Happy New Year! ✨️

We have been easing ourselves back into routine and enjoying the opportunity for a fresh start in the new year. We reflected over the goals we set in September and celebrated the many pupil successes! Many of us achieved goals such as learning our multiplication tables, improving our story writing and spelling, and drinking more water.

“I actually know my multiplication tables now. My 6, 7, 8 and 9. I just need to get better at dividing – I’m not as quick”

“I’m actually so proud of myself. I feel like my writing is a lot neater and my capital letters touch the top line.”

We can tell we have been successful through improvements in scores and personal confidence. Our new goals have been set for March and we’re motivated to work towards them! 💪

We read the book One Word for Kids to encourage us to think of a word that will motivate us towards a personal goal all year. Some of us chose to make our words into a bracelet at the tuff tray!

As we learn new concepts in Literacy and Maths, we are always revising previously taught concepts from P2 and P3 (First Level). In Maths, we realised that we would all like some more support on fractions, finding change from money, step division and reading time. Over the next few months we will be continually revising alongside our new learning to boost our confidence! We have already made a start through play, game boards, Chromebooks challenges and lesson starters.

In Literacy, we have been continuing to improve our comprehension skills by exploring inferential questions – these are questions where the answer is not obviously in the text and we have to ‘read between the lines’ We have been learning to look closely for clues and pair this information with our life experiences to make an ‘educated guess’. This can bs a tricky concept but we are doing incredibly well. To begin, we looked at pictures with no captions to guess what is happening. We have played along with the New York Times’ feature ‘What is Going on in the Picture?’

To further help with making inferences, we have also started a fantastic new class novel, Ottoline and the Yellow Cat 💛 It is a mystery novel which has a mixture of detailed pictures and text. Last term, we were learning to find evidence within a text and we are now having to put that to the test as we search for clues in our novel this term! We are keeping a notebook full of clues and evidence whilst we read! We are asking lots of questions to try to make connections between the clues in the book. Who will be the first in the class to crack the case?

P4 have also started a month of Mandarin lessons. So far we have learned about Chinese culture, greetings, tones and numbers through playing lots of games and watching videos. We have also tried writing Chinese characters – something which has been very popular with pupils. This reflects out school values of respect as we learn how other cultures communicate and celebrate festivals which are different to ours.

January brings Burns Night on the 25th. We have been getting cosy and listening to lots of stories in front of our fireplace in January with many of these stories being in Scots. We picked out the Scots words we found in the story ‘Neeps and Tatties’.  We already knew the meaning of quite a few Scots words and we explored more using the Oor Wullie Glossary! We made fantastic speech bubbles which show the meaning of the Scots words through lettering, colour and illustrations.

In Science, we worked together with P7 pupils to build Scribblebots. These simple robots would revise our learning from our electricity topic where we built circuits. We have been working on various talking and listening strategies. P4 listened well to P7s instructions and followed them confidently.

Primary 4.1 had the best time celebrating the festive season during December, mixing learning and fun!

We all looked fantastic in our outfits for our Christmas party. 🎄 Our classroom has been all cosy and decorated for Christmas so we took some pictures by the fireplace.

We played lots of games and danced the day away at our party ❤️

We have been rounding up all of our learning in Term 1 with lots of revision. We revised spelling rules using different games. Check out our Christmas tree word pyramids. Weve also been using magnetic letters and even morse code!

We wrote fantastic imaginative Christmas stories about going on an adventure inside a snowglobe! ❄️ We had typed them up on Google Docs, using both hands to type quickly. We learned how to use the ‘review’ feature to best check our spelling and grammar during our redraft. We are trying our best to spot and correct mistakes in our own and others’ work.

We shared our stories with P2 and it was lovely to see so many confident readers sharing their work. ❤️

To add to our Christmas writing, we were delighted to be visited by Santa’s actual reindeer! We fed them carrots and lots of us shared a cuddle or a pat with the reindeer. Funnily enough, many reindeer ended up featuring in our Christmas writing! 🎄

In Numeracy, we have all improved our speed and accuracy when recalling our multiplication tables 🏆 Pupils and staff are delighted at the achievements of P4.1 and we will continue to revise our 6, 7, 8, and 9 multiplication tables in the new year to get even faster! We have also been improving the speed of our mental maths by using number fans, concrete materials and quick quizzes.

 

In December, we were learning to identify 2 or more lines of symmetry within a shape or picture. We investigated the natural symmetry within snowflakes using microscopic images and then created these beautiful symmetrical paper snowflakes to decoarate our classroom. We had to be very accurate when folding and cutting. We think they look gorgeous! ❄️

Over in the creativity corner, some of us chose to make some sustainable decorations. We made a beautiful gingerbread garland from cardboard and Posca pens. We love how personal and handmade they look. ❤️

In ICT, we applied what we learned about coding in Scratch and tried coding a BBC micro:bit using Make Code.  The BBC micro:bit is a pocket-sized computer that you can code, customise and control to bring your digital ideas, games and apps to life! We turned them into Christmas decorations. Some people created Christmas images in lights whilst others had scrolling messages. We love our glowing digital tree! 🎄✨️

We have also engaged in various S.T.E.M challenges, either with a partner or individually. We have shown really good resilience where we keep trying and don’t give up! We have also worked well with each other and shared ideas.  💡 Some of our challenges included:

• Make the longest paper chain you can from one sheet of paper.
• Build a sturdy sleigh from Knex or LEGO that is big enough for a baby elf.
• Create a giant snowflake.❄️
• Build the tallest tower made of playing cards. 🃏

Some of us really enjoyed making paper chains and got carried away, joining more than one chain together 😄 This paper chain was bigger than some P4s so we hung it from the ceiling! ⭐️

We have also connected our skills from Literacy and French by using a bilingual dictionary to look up the meanings of French words and figure out if they are masculine or feminine. We created these beautiful mini-books for Christmas.

 

We have been immersing ourself in the French language on a daily basis by revising our numbers, days of the week, months of the year and classroom instructions in French. Mrs Denny writes the date in French and will often just begin speaking French with actions for the children to follow. We enjoy playing games to revise speaking, listening and reading familiar words in French.

There have been many school events in December and we thank all families for their support with these. P4.1 particularly enjoyed visiting P7.1 and P7.2 during their Make £5 Grow Sale. We were very impressed by their advertising and business ideas. It was great to see so many older siblings setting such good examples. 🥰

Well done to our violinists for their first big performance on the stage at the Christmas Concert. We were so proud of you all. 👏

Merry Christmas and all the very best for 2026 when it comes – from Mrs Denny, Mrs Crae and Mrs Kane. 🎄✨️

It’s been a busy but a fun month in P4.1! November has been packed with learning, new experiences and achieving goals. We have been working with a lot more independence and focus,  enjoying learning outside and in the classroom.

Social Studies

Our new topic is based on learning about different climate zones around the world and how they affect living things. We have explored Polar, Temperate and Tropical climate zones and we are starting to name countries within each zone. We are becoming more familiar with the seven continents and five oceans and can point them out on a globe and on a map in an atlas.

We joined a live lesson ran by the National Museum who explored biodiversity in Scotland within a temperate climate zone. We have also been learning to take notes whilst watching and listening.

We shared the animals that we knew from four different ecosystems: urban, rural, forest and coastal. This fantastic lesson brought artefacts from the National Museum in Edinburgh straight to our classroom! We studied different insects and animals, including microscopic images and looking at the skulls of different animals and learning how they have adapted to their surroundings.

Writing

We read books, watched and listened to videos and researched how living things, such as animals, people and plants, adapt to different climates and made notes. Here is an example of some notes about the four layers of the rainforest:

We used these notes to create some excellent pieces of writing (non-chronological reports, fact files, and poems). We continue to build longer sentences with a variety of openers and connectives. We are focussing on using word banks and rules to help with spelling.

Reading Comprehension & Drama 

To celebrate the release of The Twits on Netflix, we have been reading the book by Roald Dahl. Our class novel has helped us to develop our comprehension skills by answering different types of questions and looking for evidence in the text. We have had great fun using drama to explore the characters and scenarios through hot-seating, freeze framing, thought tapping, improvisation and even short scripted news reports!

Numeracy and Mathematics 

The Squares and Triangles have started learning their 6, 7, 8 and 9 multiplication tables after revising their 3 and 4.  We have been looking at patterns within each table to make them easier to learn and playing lots of games to familiarise ourselves with the multiplication and division facts. We have been very motivated to improve our fluency and speed when recalling facts in each table. After exploring lots of different ways of learning tables, P4.1 pupils can now identify ways that work for them individually and are starting to revise in their own time.

The Circles have also been exploring their 3 and 4 multiplication and division facts through games and songs with Mrs Denny and with extra support from Mrs Kane and Mrs McMillan. We continue to strengthen number bonds every day. 

Cross Arthurlie turns 60! 🎈🎵

P4.1 had a great time celebrating our school turning 60 with a silent disco, a whole school slosh and a look at what school may have looked like back in the 1960s.