Primary 4 have recently finished studying our class novel ‘Horton Hears a Who’.  The pupils discussed the setting, the characters, and the message the novel was giving to its readers.  They began to appreciate and understand that ‘a person’s a person, no matter how small.’  This was considered in relation to all of God’s living things.

The pupils created their own pieces of writing, imagining what a visit to Who-Ville would be like, considering carefully how they would shrink small enough to visit and describing well what they saw and who they met on ‘the tiny speck of dust.’

The learning continued outside, through outdoor learning opportunities, where pupils searched to identify the smallest living thing they could find in and around the school grounds.  They also created their own transient art pieces, using natural materials to make beautiful scenes from Who-Ville!

This week our writing focus was on Newspaper reports. Primary 6 listened to the ‘twisted’ version of Red Riding Hood and then used their knowledge of the story to create a newspaper article. We looked an example newspaper report first and discussed the features as a class. Another fantastic week of writing in Primary 6!

Miss Mudge

Mr. Devlin from Active Schools has been coming to support Primary 6 to becoming Playground Leaders. They have been focussing on athletics and team games that can be done safely outside. Mr. Devlin has commented on how hard the pupils work during these sessions and how sweaty they are at the end (proof of hard work!).

I delighted at how well the pupils support and encourage each other during these sessions.

Well done Primary 6!

Miss Mudge

Primary 5 have been very busy! We discussed masks in society and how we feel about wearing them. We shared our ideas and designed some fancy masks. We created artwork which showed our masks and our fabulous personalities underneath.

Hello and welcome to our very first blog post of the new session. Primary 4 have been very busy settling into our new classroom and our new routines. Children have been working hard to become familiarised with their class groupings, recapping previous learning and are enhancing this through our outdoor learning activities.

Literacy

Our class novel is ‘Horton Hears a Who’ and through this text, the context and the discovery of Who-Ville, pupils have explored our outdoor area, looking for ‘tiny’ living things, whilst finding natural resources to create scenes from ‘Who-Ville’. Pupils have also enjoyed some imaginative writing, describing their visit to Who-Ville with Horton and giving detailed descriptions of their time on the tiny speck of dust! Some of their ideas on how they shrunk small enough to be able to visit Who-Ville, were very exciting!

Our reading and spelling activities are now underway, and children have been working within groups to revisit previous sounds and texts, ready to use their skills and strategies to tackle new and unfamiliar spelling sounds and reading books. Our focus in writing currently is imaginative and report writing, and ideas will be developed from our class novel and mini topic!

Homework will be sent today so please check your children’s bags for a plastic wallet.  Reading books will be from our ‘Independent Readers’ section of our Bug Club Online for the first week, there after a hard copy of a banded reading book will be issued in their homework wallet. These will be issued on a Monday and should be returned to school on a Thursday.

Maths

Our focus in maths will be multiplication and division, however we will regularly revisit addition and subtraction as well as word problems to consolidate our strategies within the 4 operations of number. Children will regularly use their ‘Thinking It Through’ jotters to develop problem solving skills, applying knowledge of number to new contexts and develop strategies for any number problems. We will also encourage these skills through our daily number challenges and number target board!

Health & Wellbeing

Our Paths Pupil of the Day has now begun, and our Pupil of the Day has been receiving lots of compliments and special jobs around the classroom. All children will have the opportunity to be pupil of the day. We have been exploring emotions, comfortable and uncomfortable and how we recognise these emotions within ourselves and in others.

In P.E, our sessions will happen outside, and our focus will be on team games and small ball skills. Children will have the opportunity to partake in some fun activities which support teamwork whilst focusing on developing their racquet and small ball skills.

R.E

Our focus during R.E sessions will be on prayer, their meaning, the routines of the church and the celebration of Mass. As we will soon be beginning our preparation for Confirmation and First Communion, the Sacraments will be discussed in depth, so children fully understand each of the Sacraments and their importance in their relationship with God.

Mini-Topic

As the children chose animals as the focus of our Class Charter, their interest in the animal kingdom has developed into a new mini topic! We have been researching animal classifications, looking at the 6 different animal classes and finding out some interesting facts about each of these categories. This has led to how we can look after our environment to keep animals in our community safe. We discussed and further explored how trees are the earth’s lifeline, and   pupils have been learning about the impact of deforestation and harmful plastics that pollute our seas.

We hope this is the start of a very successful term and that the pupils are enjoying their return to school, despite the environment being a little different to how it was before we closed in March.

Take care,

Mrs Travers

A huge welcome to all our Primary 1 children. They have settled into class beautifully now and are becoming more confident in their surroundings each day.

Literacy

During term 1 our focus will be to develop the children’s phonological awareness in preparation for them to begin learning their letter sounds and making words. We will be concentrating on the rhyme and rhythm of language by looking at Nursery rhymes and clapping our syllables.

We will also be getting ready to write by improving our fine motor control and perfecting our pencil grip!! Name writing will be a focus too so that we can sign off on all our masterpieces!

Listening and talking will be a huge part of our day too, ensuring we develop our skills in active listening, taking turns and communicating our thoughts to others.

Numeracy

We have already begun to look for numbers all around us in Primary 1 and think of reasons why we need them.

Number time will consist of lots and lots of counting!! We will be developing our “number sense” by counting out and comparing quantities and becoming familiar with the language of mathematics.

We will also be counting aloud and learning the digits which represent our quantities.

As our pencil control improves, we will be learning to write our numbers, enabling us to record our counting.

Pattern will also be a focus, linking in to outdoor learning by looking for patterns of nature in our environment as well as man-made ones in our classroom. We will be creating our own patterns and linking these with number.

Health and Well-being

Our PATHs programme will feature heavily during our HWB time. The children have already met the puppets and have fallen in love with “Twiggle” and his friends already!!! Now that we have met our special puppet friends, they will be helping us to build friendships and learn all about our emotions.

Pupil of the day will also be introduced, where the children pay compliments to a chosen child, making them feel special throughout the day!!

Welcome back to school! It has been so wonderful to welcome back the pupils of primary 5, they are settling in beautifully and have already started making progress in their learning.

Here is an update on our learning that will take place in term 1 August- October.

Literacy

The class novel this term is ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald Dahl. The pupils will complete various reading and writing tasks related to this appropriate to their level. This novel study also has links to other curricular areas including Health and Well-being, art and drama.

We will also continue using the ‘Bug Club’ reading resource to aid our comprehension skills.

Writing

P5 will focus on imaginative/ narrative writing this term. The class will be told the focus of their writing the night before so as to discuss ideas at home. This will be their ‘Talk Homework’.

Groups will look at planning their piece, punctuation, effective use of vocabulary and paragraphing.

Spelling

Groups will continue to experience the active literacy spelling programme, this will introduce common words and focus phonemes pertinent to their stage.

Numeracy

This term the children will experience shape and time as beyond number topics. This will involve 2D and 3D shape tasks. During time activities they will look at time telling, duration, am and pm and some groups will look at 24hr conversion.

Our number processes topics will include division for the circles and rectangles groups, addition for the squares group and place value activities for the triangles group.

At home children will benefit from timetables revision and experience of telling the time in everyday situations.

Health and Well-being

The PATHS programme will continue to shape our HWB learning. P5 have already started ‘pupil of the day’ and participated in discussions around feelings and how we manage our emotions. P5 will also look at healthy choices and some substances that could harm our bodies, appropriate to their age and stage.

RE

Preparations for First Holy Communion are underway and we are supporting the pupils in class with this. Booklets have been sent home for parents to access for those children receiving the sacrament.

In class we will introduce the Gospel of Mark, our P5 focus gospel. We will discuss our talents and skills and this will form the basis of our class charter.

It’s good to be back!!!!!

Dear Mount Carmel Primary Choir Member,

I would like to invite you be part of the Mount Carmel Primary Choir Team on Microsoft Teams.
As we cannot yet sing in school together, I thought you could all be practising at home, so that when we do get back together we would have a song or two to perform and sing.
I have chosen two songs for us to do. The first is called ‘One Moment, One People’ a song about working together and making positive connections with each other, very important at this time. The second song is called ‘We Are the Children of This School’.
On the Team there are backing tracks and lyrics to help you learn the songs. I would like you to start with ‘One Moment, One People’. There is a unison voice version as well to help as a guide for the melody.
*Listen to the unison version several times to get familiar with the tune.
*While listening click on the lyrics/sheet music and start singing along.
*You will notice that half way through the song it splits into two parts, try and learn both and we will decide who sings what when we meet again.

I hope you will enjoy the songs and singing again. Have fun practising and I look forward to seeing and hearing your lovely singing voices soon.

Miss Donnelly
(Vocal Instructor)

As part of our Paths programme, we have talked a lot about the different emotions we experience, how it looks and how it feels, inside and outside our bodies.

Using  our cute paths friends and some emoji’s we are familiar with, can you decode the hidden message?  This is a challenge for you all to try at home and parents can help our infant pupils if they are finding this challenging.

Have fun!  Can you decode the hidden message?  Let me now if you managed to work it out:

susan.travers@eastayrshire.org.uk

We cannot believe it has arrived! The final week! A huge well done to all families for sticking with it, especially our young people working hard and getting on with their learning activities! It may not have always been easy but we are immensely proud of all of you!

All our hard work is paying off and proof of this is that Scotland have now entered Phase 2;  here is a child friendly version…

We have all played a part in getting the country here!

(Phase 2 is a staggered phase so please check government guidelines for exact dates).

We hope you enjoyed #ThrowbackThursday…more to come this week!

Some Monday Motivation…for those that need it…

Stay Safe. Together we are Team MC.

Good afternoon fours,

I hope you are all keeping well! This is now your last week in primary 4 before the summer holidays start! Then when you return in August you will be in primary 5.  It has been a strange few months, however you have all been wonderful and i know you will continue to be amazing in primary 5! 

These are your last learning grids before  the summer holidays begin! If you need anything at all this week just let me know.

Love from,

Mrs Strachan x

Numeracy

Numeracy – P4 WB 22.6.20

Word problems

Rectangles – adding 3 digit numbers

Squares – subtracting 10s

triangles – adding and subtracting

mystery-at-dragonspire-castle

Literacy

Literacy – P4 WB 22.6.20

-thank-you-god-prayer

roi-l-428-end-of-school-year-booklet-english_ver_2

Words of Encouragement

IDL

Mount Carmel 4-7

Unit 3 – Lesson 12- Cut and Stick Home Activity

Unit 5 Lesson 18 Angry Abigail 2(1)

It has been a difficult few months and much has changed in our ordinary, every day lives.  Where once we could go to school to learn and see our friends, we now learn at home and have been unable to see our school friends.

Twiggle shares his feelings about being at home and missing school and his friends.  His Grandma listens and helps him to feel a little better about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgJl_r2HUlM&feature=youtu.be

Like Twiggle we have had to find new ways to communicate and spend time with our friends and families.  We miss them, but doing a video chat or having a chat on the phone, helps to make us feel a wee bit better.

Take care, together we are Team MC!

Hi boys and girls,

Here’s the activities I’d like you to try in our last week of term (w/b 22June):

Willow Grid 22 June

Science activity: dissolving

Science activity: fireworks in a glass

I hope you have been working hard, having fun at home and most of all, keeping yourself safe.

Take care

Mrs Travers