas Fayre is fast approaching with only 11 days to go and we really need your help. We are looking for donations of raffle prizes, tombola prizes and bottles for the bottle stall (if these could be handed in as soon as possible we would really appreciate it) as well as home baking nearer to the actual date of the fayre.  There is lots of stall holders for you to come and visit as well as singing from our wonderful choir. We haven’t been able to hold our amazing fayre for a couple of years now so let’s make this one amazing!!

All donations are very much appreciated and can be handed into the school office. 

Thank you and we cannot wait to welcome you back into our wonderful school. Details below.

Date: 2nd December 2022 

Doors open at 6:15pm with choir singing at 6:30pm (stalls etc will open after the choir has sang.)

Price: £2.50 per adult and children get free entry (all tickets get you a free hot drink)

Special visitor: Santa will be attending and for £2 your child can visit him and receive a special present. 

SEE YOU SOON 

Our Christmas fayre is fast approaching and we need your help. With only 3 weeks to go, we are looking for donations for our raffle, bottle stall and home baking stall.  We would really appreciate any donations you could make and all proceeds will go directly into the Friends of Mount Carmel fund. This fund helps to pay for different things throughout the year, for example buses for trips or Primary 7 leavers hoodies. Any donations would be greatly appreciated. We can’t wait to see you there!!

Mount Carmel Christmas Fayre

2nd December 6:30pm til 9pm

We are so looking forward to welcoming you all back for our Christmas Fayre this year. This will take place on the 2nd December. We have lots of stalls from local businesses, some home baking, raffles and of course our beautiful Christmas crafts that our children are already busy organising. The tickets for this will be £2.50 for adults and children will gain entry for free. This ticket price includes tea and coffee. There will be a performance from our excellent choir at 6:30pm with doors opening at 6:15pm.  There will be more details to follow in the next couple of weeks so keep your eyes peeled!

We cannot wait to see you all!!

Primary 5 have chosen their rainbow reward for this week. They have asked for a bike and scooter afternoon.  Can you please help your child to bring in their bikes and scooters which will be kept at the middle base before rainbow reward in the afternoon. Can you also please ensure that your child brings in their helmets on this day as they will not be able to ride their bikes and scooters without them. Many thanks. Mrs McCreadie 

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

Hi everyone. The children have asked if they could have a movie and pyjama afternoon for their rainbow reward. Could you please send the children into school with their pyjamas to change into in the afternoon. They should not come into school wearing them.

Many thanks, Mrs McCreadie

Our Halloween raffle tickets are available to buy on Parent Pay. The lucky ticket will be drawn on Friday 28th October (Killieween) during our school assembly. The hampers include lots of goodies from sweeties to wind up eye balls. Good luck everyone!!

We would like to say a great big THANKYOU to our friends at Atrium homes who very kindly donated £500 to the school for our breakfast club. 

!!HALLOWEEN RAFFLE!!

Our Halloween raffle is coming soon. Pay for your tickets on Parent Pay for a chance to win this goodie bag. It is full of sweeties, eyeballs and creepy crawlies.  Keep an eye out for a chance to win!

GOOD LUCK!