Author: Mrs Denholm

Today Primary 4 were very lucky to have a visit from the SSPCA. We enjoyed listening to ways we can care for animals and understand the animals have welfare needs. We now feel confident we can be responsible animal citizens of the future.

Part of our workshop enabled us to work as part of a team to build a robot rabbit out of a certain number parts and use an iPad to programme the rabbit to move. It was great fun and required communication and problem solving skills to be successful in the task.

 

Mrs Denholm and Mrs Dougall were very impressed with how well we all worked together and how respectful all of the boys and girls were towards the visitors.

P4a had great fun making their way around the mini mudder course in the woodland area. The sun was shining and the mud was EVERYWHERE! Here are some snaps of the pupils in action.

As part of our current Health topic we will be looking at disabilities and medical conditions to develop our knowledge further. Today we looked at diabetes specifically what it is, what the cause is and some symptoms that may present themselves.

We put ourselves into the shoes of a new pupil arriving in the class with diabetes. Our aim was to write a diary entry from this point of view explaining how it may affect their daily lives.

We shared our diary entries with a peer and received some feedback. We discovered that diabetes is manageable if with injections of insulin and a healthy diet and exercise. The children also realised that it doesn’t define a pupil and they can still lead an active and fun filled life.

The boys and girls of P4A have been busy researching where produce is farmed, grown and harvested around Scotland. It took some patience, IT skills and good communication with our partners to identify where each food could be found.

Another busy term has come to an end. We have had lots of fun with our most recent topic Christmas traditions around the world and hope you enjoyed our assembly where we had the opportunity to share our learning.

I was very disappointed to miss the pupils performing but got to watch a recording of the assembly and was blown away by the professionalism, enthusiasm and hard work the pupils displayed. They certainly made me one very proud teacher!

We have enjoyed learning about the traditions through the countries and relating them to our own annual traditions with our families and friends. The topic allowed us to develop our ICT skills as we carried out our own research, our understanding of the Christmas story through sequencing and note taking to create new texts.

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and a very Happy New Year!!

This week in Primary 4a has been fabulous. The children all returned from their break with big smiles on their faces, lots of stories to tell and ready to learn. Lots of reward pebbles have been given out for positive behaviours within the class.

We introduced reciprocal reading within our reading groups where each of the children were given a specific reading role. These included being the ‘big boss’. Questioner, clarifier, predictor and summariser. The children were highly engaged reading to each other and stopping at points of their choice to carry out their roles. It was lovely to see so many enthusiastic discussions taking place between the children.

 

We had the opportunity to explore Google Classroom this week in ICT. We are developing our knowledge navigating through each of the sections and hope to increase our confidence and IT skills as we learn.

During BIG writing the pupils were developing their knowledge of a non-chronological report. They were able to take information given and put it into their own words underneath a sub heading. The reports not only helped develop our fluency of reading a new text but enabled us to use this information to add to our writing portfolios.

This week also saw some extra activities taking place with the STV Children’s Appeal ‘Day for Dance’ and our House Reward Afternoon. Some spectacular dance moves were on show and it was great fun learning some Charleston moves in a routine.

 

We have had another busy week in P4a. Our maths lessons have been going well with a real focus on mental maths questions. We have ten questions a day and each question uses a variety of mathematical language.

I feel very confident when I do my mental maths. (Muhammad)

I work hard everyday in my mental maths. (Hirah)

Sometimes it is really hard and I really have to focus. (Abbie)

It’s alright to make mistakes as it helps us to learn. (Elise)

 In our topic, we have been looking at how climate change can affect the polar regions. We learned what animals live in the polar regions. (Charlotte) If we keep adding heat into our atmosphere the temperature will rise and ice will melt which means the water level will rise and any animals that can’t swim or only swim for a little bit will drown. (Adam B)

 This week, we were looking at features of a non fiction text, specifically the contents page and index. We were able to locate certain information and recognise where to find key words.

We have finished our class novel ‘Creature Teacher’ by Sam Watkins and illustrated by David O’Connor. We would highly recommend this text. Class 5b had a teacher that turned into a creature when he experienced certain emotions. We followed his journey through the school as the pupils tried to keep his secret.

I thought it was funny when Creature splatted purple paint all over Mrs Blunt. (Ailsa)

We have made Creature Teacher booklets and written book reviews to show our understanding of the text.

 We are all very excited for the October week and look forward to returning to school in the new term for lots of new and exciting learning.

 

Primary 4a worked up a sweat in PE today showing off their possession skills in football. After developing control and movement skills over the last few weeks, the pupils brought it all together today to bring victory to their teammates.

It was lovely to see so many of the boys and girls cheering on their teammates and being a good sport!

This term our topic is ‘Our World’ as suggested by the pupils. We have been finding out lots of information about climate zones around the world and this week have been investigating how living things can be affected if the climate changes. We have produced some super art work using paint to show the difference in the physical features of each environment.

Well done to all of the boys and girls in P4a for their efforts in creating a maths hat. We had great fun parading through the school to show off our creations.