Month: September 2023

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

Although it has been a shorter week the class have been very busy! The class participated in the first STEM the Flow workshop which will be an ongoing project over the term. Also just a reminder that the homework issued this week is for the next two weeks and can be returned on 02/10/23. I hope everyone has a great long weekend!

Literacy and English

This week we finished off our imaginative writing block by creating a story with a Scottish warrior as our main character. Mr Atkinson and Miss Campbell encouraged us to use all the skills we have be working on the last couple of weeks including; using the five senses to describe settings, organising our plot into a beginning, middle and end, describing our characters by using adjectives, similes and metaphors.

We read more of our class novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and then we answered different types of questions from the chapters. We also scored the main events out of ten for how exciting they were and then working in pairs we justified how some of them helped to build tension.

We have been continuing to improve our joined up handwriting and in spelling this week we focused on words that either had “wh” or “o” in them.

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

Please read the homework instructions carefully as we have now issued Spelling and Reading activities in addition to the Numeracy and Talk homework tasks. Thank you again for your ongoing support with Talk homework, it has been great listening to all the pupils wonderful writing ideas!

Literacy and English

In Writing we created imaginative stories whereby our main character was a mythical creature! We described their appearance and we were challenged to include information about their behaviour and actions to show what personality they had. We also used the VCOP pyramids and our Talk homework to help us plan and uplevel our vocabulary.

For our Grammar lesson we first read a passage and then highlighted prepositions and verbs. This was quite tricky so we worked together and Mr Atkinson gave us examples and feedback to help us.

We read another chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and then we created drawings of characters from the descriptions in the novel. We were encouraged to try to make accurate pictures to show our understanding of the characters.

Health and Wellbeing

When we were in the MUGA this week we were developing our passing and stopping skills in hockey. Once we felt confident with this we then took part in passing races whereby we had to work in teams to pass the ball from one end of the pitch to the other. This challenged us to make sure we were hitting the ball hard enough and accurately to our teammates.

In basketball we were doing chest and bounce passes and were were working on intercepting the passes.

In our Bounce Back lesson this week we learned about courage and how you can show this on a daily basis. We then discussed who our heroes are and why and then we used the Chromebooks to research famous heroes.

French

In French with Miss Campbell we played a game where she would show us a picture and describe it in French and we had to decide if we agreed or disagreed with her statements.

Expressive Art

With Miss Campbell we started to draw Tunnock’s tea cake using different types of lines.

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

Just a reminder that on our Google Classroom you can find the homework instructions and I have also uploaded information on how to apply for pupil committees.

Literacy and English

In our writing lesson this week we made a harbour our main setting. We used the skills we had started to learn about last week such as the five senses and similes to help create an exciting imaginative story. We were also encouraged to check over our writing to make sure we had punctuation in our sentences.

As part of our class novel study we compared and contrasted Harry and Dudley and discussed their appearances and their role within the story so far. We also answered some questions on the different chapters and have now read up to chapter 6.

We have been continuing to learn how to join different letters together in handwriting.

In our spelling lesson we were challenged to think of words with the ‘sh’ and ‘e’ sound in them. We also applied our knowledge of alphabetical order to help quickly find words in the dictionaries which helped us to correct the spelling of some new words.

Numeracy and Maths

In Maths we have been learning how to read and create bar graphs, multiply two digit numbers by one digit and record the weight of objects in kilograms and grams.

Health and Wellbeing

In P.E. we were working on improving our dribbling skills in basketball by playing games such as follow the leader and manoeuvring around cones.

In our next Bounce Back lesson we listened to Mr Atkinson read a short story about moving house. We then discussed some of the challenges you may experience in this situation but also what strategies you can use to overcome them. Afterwards we acted out scenes from the story.

French

In French with Miss Campbell we learned how to say the colours of our eyes and hair and how to describe our height.

Outdoor Learning

For our Outdoor Learning session we cleared the Pocket Garden and some vegetable patches around the school by removing dead plants and weeds using different tools.

IDL – Scotland and Japan

This week we used atlases to locate rivers and cities in Scotland and then we plotted them on our blank maps. We also compared a city of our choice from Scotland and Japan and recorded some important information about them in our tables such as landmarks and population.

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

It was great meeting some of the parents and guardians this week at the ‘Meet the Teacher sessions’. Next week we will be starting our outdoor learning sessions and this will be scheduled every second week on Thursday afternoon in place of P.E. Please ensure that your child is wearing appropriate footwear and clothing to enable them to fully participate in the planned activities.

Literacy and English

This week we read up to chapter four of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and discovered that Harry received a letter to go to Hogwarts where he will learn how to become a wizard.

As we read the class novel we looked back at our predictions and updated them with our new knowledge and we used clues in the pages to help make inferences.

In Writing we all wrote about discovering a castle and we were encouraged to describe our settings by using adjectives, similes and vocabulary about the five senses.

We have now started our handwriting lessons which will help us with our letter formation and for Grammar we put letters and words into alphabetical order and used dictionaries to look up their definitions.

Numeracy and Maths

We have been revising our timetables up to twelve and we challenged each other by asking multiplication questions in pairs.

In Maths we have also learned about kilograms and grams and bar graphs and line graphs.

Health and Wellbeing

In P.E. we have started our hockey block. This week our focus was dribbling which we developed by moving around cones and racing against other teams. We were challenged to keep the hockey ball under control and not dribble with the wrong side of the stick.

For our Bounce Back lesson this week we talked about what is catastrophising and how to stay positive and not worry.

Expressive Art

With Miss Campbell we drew highlands cows which linked to our new IDL focus of exploring Scotland and Japan.

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

This week the pupils have started their new class novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. If children wish to bring in copies they can do so and leave them in their personal trays. Our P.E. days are Monday morning in the gym hall and Thursday afternoon in the MUGA.

Literacy and English

Our first class novel activity involved making predictions about the book by carefully reading the blurb, title and the front cover.

We have also been working on our skimming skills by looking at the words in the blurb and the first few pages and then summarising what we had learned about the book so far.

Numeracy and Maths

In Maths we all completed a check-up, revising some of the topics we had learned last year and to see how much we had remembered from the Summer holiday.

Health and Wellbeing

In P.E. we played different games such as Land, Sea and Air in the MUGA which was a lot of fun!

When we were in the gym hall we used the parachute and played a getting to know you activity. Mr Atkinson would ask us questions and we had to run and sit under the parachute if we had the correct answer.

In our first lesson of the Bounce Back series we talked about keeping situations and problems in perspective and never giving up when faced with challenges. We also agreed that if we are worried or troubled that we should try to stay positive and, where possible, look for the upside.

French

With Miss Campbell we created labels and wrote the names for all the areas and objects in the class in French. These have now been placed around the classroom, when you visit the class keep an eye out for them!

Expressive Art

We designed sunglasses and wrote our favourite memory of summer in the lenses which we then shared with the class. These are now displayed on our Literacy and English wall!

We created names and logos for our groups which are now sitting in the middle of our tables.

With Miss Campbell we were challenged to take our pencils for a walk to see what pictures we could create and then we coloured them in.

IDL

We all suggested different topics ideas and voted on comparing Scotland with Japan! After deciding on this we then discussed what we knew about the two countries, what we would like to learn and the different ways we could learn about the topics.