Author: Mrs Dougall

 

 

 

Last week, we were very lucky to have some fantastic visitors to our class who told us all about how they use Mathematics in their world of work. We heard all about pensions, computer generated images, being a GP, working with leather, creating spreadsheets, being an archaeologist and how high school maths links with design and manufacturing sports equipment (though the children were much more interested in the job at McDonalds that pays for all of the expensive trainers).

We’ve launched our new topic, but Sssh! It’s a secret.

In Maths we’ve been working with numbers, identifying Place Value, ordering numbers almost to 1,000,000, practicing our mental maths addition and subtraction skills and dividing with remainders.

We’ve linked Literacy with Health & Wellbeing, analysing the words to “This is Me” from the Greatest Showman which led to some fantastic discussion in class about what it means to be different and how society’s view on disability was very different in the past.

While the children were off on Tuesday, the teachers were completing HeartStart Training and so the children will be coming home with new First Aid Skills very soon.

Today we have been combining art and maths. Looking at shapes –

“Everything in nature is formed upon the sphere, the cone and the cylinder. One must learn to paint these simple figures and then one can do all that he may wish.” Paul Cézanne

We spent time looking at sunflowers to see what patterns were visible. Ask your child about the Fibonacci Sequence…

 

 

Another busy week in P4B, the children have been trying Reciprocal Reading, playing tennis, creating Venn Diagrams of the difference between Wants and Needs relating to the UNConvention on the Rights of the Child and they have been wallowing in mud. The pictures say it all really!

 

After the resounding success of Mystery at Magpie Manor, we have been really focused on our Numeracy, Maths and Literacy learning for the rest of this week. We used the creatures created in our Chris Riddell (author and illustrator) inspired illustration lesson to learn about developing characters. In previous lessons we have created characters and then drawn them whereas this time, the children drew their creatures and then work on building the characters using the Chris Riddell technique of What, Who and Where. The writing jotters have been sent home today and I’m sure you will agree that the characters developed by the children were fantastic.

A conversation in class sparked learning about Hyperbole and the children have all embraced the use of it – be prepared for lots of “so hungry I could eat an elephants”, “I can run faster than a rocket” or some of the other many examples the children came up with in class.

In Numeracy and Maths we have been looking at mapping and coordinates as well as number sequencing and interpreting data. There have been lots of opportunities for active learning, the bee bots have been in class again and some of the children tested their map drawing skills by describing routes to the office and then walking their routes. They quickly learned to adjust their maps as soon as they realised that they led to other classrooms, dead ends and into walls.

The weather inspired today’s art lesson, the children created Salt Snowflakes. We looked at photographs of snowflakes and discussed the similarities and differences, the children designed their own snowflakes as a result of this discussion and then by combining glue, salt and water paints, they discovered what happens when you add water to salt. They watched as the colours spread across their snowflakes and were able to identify the appropriate colour palette to create winter themed pictures.  I am delighted with how sensible and mature they were as they worked together to created their artwork and then tidied the classroom afterwards.

After the excitement of last week’s assembly, the children have settled back into learning really well this week. With only a few weeks until the holidays, we have been focusing on time, area and division in Maths. All tricky topics, but the children have worked really hard at mastering them. We’ve also been looking at 3D Shapes and their Nets which gave the perfect opportunity for the children to create cubes and octahedrons to decorate our class tree.

We consolidated our topic learning so far by creating an information leaflet all about the Templar Knights of Capelrig. The resulting leaflets were both eyecatching and informative and all of the children met their Success Criteria.

We continued our learning about our local area by creating maps with all of the important landmarks highlighted. The children created a key for their map and there was a lot of discussion about the position of the roads. We looked at 3D images of the Tower in the Woods. We have been very lucky that Mearns History Group have been very supportive with our topic and this week we received further images of the Tower that were not available online and an email from James Winnett, the artist responsible for the Capelrig Stones who is very keen to speak to the children about their learning.

Today we undertook a STEM Challenge. the children were given a Plastic Cup, Two Eyes, cotton wool and paper and left to create their own Santa. The results were very impressive and extremely creative.

Apologies for the recent lack of blogs, some of the children wanted to keep their new topic a secret. It was lovely to see so many parents, carers and relatives along this morning. Here are a few pictures of our assembly.

This week we have been learning about Position and Movement. Using the Bee Bots and a map of the world, we programmed the Bee Bots to travel using our knowledge of Right & Left Quarter turns and the points of a compass. We were able to navigate the world using all of our prior learning about Climate Zones.

We took our maths lesson outside and worked on estimating length using leaves and twigs (and the occasional slug!)

All the work on position and movement neatly linked into our Reading Comprehension on Directions and the children loved watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN2RM-CHkuI a clip of a family trying to write instructions for making sandwiches. We used the learning from this in our Big Writing this week, the children wrote the step by step instructions and used some great time connectives.

As the Our World Topic comes to an end, the children really enjoyed using the VR Headsets again. This time they looked at warmer climates and compared them to Antarctica. Some of the children even got to see the Aurora Australis.

 

We have had a fabulous week in P4B. The children all arrived back on Monday full of stories about the fun things they got up to in the holidays. We have been trying a few new starter activities and the White Rose Maths Daily challenges have sparked a lot of discussion in the classroom and some fabulous collaborative learning.

We have been writing Book Reports on the books we read at home and on the book we read in class as part of our topic “Sophie Scott Goes South”.

As we are now coming to the end of the Our World Topic, the children spent some time today thinking about all of the different things they have been learning about the different Climate Zones around the world.

Watch out next week for some fantastic art work as we have been learning about the Dia De Los Muertos.

Another busy week in P4B. We celebrated National Poetry Day by reading “Rangtan in my Bedroom” and spotting all of the rhyming words. The poem linked in with the Our World topic and the children were learning about deforestation. Our reading comprehension was based on the poem “Cats Can” and the children then created their own “Dogs Can” words.

 

There has been some great active learning in maths involving estimating weight and using BeadStrings to reinforce number bonds and times tables.

Today, some of the children helped create a Climate Zone Map of the world which we will use as a backdrop for all of the lovely zentangle and mindful art work we have been creating this term.

The children all arrived on Tuesday refreshed after the holiday weekend and ready to learn.

We have been doing lots of Active Maths learning about dividing with and without remainders. This has involved a floor covered with hundreds, tens and units blocks and collaborative learning opportunities as the children worked together to solve problems. We have also been revising Place Value and Time.

Our Big Writing task this week was to write a letter and the children chose to write to Mr Weir to thank him for all of his hard work in the aftermath of the storm. Mr Weir was absolutely delighted to read the children’s work and see how much they appreciate all that he does for the school.

For the last few weeks we have been looking at Antarctica as part of the Our World topic and this week we were able to use the Virtual Reality Headsets so that the children could see what it is actually like to be in the middle of Antarctica. They spotted whales, seals and penguins, people in kayaks, ice breaking boats, base stations and scientists carrying out research. It was a definite learning highlight this week and when we were talking about what they experienced, the children showed a much greater depth of knowledge about the landscape and life in Antarctica.

Having visited a cold climate, we are now moving on to look at hot climates and will focus on life in the desert – if you ask the children they will tell you that we are talking about Hot Deserts because there are deserts in cold places too!