EWHCF Class of 2022

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.

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.

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!!

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.

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.