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P5 Curriculum Update – Term 4

Welcome back!  We hope you had a lovely Easter break with your families and are ready for a fun packed and hopefully sunny last term. Fingers crossed!!

 

Primary 5 have now established themselves in our upper school and continue to strive to be good role models for their peers and build on their increasing independence.

During term 4 our focus will be:

Literacy

This term P5 will be focussing on Narrative writing, we will be developing literary devices and linking this to our topic. In reading, we will continue our progress within Bug Club further developing our AL comprehension strategies as described in our latest ‘Sharing the Learning’ video. We will focus on listening and talking throughout our topic lessons, expressing our opinions and justifying these with good reasoning in debate/ lesson presentations. Some groups will continue to work on literal comprehension and prediction skills, whilst others will continue their work on inferential and evaluative questions. Spelling and phoneme work will be consolidated this term and pupils will use ‘Active Spelling’ resources and activities to support this.

Numeracy

This term, P5 will be focussing on Division, as well as Fractions and Decimals. The circles and rectangles groups will complete division with remainders. The squares and triangles will also focus on these areas at their level. In Beyond Number, pupils will look at 2D and 3D shape recognition and properties, making links to angles and symmetry. Later in the term, we will also be exploring ‘Measurement’. (volume, mass, length, area)

Health and Well-being / PE

We will be focussing on completing our PATHS lessons and moving onto explore further areas such as healthy food, hygiene, bodies (God’s Loving Plan) as well as keeping ourselves safe. We will also look at substances that can damage our physical and emotional health, appropriate to our age.  Pupils will have the opportunity to visit many of these concepts during our whole school  ‘Health week’.

PE days will now be on Wednesday and Friday mornings. We will participate in independent and teamwork for Athletics during April/May moving onto Orienteering in June. Pupils will complete these lessons outdoors as much as possible so please make sure your child is prepared for the weather that day. It is essential that your child comes to school prepared for outdoor learning in appropriate clothing as we hopefully plan to be outside more as the summer nears and weather improves. Make sure they have plenty of water with them for very hot periods and sun cream.

Science

This term in Science we will be investigating water. We will be developing our knowledge and understanding of the water cycle and also exploring and investigating the methods for purifying water. We will look at the many uses of water and why it is important to conserve water.

RE 

As Eastertide passes, we will be mainly focusing on Mary, Our Lady.  Celebrating her example and significance through the Gospel of Mark as well as revisiting the feast of the Ascension and Pentecost. In June, we will look at God’s Loving Plan resources as part our This Is Our Faith programme. This will look closely at friendships, relationships as well as the role of being a parent /carer.

IDL

Our enterprise topic this term is ‘A Night at the Movies’. Pupils will look at the evolution of the film industry from the silent movies, introduction of sound, colour, animation, from Drive-Thru to 3D/4D currently. This will include developing our Talking and Listening and also writing skills (scripts/movie reviews, Gogglebox), also ICT  skills ( Green screen/ ipad) to make our own movie trailers which will incorporate set design, production and directing and expressive arts lessons to create our sets. These will be ‘premiered’ at our own Oscars ceremony/Party where we will dress up in our best and have the opportunity to culminate all our learning, have fun and raise some funds for school.

Thank you again for your continual support throughout this year for our P5 pupils , class and school.

Mrs McIntyre & Mrs Mackinnon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Primary 2/3 Curricular Update Term 4

Welcome to our final curriculum update blog post of the session.  Primary 2/3 have been very busy during our third term with lots of new learning, concepts and strategies to develop and understand.

Literacy

In literacy our skills of sequencing and summarising have been covered on a weekly basis and children have worked hard to discuss and write about beginning, middle and end as well as talking about what happened first, next and then. We orally discussed our predictions and continued to give evidence to support whether a text was fiction or non-fiction.  We spent some time talking about the author and illustrator, as well as looking at how a contents page or index can help us find information. We looked at headings and sub- headings and why labels and captions are important when understanding diagrams or pictures too.  Our focus in term 4 will be to scan and select relevant facts or information, summarising and note taking to create a bank of facts that will support us in creating our own pieces of writing or scientific research.

As in previous terms, our reading and spelling activities are continuing at various times throughout the week. Children are using a mixture of practical, hands-on activities such as play dough, scrabble tiles, stencils and chalk boards to practise their spelling words but are also employing strategies such as ‘diacritical marking’ to reinforce their spelling knowledge and identify the phonemes and letters that make up our spelling words. We are using the Active Literacy phoneme stories and word building applications to help us recognise our spelling sound and words in texts we are accessing.

Our focus in writing has been narrative writing. Children developed their own character and setting, using their description skills to build their own stories whilst focusing on structure and sequencing of events to create a flow to tell a story using their own ideas.  By using the 5 senses children created vivid settings which then had an exciting event, before reaching a conclusion in their ending.  In term 4, we will continue to work on descriptive and narrative writing but will also include instructional writing as we write about experiments, we have carried out through our new topic.

Maths

Our focus in maths this term will be division and fact families to make sure children have a solid foundation of this concept, as well as regularly revisiting multiplication skills to retain this knowledge and develop further their understanding of how both concepts are interlinked.

In other areas of maths, measurement such as length, weight and area will be a focus as children use non-standard and standard units of measure to understand height, length, width, and weight.  We will also look at data handling and how we interpret information, as well as creating graphs and bar charts of our own based on information we have collected.

Health & Wellbeing

Our Paths Pupil of the Day is still being received well with pupils and our Pupil of the Day continues to receive lots of compliments and special jobs around the classroom.  We are continuing to explore emotions, comfortable and uncomfortable and how we recognise these emotions within ourselves and in others.  We are also looking at problem solving strategies through discussion, deciding what steps to take if we should experience uncomfortable emotions and prevent escalation when we are angry or frustrated.  Using our traffic light system, which is displayed in the classroom, we hope to give children the tools to self-regulate these emotions or seek help to co-regulate.

In P.E, our sessions will happen inside (Tuesday) once per week, and outside (Thursday) once per week and our focus will be athletics and fielding games. This will help us with the skills we need for sports day activities and how to operate as a team to build the skills to play rounders or other fielding games.

R.E

Our focus during R.E sessions will be the preparation required for our Sacrament of Reconciliation for our P3 pupils.  This will take place in early June and children will have discussions and lessons in class as well as follow up home activities that will be completed with their parents. We will also have Mary, Mother of Jesus as a focus during May as we look at how we honour her as the Mother of Jesus.  Throughout this term we will be accessing and completing discussions and tasks from God’s Loving Plan.

Topic

Our topic over the next term will be ‘Materials’.  This topic has already been well received by the children, who have already begun to look at the different man-made and natural materials in our environment.  Children already knew many materials we have in our everyday lives and could correctly identify which are natural and those that are man-made.  The children will experiment with different materials to gain a better understanding of their limitations and why different materials are used for different areas of our lives (concrete for building and fabric for clothing and warmth).  As part of this topic we will also look at Charles Rennie Macintosh and how he used different materials to bring his designs to life in jewellery and window designs.

As always, we hope this is the start of successful final term as we begin to prepare our children for transition to their next stage of learning.

 

Take care,

Mrs Travers

Lenten SCIAF Activities P6

On Friday of last week, Primary 6 enjoyed bike and scooter activity time outside. This was organised by Primary 4 as part of Mount Carmel’s SCIAF Fundraising over Lent.

P6 had an amazing time! We enjoyed some scooter and bike races and would like to thank you for all the generous donations towards such a good cause.

P5 Outdoor Afternoon Fun-draising for SCIAF!

As part of their ‘Charities’ topic and SCIAF Lenten fundraising, P4 put on a fabulous Outdoor activity- based afternoon for the whole school on Friday.  Pupils had a ‘wheely’ good time bringing in their scooters/bikes and even Hoverboard Segways  to whizz around the playground.

Here are some of our action-packed photos of our class enjoying their outdoor scooter/bike day afternoon…

Thank you Primary 4!

P5 World Book day

Yesterday, the whole school celebrated World Book Day 2022 and our P5 class took part in various activities during the day.

Here are some of the fabulous costumes:

Yesterday, we dressed up as characters from our favourite books. We all watched an ‘Authors’ Live’ session with  Simon Farnaby, the actor from ‘Horrible Histories’. He has released a new book ‘The Wizard and Me’ about a talking guinea pig called Bubbles who is very funny and cheeky. It had us all laughing in class. He challenged us to write about an animal and use your imagination.

By Victoria P5

In the afternoon, at an assembly we took part in a parade and got to look at all the different costumes. They were all great! We really enjoyed the live session and looking at the ‘Flanimals’ by Ricky Gervais, we decided to create our own ‘Flanimals’ and develop their characters giving them  human characteristics and using descriptive writing techniques.

By Archie and Millie Mc P5

Here are some ‘Flanimals’ you may not have heard of….

Primary 4 Curricular update

Primary 4 Term 3 update

It is lovely to see the children all back after the Christmas break. I hope you all had a great time together and that Santa was good to everyone. Now that the children are rested, it’s time to get back to work. Here is an update of what is coming up in the term ahead.

IDL

Our rainforest topic was a great success with lots of rich learning taking place. Our topic this term will be focussed around the work of charities, with a particular focus on the charity Missio. This is the Pope’s charity for world mission and will link in nicely with the Sacrament of Confirmation that some of the children will be celebrating. The class will complete this topic throughout the Lenten period and will be responsible for organising fun Lent activities to raise funds for the charity.

Literacy

Reading – The children are making excellent progress in their reading skills. They are reading with much more expression and fluency as well as beginning to utilise their word attack strategies to help them decode difficult words. This term will continue to look at how we summarise texts, a skill that we can then use in our writing. Another focus for this term will be the children’s opinions on what they are reading. They will learn how to evaluate a text from the author’s point of view. They will share their thoughts and feeling on what they are reading and this in turn will help shape them into the kind of reader they will be.

Writing – This term, the children will continue to look at narrative writing whilst using their description bubbles to aid planning. We introduced free writing as part of our routine which gives the children the opportunity to write about anything that they would like to, whether it be comic books, or short stories. In terms of new skills, the children will be encouraged to develop their awareness of conjunctions and connectives and how these can be used effectively in their writing. The children will also be trained in how to read over their work to ensure they have met their success criteria for that particular piece of writing. The children are continually encouraged to complete neat work and take care of their presentation when completing tasks; however this is something that requires more attention as they progress in their learning.

Listening and Talking – This term, we will continue with listening for instructions and acting appropriately. The children will also be developing their ability to be a ‘good, quality audience’ which means looking eyes, listening ears and proper body language. When presenting, we will be concentrating on speaking clearly as well as good eye contact and relevant information.

Numeracy

I am delighted in the progress made by the class in terms of their numeracy. They can now use several strategies to attack a single calculation. Their number talks strategies are valuable as we continue to explore addition and subtraction within 3 digits. Our prior knowledge of place value will also help us in partitioning these numbers to help us calculate within these operations.

We will spend time looking at word problems within addition and subtraction and how we can extract the relevant information from the problem to enable us to solve it.

The children will also continue to look at and learn our 3, 6, and 9 times tables. We will explore maths within the real world through our enterprise topic in which we will explore the charity ‘Missio’. We will also organise activities to raise funds for the charity which will work towards our understanding of numeracy in our real world.

In terms of our beyond number topics, we will continue to look at time, money, data handling and measurement.

A big focus this term will also be our ability to use mathematical language and solve simple equations.

Health and Wellbeing

As well as our PATHS programme which will run throughout the year, we will be looking at our bodies this term and how we can keep ourselves healthy. We will look at food, allergies and how our bodies gain energy from the foods that we eat. As an ongoing learning input, we will continue to look at how our choices have consequences, both negative and positive and how these choices impact on the relationships we build.

Our physical education inputs will be gymnastics, hockey, basketball and tennis throughout this term with Mrs MacKinnon teaching two of these sports and myself teaching the other two. Our P.E. days will continue to be a Tuesday and a Thursday. PLEASE ENSURE YOUR CHILD HAS INDOOR SHOES FOR THE PURPOSE OF P.E. ON THESE DAYS. THESE SHOULD NOT BE SHOES THAT THEY WEAR TO SCHOOL.

Religious Education

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the children in the class who celebrated their sacrament of reconciliation in December and I would also like to thank the rest of the children for supporting their peers on this journey. We will begin preparation for our sacrament of confirmation after the holidays which will take place on the 22nd February 2022. As part of this preparation, we will explore the celebration of the Passover and how Jesus celebrated this festival. We will also explore Jesus as our teacher and his teachings.

Expressive Arts

Within Art this term, we will be looking at the work by an artist called Piet Mondrian who was a Dutch painter. We will also hopefully explore the use of clay in modelling.

Our music inputs will focus on the children showing a certain control over certain instruments as well as identifying the main instruments used within pieces of music.

Our drama inputs will take place during our PATHS sessions.

Technologies

Our knowledge of the general use of ICT is definitely improving. Last term we were able to use the ICT suite, laptops, sphero robots, iPads and applications within each of these. The children are much more confident in how this equipment should be used. This term, our focus will be on the safe use of ICT and the internet. We will learn about the safe use of the internet with a specific focus on internet safety day on the 8th February as well as our digital footprints.

Modern Languages

The class will continue to learn French with Mrs MacKinnon this term. Their knowledge of the French language so far is very impressive.

Science

Last term, the children explored the use of renewable and non-renewable energy within their topic of energy. This term, we will learn all about electricity and what we use it for.

 

As always, thank you for your ongoing support.

Take care, Mrs McCreadie

 

Primary 6 Term 3 Curricular Update

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and managed to get some well-earned rest in between all the excitement of the festive period. It has been great to have Primary 6 back in class and I have loved hearing all about their Christmas holidays. Primary 6 have settled back into their school routine and are ready to take on term 3. Please see below an overview of the teaching and learning for the following term: 

Literacy 

Reading 

Primary 6 will continue to work on Bug Club books both in class as well as the independent texts assigned for children to read at home for enjoyment. Pupils will focus on a chapter each week and engage in good quality discussion with their reading group and teacher then work on tasks based around this chapter independently. This will help to aid and build on our active comprehension skills. Groups will continue to work on using evidence from the text to justify comprehension answers. 

Writing 

Our writing day will continue to be on a Tuesday. The pupils will have the opportunity to discuss and plan their writing the day before and will be encouraged to take time at home as a homework task to think about the content of their writing. Moreover, we will focus as a class on an aspect of grammar/punctuation each week to use in our writing which will hopefully transfer to all literacy areas. This term Primary 6 will be focusing on Narrative writing. We will refer back to using our description bubbles from Term 1 to aid in describing characters and settings while looking at the use of dialogue, figurative language, and plot structures to engage the reader.  

Spelling 

The spelling groups will continue to experience the Active Literacy spelling program, this will introduce common words and focus phonemes pertinent to their level and stage. The pupils will revise the Active Spelling strategies throughout the term. 

Numeracy 

This term P6 will focus on Fractions, Decimals, and Percentages and our Beyond Number topics will be Time and Measure. The pupils will experience activities at their stage and level. Constant revision of multiplication tables will be encouraged across all groups. Sumdog and Topmarks games can help with the rigor of times tables at home. Pupils will continue to engage in daily Number Talks to increase their mental maths agility. This is an area P6 have been working hard on throughout the last 2 terms and I look forward to seeing what they are capable of in term 3! 

Health and Wellbeing 

Last term P6 continued to work through our weekly PATHS lessons which focused on problem solving and making a plan. Moreover, the PATHS Barnardo Buddies programme has been up and running, all children involved have received training and have made a fantastic start on their buddying journey. This has given the Buddies a sense of responsibility and commitment, dedicating part of their lunchtime towards something that has a great benefit to both the school community and their own personal development. Our ‘Pupil of the Day’ continues, which encourages P6 to not only compliment their classmates, but to compliment and be kind to themselves, which can sometimes be trickier than we think. As always, all children in P6 are encouraged to use their ‘feelings jotter’ to share any worries or concerns they may be experiencing. P6 will cover a mini topic this term looking at substance misuse and making the right choices.  

Our PE days this term will return to Thursday and Friday. Our Thursday sessions will have a focus on Netball while our Friday sessions look at Fitness. Pupils are asked to come dressed for PE on these days – school uniform on top but leggings, joggers, trainers can be worn on the bottom. 

IDL 

Last term P6 focused on Titanic which they thoroughly enjoyed, especially making all their wonderful home projects – The Titanic Shoeboxes – which are proudly on display in our open area. This term our topic will be Scotland. Throughout this topic we will look at Literacy while examining Scots language and poetry; Social Studies as we explore Scotland on a map and study the landscape, mountains and rivers Scotland has to offer; as well as Expressive Arts, as we recreate some landscape artwork and study Steven Brown, a famous Scottish artist.  

RE 

Last term P6 began working towards their Pope Francis Faith Award during our RE sessions. So far, we have focused on the gift of Knowledge and completed various activities to support this. Children are encouraged to share this learning at home as part of the award and some homework tasks will focus on areas of this. Furthermore, this term we will study the life of Jesus in Jerusalem and look at key dates in the liturgical calendar such as Shrove Tuesday and the beginning of Lent in preparation for Easter.  

2+1 Languages 

This term, Primary 6 will continue to work on French as their main language with Mrs Mackinnon. In our classroom we have started to immerse ourselves in the French language with labels and displays in French. Each day, we fill in a French calendar with the aim of embedding the language into our classroom routines. 

In Primary 6 we promote hard work and amazing attitudes. Our reward card system allows pupils to gain reward cards for Wonderful Work, Amazing Attitude, and being a ‘Superstar’. When the pupils gain five cards, they can choose an individual reward. They can also choose to go for a class reward once everyone reaches five reward cards; this promotes teamwork within the class. Term 1 and term 2 have seen all children receive individual rewards. Many children have already put their reward towards a class reward, therefore, hopefully term 3 will be the one where we can achieve this and celebrate Primary 6’s combined success together! 

If you have any queries or questions, please contact the school directly. 

Thank you for your support and I look forward to another wonderful term in Primary 6. 

Miss McKenna 

 

Message from Mrs McConville

Dear Parents/Carers,

It is with very mixed feelings I write to tell you it is my intention to retire at Easter. I have worked in education for 36 years in a wide variety of roles but it has been my time at Mount Carmel, though short, that has been one of the highlights.

I informed East Ayrshire of my decision before Christmas and that has given sufficient time for the Head Teacher’s post to be advertised. The national advert is now live on Myjobscotland with the closing date of the 23rd January.

I am looking forward to my last few months in the school and will make sure the hand over to the new Head Teacher goes smoothly.

I will write to you later in the term and keep you up to date with any information to be shared. As always thank you for your support #Team Mount Carmel.

Kindest Regards

Mrs McConville.

Primary 6 – Term 2 Update

Primary 6 Term 2 Blog Post

Welcome to term 2, I hope everyone enjoyed their October week and had a chance to unwind after all of our super hard work during term 1! Term 1 has been a great start for Primary 6, class routines have been established, a positive working environment has been created, and expectations have been set for a successful year ahead.

Below is an overview of the learning and teaching taking place in P6 this term.

Literacy

Reading

In term 2, after finishing off our class novel ‘Wonder’ we will begin to work on Bug club books. Independent books will be assigned for children to read at home for enjoyment and books will be set for each reading group to work on in class. Daily reading tasks will be set for groups to complete independently after a reading input with the teacher and these tasks will be focused around our active literacy skills. In Primary 6 we have begun to quote from the text to back up our opinion, Primary 6 have made an exceptional start at this, and this is something we will continue to master throughout the school year. During our new topic – Titanic – we will begin to focus on reading and gathering information from various different types of texts, for example, biographies, newspaper articles, primary and secondary sources etc. I believe Primary 6 will enjoy this aspect of the topic and will hit the ground running with it.

Writing

Our writing day will be a Tuesday. The pupils will have the opportunity to discuss and plan their writing the day before and will be encouraged to take time at home as a homework task to think about the content of their writing. This term Primary 6 will be focussing on Persuasive writing. The pupils will use the OREO (Opinion, Reason, Example, Opinion) framework to structure their writing. Primary 6 will focus a different aspect of grammar/punctuation each week with the expectation they use this in their formal writing. Some pupils will be expected to up-level their writing by using tools such as thesauri and the VCOP pyramid.

Spelling

The spelling groups will continue to experience the Active Literacy spelling program, this will introduce common words and focus phonemes pertinent to their level and stage. The pupils will work on the Active Spelling strategies, these include diacritical marking, syllabification and words within words as daily spelling tasks and have a spelling test each week on a Friday morning.

Numeracy

This term P6 will focus on The Four Operations (Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division) and our Beyond Number topics will be to continue with Angles and Symmetry and Data Handling. The pupils will experience activities at their stage and level. Constant revision of multiplication tables will be encouraged across all groups. Sumdog and Topmarks games can help with the rigor of times tables at home.

Health and Wellbeing

Last term, through our ‘Wonder’ novel we focused on friendships, changing relationships and choosing kindness. This term, some Primary 6’s will have the opportunity to become Barnardo Buddies, which those who applied have already interviewed for, introducing them to the world of work. This will be a great opportunity and experience and will allow Primary 6 to develop their leadership skills. Moreover, they will be able to put their PATHS control strategies into place, modelling these to the lower school through teaching and playing playground games with them and helping to sort any conflict. We will begin a Health and Wellbeing topic looking at food and a healthy diet, discussing the choices we make. P6 will continue to engage in our weekly PATHS lessons and be encouraged to use their ‘check in’ cards and feeling jotters to report any worries or concerns they may have to the teacher. The ‘Pupil of the Day’ is up and running. This year we are complementing each other based on each other’s skills and talents.

Our PE days this term will be on a Wednesday and a Thursday. Our Wednesday sessions will be led by Kilmarnock Sports College in the morning until the 10th of November. Following on from this, from the 17th of November for the next four weeks PE will be in the form of Sport’s leadership sessions lead by Mark Devlin. Pupils are asked to come dressed for PE on these days – school uniform on top but leggings, joggers, trainers can be worn on the bottom. The focus in PE this term is football on Thursday and gymnastics on a Friday.

Expressive Arts

Through our class topic P6 will have the opportunity to experience a range of activities in Drama and Art pertinent to their level and stage. P6 especially enjoyed ‘Hot seating’ in drama last term which involves putting themselves in the headspace of a character and answering questions from their classmates as that character. This is something we will take forward in term 2, putting ourselves in the shoes of those aboard the Titanic.

RME

Throughout Primary 6 the pupils will listen to and engage with stories from the Gospel of Matthew. This term P6 will look at special dates in the liturgical calendar such as All Saints and All Souls Day. P6 will choose a Saint to research and present to the class. Moreover, we will enjoy 2-3 weekly visits from The Sisters to work with the children on mass responses and prayer.

2+1 Languages

This term, Primary 6 will be working on French as their main language and also some Spanish. So far in term 2, Primary 6 enjoyed working on a group task where they identified which countries spoke French around the world using maps. Moreover, pupils learned about the origin, meaning and typical traditions of Mexican celebration ‘El Dia de los Muertos’ (Day of the Dead) and produced some wonderful art work based on their learning.

In Primary 6 we promote hard work and amazing attitudes. Our reward card system allows pupils to gain reward cards for Wonderful Work, Amazing Attitude, and being a ‘Superstar’. When the pupils gain five cards, they can choose an individual reward. They can also choose to go for a class reward once everyone reaches five reward cards; this promotes teamwork within the class. Throughout term 1 many children achieved five reward cards and enjoyed an individual reward as a result of this, I have no doubt this will continue in Term 2 and we can hopefully work towards a class reward together.

If you have any queries or questions, please contact the school directly.

Thank you for your support and I look forward to a wonderful year in Primary 6.

Miss McKenna

Primary 4 Term 2 update

Primary 4 – Term 2

Primary 4 have worked extremely hard last term with lots of excellent learning taking place. They have settled well into their new classroom and routines. I am very proud of how they have adapted to the changes that they have experienced since P3. Here is an update of what is coming in the term ahead.

IDL

We will continue with our interdisciplinary topic of the rainforest. The children are really engaged in this topic and due to the excellent questions that they have had regarding this topic, we will continue learning about the rainforest (with a particular focus on the Amazon Rainforest) until the end of December. This term our learning will focus more on the climate change occurring as a result of deforestation and how this is affecting everything from the animals who live in the rainforest, to the melting ice caps in the arctic.

Literacy

The children are now excellent at accessing their reading texts both with a hard copy of their book as well as bug club when we get the opportunity in the ICT suite. We will continue to use our word attack strategies to help us decode new words, which will help build our confidence when presented with unfamiliar words. There will also be a focus on reading with expression and fluency. This can be encouraged at home when the children are reading anything at all. It’s all about confidence!

Through our writing activities, it has become apparent that the children need lots more practise in their tools for writing. This includes the use of capital letters and full stops as well as neat handwriting. The children will also be encouraged to use their spelling helpers to help them in writing words that they are unsure of. Encourage your child to ‘have a go’ when it comes to spelling. We know in Primary 4 that mistakes help us to learn.

We have also started using description bubbles when we are completing a piece of writing and some of the vocabulary that the children are coming up with is excellent. This ability to describe things in detail will help them in our new focus for this term of narrative writing. We will be looking at the structure of a story and what our criteria is to achieve success.

Our listening and talking focus will continue to be following instructions within school. We will also look at what an appropriate level of noise is for the classroom, playground and gym hall. The children will be encouraged to develop positive body language and eye contact whilst having discussions with their peers. This has not changed from last term as I do not feel that the children are fully achieving this target quite yet. That being said, their ability to discuss and explain different things is definitely improving. It is evident in our discussions during PATHS time as well as their explanations during number talks time that they are maturing and this is a skill that will develop with practise.

Numeracy

I am so impressed with the class in terms of numeracy. We have had a visiting teacher from the Scottish Attainment Challenge in our class 3 times per week for a few weeks and the children have completely engaged with her in terms of their learning. This term, we will be looking at estimating and rounding of numbers whilst using our knowledge of place value. In terms of our number operations, we will be concentrating on addition and subtraction whilst continuing to practise our time tables.

Another concept that has been introduced to the children is number talks. This concept teaches children how to solve calculations using different strategies. This enables children to have ownership of their own learning by using the strategies that suit them best to solve calculations. This will be something that benefits the children as they make their way through the school.

In terms of our beyond number topics, Mrs MacKinnon will be teaching the children about money and how they should be using this. They will be concentrating on recognising and using money up to the value of £20 and the vocabulary that accompanies this topic. Mrs McCreadie will continue to look at time with the children. We will focus on o’clock, half past, quarter to and quarter past in both digital and analogue time.

 

Health and Wellbeing

Our P.E days are currently a Tuesday and a Thursday. The children can wear comfortable bottoms on these days but should bring indoor shoes into school on these days.

The children will be learning the skills required to play football and badminton this term, as well as looking at dance nearer to the Christmas term.

Primary 4 already partake in mindfulness every day. This allows the children to find a 5 minute quiet time in the middle of a very busy day. The children have been introduced to the massage in schools programme and all said it made them feel calmer and more relaxed. Different strategies will be developed throughout the year which will empower children to deal with stresses that they encounter in their day to day lives.

As part of our PATHS lessons, we will also be encouraging and nurturing positive relationships within the class and school. This is with peers and adults alike. Manners are a must as well as respect. We will explore what makes a good friend and what strategies we can build upon to help us with our resilience and help us regulate our emotions. The children explore the emotions that they feel and there is a focus on all emotions being ok, it is their behaviour that is sometimes unacceptable.

R.E

This term is extremely important in terms of the children’s faith journey. Many of our children will be making their Sacrament of Reconciliation during Advent. If your child is making this Sacrament then keep a look out for information and work to be completed at home. If your child is not making the Sacrament, then it is important that they come along on our journey and learn about why different religions have different ceremonies.

Expressive Arts

Art – Our focus within art will be tone, shape and shade of colours. The children have already been introduced to the word ‘texture’ during our description time at writing but they will explore this during art too.

Music – Primary 4 will be introduced to different instruments that are used to create different moods and genres of music.

Drama – Drama will continue to be looked at through our PATHS lessons in the form of role play.

Dance – Dance will be a focus during our P.E. time closer to Christmas.

 

I.C.T

As our independence continues to develop in Primary 4, so does our ability to use IT equipment. Our focus in Primary 4 this term will be to continue using our skills we have so far (practise at logging in etc) as this encourages independence. The children are also at an age now where some of them are going online without adult supervision (playing with their friends online etc) and it is therefore important that they know how to keep themselves safe whilst they are online. A focus on internet safety for the foreseeable will allow discussion and scenarios to be used in teaching the children how to keep themselves and their information safe while they use the internet.

Modern Languages

Primary 4 will continue their French this term with Mrs MacKinnon. To begin with, the children will  revise previous learning to refresh their memory on greetings, counting etc before they move onto new learning.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all. I am thoroughly enjoying being the Primary 4 teacher this year and I am loving getting to know your children. They are all wonderful. Speak to you all soon in our telephone appointments.

Take care and stay safe,

Mrs McCreadie

 

Primary 4 Term 1

Primary 4 – Term 1

 Primary 4 are already working hard! There is a lot to cover in the term ahead but also lots of fun to be had! Here is an update on the upcoming term.

IDL

Our interdisciplinary topic this term is the rainforest. We have already started this and the children are really enjoying learning about it’s different aspects, for example the layers of the rainforest and the animals who live there. A lot of our learning will be done though this topic with poems, graphs, drawings and much more being explored.

Literacy

Our reading focus this term will focus on the skill of comprehension and how the children can understand, analyse and evaluate fiction and non-fiction texts. We will be introducing the use of our find it, prove it and talk about it strategies to investigate our texts. Our class novel ‘The Giants and the Joneses’’ has already began and the children are loving the interdisciplinary approach to learning within this novel. This will be our focus for literacy tasks this term and our bug club be reintroduced shortly for our personal reading and homework texts.

Through our writing activities, the children will be focussing on their tools for writing. Handwriting will also be completed at least once per week and neat presentation will be encouraged in homework jotters too.

Our listening and talking focus will be on following instructions within school. We will also look at what an appropriate level of noise is for the classroom, playground and gym hall. The children will be encouraged to develop positive body language and eye contact whilst having discussions with their peers.

Numeracy

The class will be focussing their 2 and 4 times tables. We have already began on working on our understanding of Place Value and what value each digit holds within the columns (Thousands, Hundreds, Tens and units).

In terms of beyond number, the class have already begun exploring the properties of 2D and 3D shape. We have already investigated edges, faces and vertices of 2D and 3D shape. Time seems to be an area that the children lack confidence in. With that, we will be learning about time for a long period of time over the next couple of terms. Long term exposure to this should help with retention of this subject.

Another concept that will be taught throughout this year will be number talks. This concept teaches children how to solve calculations using different strategies. This enables children to have ownership of their own learning by using the strategies that suit them best to solve calculations.

Health and Wellbeing

Our P.E days are currently a Tuesday and a Thursday. We are currently learning about our fitness and how we can develop our stamina, agility, accuracy, balance and co-ordination. We will shortly be moving onto ball skills.

The children already have a good understanding of how being active will help them to stay healthy. We will soon be looking at how sleep and rest are also required to stay healthy.

Primary 4 already partake in mindfulness every day. This allows the children to find a 5 minute quiet time in the middle of a very busy day. We will soon be embarking on the massage in schools programme. Different strategies will be developed throughout the year which will empower children to deal with stresses that they encounter in their day to day lives.

As part of our PATHS lessons, we will also be encouraging and nurturing positive relationships within the class and school. This is with peers and adults alike. Manners are a must as well as respect. We will explore what makes a good friend and what strategies we can build upon to help us with our resilience and help us regulate our emotions.

R.E

R.E. this term will look at one of God’s greatest gifts – free will. The children will look at the idea of choices and what makes a good choice. There will also be a focus on baptism, looking at the children’s baptism as well as the story of Jesus’ baptism. This will begin the children’s journey of their sacraments that will take place this session. We will be learning different hymns and prayers throughout the session whilst also taking an in-depth look at what the rosary is used for.

Expressive Arts

Art – Our focus within art this term is drawing and printing. We will explore line, shape and tones of colour.

Music – Primary 4 will continue to work on our appreciation of different genres of music, whilst using our online Charanga music resource.

I.C.T

As our independence develops in Primary 4, so does our ability to use IT equipment. Our focus this term will simply be on the use of the ICT equipment. Logging on and off of the laptops and accounts will encourage independent learning. Typing skills and mouse control are also skills that will be focussed on throughout this term.

Modern Languages

Primary 4 are very lucky to be learning all about the Spanish language with Mrs Fergusson this term. They have already looked at greetings, questions and will soon be moving onto the days of the week etc. I am very impressed!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continuing support. We have a very busy year ahead but it a year that will be filled with fun and learning.

Take care and stay safe,

Mrs McCreadie

 

 

A huge Thank You!

Firstly thank you for the very generous gift I received today. I was overwhelmed and I promise I’ll treat myself and not just Baby T.

Tomorrow is the last day of Primary 6 and I think we’re all in the mood for a party, so that’s exactly what we’re going to do!

I’ve had a wonderful year in Primary 6. You have all worked hard and have been excellent learners. I am proud of each and every one of you for the resilience you’ve shown despite the difficult year.

Well done to the P6 who will be our House and Vice Captains next school year. I am proud of all the children who put themselves forward for a Captain position. There will be plenty of other responsibility roles in P7.

The P6 wrote wonderful stories for their P1 buddies which went home in the new P1 gift bags. I know you’ll be excellent buddies when the time comes.

Have an amazing holiday and I’ll see you when you’re back as the new P7.

Miss Mudge

Continue reading A huge Thank You!

P4 First Holy Communion Party 🥳

Primary 4 had a wonderful time this morning at our special celebration to mark the 1st Holy communions that have recently taken place throughout June. It was lovely to celebrate all together in school and have some snacks and dancing in our big hall!!

And a big thank you to Mrs McConville for organising our beautiful cake and Mrs Fergusson for sorting the music!! 🎉🎉🎉

P7 activity week

The Primary 7s  enjoyed this fun week. All the activities were great and everyone loved them. Firstly we got to do bubble football then had the Dean Park visit, bowling+movie, yearbook+ leavers assembly video and of course pizza, a special Mount Carmel Funday and lastly we got to go to Crawfordland Estate. Also thanks to Mrs McConville and FOMC for organising. These pictures document what we have done during our fun week:by: May and Evie